Dangerous fracking would not bring down the price of gas for years

Fracking pumps harmful poison into the water supply such as benzene and arsenic. It has also caused earthquakes in areas drilled. It is hazardous to wildlife and has even been known to set people’s taps on fire.

Boris Johnson has already allowed water companies in England to pump raw sewage into the sea as a post-Brexit cost-saving measure. It is entirely possible that Johnson, looking for a quick solution to the energy crisis, may have his head turned and end the UK-wide ban on fracking. Of course it would make no difference to the price or supply of gas for years.

READ MORE: What Scotland can do to avoid rising energy, food and house prices

The Scottish Government rightly banned the process in Scotland. However, under the Tory abomination of the Internal Market Act this ban could be reversed by the Tory proconsul Alister Jack with the stroke of a pen. The colonial governor is answerable not to Scottish voters but to Tory fat-cat donors. This demonstrates yet again that under the Union, Scotland is a colony entirely beholden to an unelected Tory dictatorship. Holyrood serves as a castrated talking shop unable to carry out the democratic will of the people of Scotland.

A poisoned water supply is simply the latest vileness that staying within the Union will impose on Scotland. This in addition to the permanent Brexit supply-chain crisis, an increasing pension age of 70 and upwards, the end of the NHS and eviscerated wages. This is not speculative, this is what is happening now.

Alan Hinnrichs
Dundee

ON February 9 you kindly published my letter urging the Scottish Government to introduce a model of Annual Ground Rent as a matter of urgency to address the truly dreadful poverty which is being visited on so many of our people by the Westminster government. I have received widespread support both in the reaction in The National and also on social media.

You can imagine my frustration and sadness when the SNP’s in-house magazine “Independence” arrived in which, in an otherwise excellent article, Neil Gray MSP – writing on behalf of the SNP’s Social Justice and Fairness Commission – stated: “ Achieving transformational change , like a Universal Basic Income or Land Value Tax, takes time and requires a political consensus spanning parliamentary terms.”

READ MORE: Land tax would benefit the majority and should be brought in without delay

That’s one whopper of an excuse while people don’t know how they’ll keep the roof over their heads, heat their homes and feed their families.

The source of the necessary public funds has already been identified. It’s our land! Almost everyone will be better off with a Universal Basic Income funded by it. There is consensus as four of Scotland’s political parties support land value taxation, but it is for our government to act.

Use the existing devolution powers and act as if we are already independent. It’s time to lift our people out of poverty, encourage enterprise and stop working within the UK fiscal bubble.

Graeme McCormick
Arden

I SEE Charlie Kerr is having another stab at the cost of living and the SNP government while contradicting his argument at the same time.

He uses Norway as a comparison several times while ignoring the fundamental difference concerning energy, this time being his main gripe. Norway collects the revenue its oil wells realise because it is its own government with full state control, unlike Scotland which does not have control over any energy power such as oil, gas or electricity. These are controlled by the Westminster government.

Norway also has hydro power, which it uses more than oil power. Which is why it has a multi-trillion euro pension pot, as Charlie calls it. Contrast this with the successive Westminster governments who squandered the UK oil revenue on paying bills of every hue they created: nuclear subs and HS2, for example.

It does not matter whether the North Sea oil wells belong to small oil companies or the multi-national oil companies, Westminster still has control over production and profits. For heaven’s sake, Scotland has to pay Westminster to use the National Grid whereas the southern energy companies get paid by Westminster for use of it.

Independence will obviously bring to Scotland many benefits, including that which is controlled by Westminster including energy and pensions. Even foreign policy and defence will come to Scotland. Now there’s a dream come true.

So sorry Charlie, but Scotland is not giving away its wealth willy-nilly as you would have it. It does use a large amount of its own wealth to mitigate the health and welfare of the nation which, as we well understand, has been eroded over the years by those in the Westminster government halls of shame.

Have a care, Charlie, and think how well-off you might be as a pensioner living in England as opposed to how well-off you are living in Scotland.

Alan Magnus-Bennett
Fife