Readers' letters: Ukraine crisis puts spotlight on energy

A greater awareness of the ever-growing danger to the efforts of our governments to keep the peoples of the world who inhabit colder climes provided with warmth and light may, sadly, be one of the benefits from the present crisis in Ukraine.
Pipes at the landfall facilities of the 'Nord Stream 2' gas pipline are pictured in Lubmin, northern GermanyPipes at the landfall facilities of the 'Nord Stream 2' gas pipline are pictured in Lubmin, northern Germany
Pipes at the landfall facilities of the 'Nord Stream 2' gas pipline are pictured in Lubmin, northern Germany

Germany, for example, is entirely dependent on its pipeline from Russia for oil and gas. It is so dependent it does not even have the facilities to land LNG from tankers. The present and worsening situation in Ukraine merely heightens the dangers.

Meanwhile, the powers that be now running Scotland are going helter-skelter in a somewhat ludicrous fashion to attempt to shut down or shut off all our own by good fortune nature-endowed supplies of ample oil and gas. And nuclear power is not even considered.

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It is scarcely believable that supposedly educated people could believe that, in the breathing space these gifts give us before tragedy strikes, some mythical wind-fairy fantasy will keep us alive in the depths of winter.

It means, of course, that the posturing and who’s got the toughest method of making the people suffer style of politics, may have to be altered or abandoned, or at least the time frame adjusted to better suit reality.

Every sane person wants climate change tackled, but the adjustment time will clearly have to be lengthened.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh.

Post independence pension shortfall

Mary Thomas states that the taxation currently raised in Scotland is enough to pay for all of the government’s policy responsibilities, all of the social security, and all of pensions in a normal year (letters, (17 February).

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I am no economist, just a layman, but guessing that there are about 1 million pensioners currently in Scotland receiving £700 every four weeks, that means 13 payments would amount to £9 billion per annum, which is currently paid from the taxes raised across the whole of the UK.

I also believe we raise about £13 billion per annum in taxation from about three million people.

Following independence, we would automatically lose access to the Barnett funding, which compensates for the shortfall incurred between our revenues and expenditure, making our current deficit being upwards of £12 billion since the collapse of the oil revenue.

It doesn’t matter to me if Baroness Altman of the Tories or Nicola Sturgeon of the SNP wishes Westminster to continue making payments to Scotland’s pensioners after independence. It will ultimately be the taxpayers of the rest of the UK who would be funding these payments and who will presumably take an extremely dim view of being asked to contribute to our pensioners, after we decide to go our own way.

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If a couple were to divorce and one of the parties asks for access to the other’s cheque book, what would you think the answer will be?

Accordingly, it seems to me the £9 billion will need to be raised from Scottish taxpayers, maybe following Denmark’s example, and raising income tax to over 50 per cent for all taxpayers, in order to pay for state pensions, social care and all other fiscal commitments.

Bob Marshall, Edinburgh.

Poll tax on wheels

Despite opposition, the Scottish government has passed workplace parking levy legislation giving councils the power to charge employers. In England only Nottingham imposed it. Scottish council elections on 5 May can stop this poll tax on wheels.

Clark Cross, Linlithgow.

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