Why bother if the new speed limits are not being enforced by police in Highlands
I write with regards to Highland councillor Bill Lobban's questioning the lack of enforcement by Police Scotland of 20 mph speed limits at the most recent meeting of the Badenoch and Strathspey area committee (Strathy, February 20).
It may interest readers to know that, as a community advocate in Caithness, I asked the police liaison officer the same question regarding excess speed in a local school zone.
The response was that if any of the roads have been put to 20 mph by Highland Council, Police Scotland will not enforce.
This has been agreed at the executive and Scottish Government level.
Responsibility is considered to lie with the individual council areas.
I also was informed that Police Scotland will not supply the speed camera van on these roads.
From what I can glean, local authorities have no power to enforce legally applied speed limits.
I am led to believe lack of enforcement also applies to 30 mph.
It is tempting to conclude this is a sleight of hand to deflect attention from lack of front-line police officers.
This also raises further questions to my mind regarding the current Transport Scotland led public consultation on speed limits for single carriageways
Would they be enforceable?
Alexander Glasgow
Thurso.
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God save the US - and all of us too
What is happening when that liar, the United States president Donald Trump, sits in the Oval Office, as a spoilt and disturbed unelected billionaire prances around the room with a child on his shoulders?
Apparently they want to rule the world, clearing up all conflicts, with casinos in Gaza and mining for minerals in Ukraine - all for their own personal ends.
Trump, although with a clear US majority vote, remains a convicted felon, mysoginest and racist.
He has cast a moral shadow over the most powerful nation in the world, where now hangs a fractured democracy - God save America and indeed the rest of the world if he ever succeeds.
Grant Frazer
Newtonmore.
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What is the score when it comes to Bovaer in the UK?
I’ve recently seen, heard and read conflicting reports about Bovaer being added to cattle feed to minimise another seemingly crucial net zero issue.
Obviously the normal armchair PhDs are at it, even Bill Gates has a lot to say about this subject.
He is indeed very bright but remains a computer boffin and businessman but is not a PhD or chemist, of that I am sure.
I gather that three well know grocery chains are starting a test phase. I have checked with our milk provider and told they do not use milk from cows fed Bovaer so I am happy on this score.
Does this mean we are being used as experimental hosts with an unknown outcome ahead of us?
Are we Ed Miliband’s willing slaves?
The recent article on Atomic bomb tests in the Strathy, where soldiers were used as subjects raised a similar issue, albeit possibly a way more serious one than the methane one of Gretha’s adherents have identified as crucial to our survival.
Personally, and until the science is exact one way or the other, I will not be buying milk from the supermarkets until I know who are going down the Bovaer route. They know who they are.
My advice is irrelevant but we’ve seen this use of the population end with the odd unpleasant outcome before.
A bunch of politicians are the only net zero successes we will encounter in most of our lifetimes is my skeptical guess.
Perhaps the only way to stay sane and thus avoid the ‘if only’ phrase 10 or 20 years from now is to think about what is happening before deciding is to do some research.
I notice a few of my grandchildren and many of their peers are lactose intolerant.
I do wonder why that is.
I never heard of this or similar conditions until recently.
We ate mostly home cooked food as youngsters rather that shop fast foods - could this explain our myriad of possibly food related issues today?
Paul Aarden
Aviemore.
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Are you using products made from fossil fuels?
Dermot Williamson would make a brilliant politician.
Avoid the question and pose a different question. (Letters 20 February).
Will he and all the members of Greenpeace and Uplift shun everything that is derived from fossil fuels?
Lipstick, deodorants, cosmetics, nail polish, perfume, toothpaste, soap, sanitary products, MRI machines, pacemakers, other medical equipment, fertilisers, pharmaceuticals, anaesthetics, cars, electrical goods, insecticides, safety helmets, contact lenses, heart valves, surgeons scrubs, lubricating oil, food preservatives, sports equipment.
Will they all pledge to avoid going to CO2 intensive sporting and music events?
Will they all avoid air travel and restrict their meat intake?
Now that should make a real difference and reduce the UK share of global emissions from 1 per cent to Net Zero provided they can persuade the other 69 million people in the UK to agree.
The other 8.2 billion people in the world may take a little longer.
Clark Cross
Linlithgow.
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Cuts to aid are a moral dereliction of UK’s duty
The UK Government has plunged new depths as it proposes to balance increased defence spending on the backs of the world’s poorest by slashing development aid.
This move also breaks Labour’s Manifesto pledge to restore development spending, which had been cut by the Conservative Government, to 0.7 per cent of gross national income.
The cut in aid is not just a moral dereliction of duty, betraying the world’s most marginalised, but on a practical level is a false economy, bringing greater instability to the world and making it less safe.
Conflict is often an outcome of war, famine, or persecution. Our finances should be spent on preventing this and not the deadly consequences.
As General Matiss, President Trump’s defence secretary in his previous administration, said: “If you cut the foreign aid budget, you're going to have to buy me more bullets.”
It is amazing how a visit to a US President by Prime Minister Starmer can focus the mind, as the Labour Government continues to dance to President Trump’s tune and turns ploughshares into swords.
Alex Orr
Edinburgh.
