IT was striking to note the restrictions between Scotland and England over the festive season, and to highlight that it was almost 70 years ago to the day that the Border between the two nations was closed for the first time in 400 years.
That of course was due to the return of the Stone of Destiny to Scotland, after four student nationalists removed the ancient artefact from Westminster Abbey on Christmas Day in 1950.
The incident happened nearly seven centuries after the stone was taken from Scone by King Edward I during the Scottish Wars of Independence and placed under the monarch’s chair in the abbey.
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When news of the stone’s removal broke, the authorities closed the border between Scotland and England. It was ultimately recovered from Arbroath Abbey, where Scottish nationhood had been asserted with the Declaration of Arbroath in 1320, 700 years ago this year. It was returned to Westminster Abbey in 1952.
This action also coincided with attacks on postboxes in Scotland in a dispute over the title of the new British monarch, Elizabeth II, there being no Elizabeth I of Scotland.
Interestingly, it has recently been revealed that James Stuart, Conservative Secretary of State for Scotland, recommended in 1953 that the stone be returned to Scotland, but Churchill’s government vetoed this, seeing it as rewarding a small minority of hardline nationalists.
Alex Orr
Edinburgh
ISOBEL Lindsay writes (Letters, December 21) that she would like to engage in the debate on trans equality. She writes that differing views should be treated with tolerance and respect. The Equality Network, as a leading LGBTI equality organisation, completely agrees. A look through our social media, and that of our colleagues
at other national LGBTI organisations, will show that we endeavour always to do that.
We might agree on more than Ms Lindsay thinks. For example, she writes that there should not be an automatic right for trans women to take part in competitive women’s sports. There is no such a right, and we are not calling for one.
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However, it is difficult to see a way forward for respectful discussion when Ms Lindsay goes on to directly compare the prescription of puberty blockers to young trans people with child sex abuse. Ms Lindsay may want to consider that even the recent English court ruling, about which the various international professional bodies of transgender health specialists have expressed grave concern, did not ban puberty blockers. It said (very controversially) that a court would be better placed to decide whether or not to prescribe, in many cases, than the young person and their parents advised by their doctors.
Comparing medics who, in Scotland and worldwide, are committed to providing the best care for young trans people to child sex abusers is not tolerant or respectful. It is the kind of rhetoric that can promote abuse and intolerance. Let’s have the debate by all means, but let’s keep it civil and reasoned.
Tim Hopkins
Director, Equality Network
TO answer Derek Bell’s conundrum (Letters, December 21). He is correct to state that keeping warm on a snowbound road depletes the energy stored in the vehicle. He does, however, completely miss the point of George Mitchell’s previous argument, which is that it merely takes a few minutes to put 50KWh of energy into a petrol or diesel tank from a spare fuel can.
There are no standard or high-speed recharging points across every five or 10 miles of road! How would anybody cope with a few hundred vehicles stranded on the M9, as happened around 10 years ago?
Range anxiety is misnamed as it diverts attention away from the real problem, which is the all but complete lack of sufficient and frequent recharging locations
across the whole country needed to support any increase in electric vehicle (EV) usage. One typical petrol station has the capacity to service around 100 vehicles an hour, and there are no practical equivalent recharging locations.
Regardless of any other consideration, it takes hours to “refill” a battery compared to a few minutes with liquid fuel. A five-litre fuel can contains approx 50KWh of chemically stored energy. EVs are desirable but merely a niche transport option best suited to an urban population and next to useless anywhere else. The laws of engineering physics and maths cannot be avoided.
Nick Cole
Meigle, Perthshire
I WAS absorbing George Kerevan’s article (There’s a new Scottish uppityness about – and it’s bringing indy closer, December 21). Then I reached the final paragraph to discover that George had invented a new phenomenon – winter equinox.
George, the clue is in the name – equi – meaning equal (day and night) Equinox occurs in spring and autumn. What you should have written was “winter solstice”. Never mind, it will soon be Christmas (or is it Easter?).
Keith Scammell
Inverness
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