IT’S fair to say that the Daily Express’s criticism of Fiona Hyslop over rare weather-related closures of the second Forth Road Bridge (aka Queensferry Crossing) is a storm in a teacup. Perhaps more worthy of its attention would be that delays to traffic approaching the bridge are a daily feature of the traffic news on Good Morning Scotland.

Just as Cockbridge to Tomintoul and Banchory to Fettercairn are a daily item in the winter list of road closures, so are the Queensferry Crossing, Hermiston Gait and Sheriffhall Roundabout all-seasons fixtures of the traffic news.

READ MORE: FACT CHECK: Does the Queensferry Crossing have an ice problem?

Our car journeys over the crossing are usually well outwith peak hours but we’re more often than not slowed to a crawl somewhere between Admiralty Junction and the crossing every time that we use the route.

An acquaintance who has to use the bridge daily for his commute (at non-peak hours) blames the seemingly arbitrary speed limits imposed via the overhead gantries. Subjectively, it seems a reasonable case. Slow traffic down and it’ll back up. It’s always interesting to see how the tailbacks disappear either side of the crossing once the speed limit reverts from 50 mph to 70 mph. Mismanagement of the crossing? Or is the daily hold-up just proof of the Green argument that you can’t build your way out of congestion?

Andrew McCracken
Grantown on Spey

TYPICAL of the Tory press to decry the consultation by the SNP government on a possible 50mph maximum speed limit on all-purpose roads. Not only would there be significant road safety benefits but it would result in a significant reduction in the consumption of petrol and diesel and an associated reduction in emissions. A win-win that would be much quicker and more practical than waiting for the 100% sales of electric cars at some date in the future. Vehicles are generally most fuel-efficient at 50mph.

Ian Lawson
Milngavie

READ MORE: Scottish Government considers reducing speed limit to 50mph

ONCE again the anniversary of the Bhopal chemical disaster approaches with no mention of it in the media. It is now the 40th anniversary of the release, by US company Union Carbide, of a huge cloud of toxic gases that drifted straight into the densely populated heart of the old city of Bhopal. Within hours thousands were dead and maimed. Though the factory was shut, its poisons were never removed. They are still there and still harming, still getting into the water supply. Hundreds of thousands of people are still suffering chronic illnesses as a direct result of the 1984 disaster and a third generation is now blighted by the ongoing water contamination.

READ MORE: Scottish Government to introduce universal winter fuel payment

Of Carbide’s 573,588 victims, 94% were granted compensation of a little over $500. None of the children still to be born were compensated. They suffer from the imperialistic, capitalistic, global, greed of the USA for profit at all costs, no matter who it damages or kills. In 2004, two Bhopali women were awarded the prestigious Goldman Environmental Prize. They gave their entire $125,000 prize money to help children of parents exposed to Carbide’s poisons – families otherwise with nowhere to turn.

Bhopal has been betrayed by every authority with a duty of care, especially the American company that refused to heed the warnings about the danger of storing vast amount of a toxic chemical beside a residential area.

Margaret Forbes
Blanefield

DAVID Pratt provides a good evaluation of the overall situation in the Middle East (Netanyahu’s Lebanon deal was only made to serve his own interests, Nov 28), although the opinion that “Israel remains hell-bent on swallowing up the territory and neutering the threat that comes from there once and for all whatever the cost to Palestinians”, confuses two different aspects.

Israel clearly is “hell-bent” on ensuring that the threat posed by Hamas on its southern border is completely eliminated. However, there is little or no appetite in Israel for the annexation of Gaza, except on the extreme right, which will very likely be eliminated i the next general election.

READ MORE: UK Government faces total Israeli arms embargo legal challenge

Haaretz used to be the newspaper of reference in Israel and was the mouthpiece of the Askenazi Zionist elite. It is now the mouthpiece of the extreme capitulationist left and is only read by 4.7% of newspaper readers. I do not think the truce will last very long, as armed Hezbollah operatives are already moving south of the Litani and are unlikely to withdraw.

Given their past record, and significant penetration by Hezbollah, the Lebanese Armed Forces are very unlikely to enforce the disarming of all groups south of the Litani, as required by the Hudna agreement. There will probably be a turn towards Gaza, but I think that a turn towards Iran will be the most significant new Israeli strategy, ie Israel will continue to act in Syria, and Iraq to block Iranian supplies to Hezbollah, but will also act to punish Iran and hold it directly responsible for all acts of its proxies, in Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Iraq, to force Iran to dismantle the axis of resistance.

The Houthis will be dealt with by the existing coalition after January 20 2025.

Mark Robertson
via thenational.scot