Your letters to the Helensburgh Advertiser: October 5, 2017

To have your say on any local issue, just email your views to editorial@helensburghadvertiser.co.uk.

Please remember to include your name, address and a daytime phone number (in case we need to check any details at short notice). Thanks!

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I refer to the article in last week's Helensburgh Advertiser, 'Base at risk from flooding'.

Scottish National Heritage's report has failed to take account of a geological phenomenon called isostatic rebound. During the last ice age, the massive weight of glacial ice on the north and west coasts of Scotland caused the land to be pushed down or depressed.

By contrast, land in the south east coast of England started to rise due to the tilting effect on the British Isles.

Over the thousands of years since the glaciers retreated, the north and west coasts of Scotland have been and are still slowly rising, or rebounding.

By contrast, in East Anglia where coastal erosion is becoming a serious problem, the coast is slowly sinking.

So the risk of flooding to Faslane, Helensburgh and other communities along the Clyde coast may be much smaller than Scottish National Heritage and the Green Party would have us believe.

Stuart Smith, via email

I have recently returned to Helensburgh to be told that the the shows at the pier head are to be closed.

Presumably this means no dodgems. If so, how on earth are our future "cooncillors" going to receive their pre-office training?

The Face on the new Civic Building is bad enough but this is one step too far.

The least we are entitled to is a referendum. Pierexit must be challenged.

Tommy Watt, via email

Graeme McCormick, defending our MP Brendan O'Hara, has confused me (Advertiser Comment, September 28).

He does not appear to understand some of the basic issues with Brexit.

Firstly, as notice under Article 50 has been given, the UK will cease to be a member of the European Union in March 2019. So far as I am aware it is not possible to withdraw this notice.

Secondly, the consequence is we are leaving without any agreement of any kind, unless the European side of negotiations are prepared to discuss and agree what happens after March 2019.

At the present time, the Europeans have set unreasonable conditions for negotiations to proceed, and we must presume we will leave without any agreement.

While most of us who voted to leave the European Union will be happy to agree to reasonable terms to enable trade to proceed freely between the continent and the UK, we have no reason to think that those who wished the referendum to have resulted in a remain vote would think otherwise.

In these circumstances, there is no apparent conflict between the Brexiteers and the Remainers, and I do hope that Mr O'Hare will support the government , so that the Europeans can not divide and rule us.

As I stated previously, 'We are all on the same side', and let us act together to get a good result for the British people, and all Europeans.

John F. Stirling, Helensburgh

I notice that Jackie Baillie MSP has been speaking about the values she holds dear.

Would these be the same values which causes her to support Anas Sarwar as Labour Leader who profits from a family business which doesn't pay the Living Wage;

or the values of supporting the retention of the UK's nuclear arsenal so long as its base is in her constituency; or the values

of her sidelining the local inter-party and non-aligned Health Campaign Group when it didn't suit her electoral purposes?

Her cynicism and "I'm all right Jackie-ism" will only be trumped when she no doubt will declare her undying support for Jeremy Corbyn.

Watch this space!

Graeme McCormick (Convener, SNP Dumbarton Constituency Association), Redhouse Cottage, Arden

I would like to join the numerous councillors that have quite rightfully criticised a decision to ask our heroic Royal Marines to leave their unloaded weapons outside a school when they were delivering a classroom presentation.

Shockingly our Marines who were invited to talk to pupils at primary schools in Oban were given a last-minute instruction not to bring the tools of their trade inside.

I have received a deluge of emails and phone calls from people across Argyll and Bute who share my outrage at this slap in the face of our armed forces.

It seems that all it takes to ruin an armed forces school visit is a complaint from one councillor and the woolly-minded bureaucracy of some in the council.

This is clearly political correctness gone mad.

I hope that all future attempts to undo what has become a tradition in Dunbeg, in memory of one of their brave sons who died in the Falklands, will be ignored.

It's high time we all stopped listening so much to a vocal minority who do not speak for the majority of we in Scotland.

As a country we are hugely proud of our military tradition and despite the hysterical objections from an easily triggered minority that pride our country has will not be erased.

Cllr Alastair Redman (Conservative, Kintyre and the Islands), Portnahaven, Islay

Your readers may have read about a potential strike at Royal Mail by the Communications Workers Union (CWU).

Our postmen and women have the best pay – and the best terms and conditions – in our industry. They do an amazing job in all weathers – rain or shine.

Average pay is 45-50 per cent above the National Living Wage. None of that is changing. There are just no grounds for a strike.

Previous strikes at Royal Mail meant we let our customers down. Some of our major rivals today were actually established because of those strikes. There really is no point shooting ourselves in the foot.

So, what’s at issue? Well, not the great terms and conditions postmen and women have, as I said before. On pay, we have made a very good offer. That follows a 10.8 per cent pay rise in the four years since privatisation.

That compares favourably with the 6.4 per cent UK national average earnings increase over the same period.

On pensions, we know how important pension benefits are to colleagues. Our proposal would be by far the best pension scheme in the industry – and one that benchmarks well to other large employers.

Many of our postmen and women are in a Defined Benefit scheme - 63 per cent in fact, compared to just 6 per cent of workers across the UK private sector.

We do need to change to a different type of Defined Benefit arrangement. That’s because every year it would cost us at least three times more than the cash we generate just to keep the existing pension open. No business could do that.

Royal Mail is a very good employer. We provide great terms and conditions. We are working hard to keep improving our services to customers in a very competitive industry.

There is no need to strike. We want to work with our postmen and women, our great ambassadors, to keep being the best delivery company in the UK.

Rob Jenson, Royal Mail Scotland Operations Director

One cannot fail to have been moved by the scenes of violence in Catalonia, as Spanish forces attacked unarmed voters.

Whatever the view on Catalonia’s right to hold such a vote or not, the response by the Spanish national government was brutal and excessive, leading to 844 people being injured.

The sight of people being dragged from polling stations by baton-wielding police and the disabled being attacked in wheelchairs has no place in a modern western democracy. One cannot praise highly enough the calmness, humanity and bravery of the Catalan people when faced with such acts of violence.

What is deeply disappointing is the muted response from the international community, which – bar a few exceptions, such as Angela Merkel, the Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel and Nicola Sturgeon – has been largely silent.

While the European Union may argue that this is a domestic situation, in the past it has been willing to act in such matters. In 2000, for example, it imposed diplomatic sanctions on Austria when Joerg Haider’s extreme right wing Austrian Freedom Party entered the government.

The UK's Tory government is so morally bankrupt that little more was to be expected than the pathetic response from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office when it referred to Spain as a “close ally and a good friend, whose strength and unity matters to us.”

There was no condemnation of the violence, but the UK Government is so weakened due to Brexit that it requires every scrap of support it can gather, even if it means turning a blind eye to such obvious brutality.

One suspects that if there was any doubt previously over Catalonia’s desire for independence, the actions of the Spanish state have pushed it well and truly down this road.

Alex Orr, 77 Leamington Terrace, Edinburgh