THE call from Clark Cross in the letters page that we should now start fracking to avoid Russia turning off the gas supply to the UK is unbelievable (The National, March 19). We only have to look to other countries who have been using fracking to see the long-term environmental dangers it brings. Once we start we can’t go back.

There is no safe way to frack, and anyone who believes there are votes in it for any political party really needs to pay more attention. Any MSP who votes for fracking – from whichever party – will be sure to see a co-ordinated campaign to remove them at the next election. As regards the low gas capacity in the UK – maybe if Scotland had voted for independence in 2014 we wouldn’t be in such a position and would have more than enough reserves to keep our country going.
Cllr Kenny MacLaren
Paisley

MANY writers to these columns have given their opinion on why the SNP leadership have joined with the rest of the Westminster media pack in condemning Russia, and indeed Vladimir Putin personally, for a heinous crime for which there is absolutely no evidence, motive or logic whatsoever.

All international protocol has simply been cast to the wind as the warmongering lies and propaganda last dealt out by Tony Blair in 2003 are now once again being fed to a ravenous state-controlled media to whip the country, and indeed the world, into an anti-Russian hysteria. Only this time by an utter bombastic Tory buffoon in the form of Boris Johnson. This is the same man who stood in front of a bus saying the NHS would get £350 million extra a week if we left the EU, a promise which was hastily withdrawn after the EU referendum because it was simply utter lies!

I’m utterly staggered by the gullibility of an entire population to be yet again so easily and often willingly duped by these people and their incessant lies! Perhaps the SNP leadership have unified with this Westminster narrative on tactical grounds, or perhaps they do actually believe it. But the SNP cannot continually condemn the British State for bias and slanted media coverage on matters of Scottish independence and then its leadership decides to publicly side with that same mogul-owned media in condemnation and sentencing of Russia by kangaroo court.

If the party had taken a neutral perspective until all the evidence is available for scrutiny, as Alex Salmond has said since the beginning, then that would have simply been the right thing to do. But instead, we have these ludicrous statements from Ian Blackford and the First Minister, while openly distancing themselves from Alex Salmond because of his association with Russia Today. This decision by the SNP has cost them my membership and support which I can honestly say is heartbreaking.

However, I for one cannot stand by and watch this circus be supported by a party that is supposed to represent Scotland and Scottish independence, not its own mercenary political interests by siding with the Westminster media pack when it suits.
Graeme Goodall
Edinburgh

I HAVE been astounded at the number of “let’s not be beastly to the Russians” letters I have seen. This is a country that casually wanders in to other countries and carves off chunks of their territory, a country where people opposing the regime either have the most amazing accidents or end up in court. Russia is controlled by an unreconstructed KGB colonel and is by Western standards barely civilised. Is there the slightest doubt that Russia was in some way behind the outrage in Salisbury? Only in the minds of the gullible.
R Mill Irving
Address supplied

YOUR report, “Fishing for ways to boost £2bn industry” (March 19), implies that Scotland is the main beneficiary. The reality is that, whilst salmon farming is an important employer (particularly in the west Highlands and Islands), a comparatively modest part of the industry’s turnover remains here. Almost all tax revenues go to London and, with the main players foreign owned, most of the profits are transferred overseas.

Heather Jones, chief executive of the Scottish Aquaculture Innovation Centre, bemoans the lack of growth in the salmon farming industry in the last decade. The absence of growth surely reflects the industry’s abject failure to tackle sea lice and disease effectively. As a consequence, mortalities totalled a staggering 25,000 tonnes (equating to more than 11 million fish) in 2017, five times the amount 15 years ago.

It is hardly surprising Holyrood’s Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee, in a damning report on the industry’s environmental impact, this month concluded that “it has proven itself to be largely incapable of addressing many of the key issues, in particular sea lice and disease” and “if current issues are not addressed, then any expansion will be unsustainable and may cause irrecoverable damage to the environment”.

The only long-term solution, for minimising the environmental impact and perhaps for enabling growth, is to move from open cage farms to closed containment systems (in tanks either in the sea or on land). Such systems isolate farmed salmon from the wider environment. Critically, they eliminate the transfer of sea lice parasites to wild salmon and sea trout, two of Scotland’s most iconic species, whose numbers in the west Highlands and Islands have been devastated since the advent of salmon farming.
Andrew Graham-Stewart
Director, Salmon and Trout Conservation Scotland