Letters: Flights are not simple sign of a high-flying economy

That does not mean that expanding flights at Edinburgh Airport is the right way to go.

Let’s just put aside the growing contribution to climate change made by aviation.

Let’s forget, for now, that the SNP Government is lagging behind its own targets on reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

Looking solely at economic impact, is it not the case that flights go two ways?

For every opportunity opened up for Edinburgh businesses, there is another that decides it can service the Edinburgh market from a remote base elsewhere.

That’s not a no-flights plea. But it is to see flights alongside better communications and other forms of transport as one of the ways we support connectivity, rather than as a simple barometer of economic progress.

Gavin Corbett, Green councillor for Fountainbridge- Craiglockhart

Thatcher leaves unequalled record

I AM deeply saddened at the death of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.

Fair enough, she was never popular in Scotland, but her ability to bow to no-one and give in to no-one has never been equalled or bettered since.

There is not one single politician in Britain right now who is fit to lace her boots.

Alan Lough, Boroughdales, Dunbar, East Lothian

Salmond beliefs proved wrong

the passing of Mrs Thatcher reminds me of the quote about her by Alex Salmond just a couple of years ago in an interview with the Conservative blogger Iain Dale. “We didn’t mind the economic side so much. But we didn’t like the social side at all” were the words of the First Minister.

Both of them believed in cutting business taxes and arguing against “gold-plated” banking regulations in order to grow the economy. Both were proved wrong by the banking collapse.

M Smythe, Dalry Road, Edinburgh

Wardens picking on easy targets

I WAS disgusted to see visitors to the zoo being caught out by parking wardens.

I drive home along St Johns Road, and have been doing so for about ten years. Every school holiday when the weather is good, people visit the zoo and park on the roadway. However, the restrictions come back on at 4pm and many people are running a bit late and get caught out.

Every day there are two, three or more wardens there at 4pm on the dot, its like shooting fish in a barrel. It’s disgusting, picking on these easy targets when people who regularly park illegally in the same place seem to get away with it.

Maybe if the wardens concentrated on these regular offenders then they would not get such a bad name. I understand that in theory they have broken the law, but what happened to giving them some grace?

After all, it is a holiday and roads are a lot quieter. These people have paid a lot of money to go to the zoo and are maybe running a few minutes late, probably trying to juggle children and so on. Have a little compassion.

David Bryden, Crewe Road South, Edinburgh

Let’s hope legacy has died as well

The Chancellor George Osborne, heir apparent to the Osborne baronetcy, insists we take the Derby child killers as somehow typifying people who claim welfare benefits, and evidence that something has to be done about their “culture”.

This should lead us, of course, to speculate that the behaviour of Hornby and Goodwin et al, is emblematic of the behaviour of financiers, and of Huhne as typifying that of City entrepreneurs, and demand that the next government (this one never will) do something to rein them in... or will we again swallow the posh fiction that only the un-influential typify their social group, not the soaring individuals of the ruling class?

Margaret Thatcher has died: some will shed no tears. We owe it to our children and grand-children to make a government that will ensure the obscene political legacy that was “Thatcherism”, Osborne and all, has died with her.

David Fiddimore, Calton Road, Edinburgh