December 11 In her so many years as the MEP for the Highlands, the
nationalist Mrs Winifred Ewing has never, in spite of repeated requests,
had the political guts or the simple decency to come to Dounreay to meet
the workforce and to tell us our fate.
But at last, thanks to Tayside nuclear expert Gail Finlayson's letter
(December 4) we are learning what SNP policy will mean for us all.
Not just for Dounreay and its 1700 workers, but for the thousands more
at Torness, Hunterston, Chapelcross, the headquarters office, and the
supply industries.
The SNP, says Gail Finlayson, have ''an excellent and longstanding
policy . . . to create an international centre of excellence (at
Dounreay) for the research and development of alternative energy
sources.''
Longstanding the policy is. Excellent it is not. In all Mrs Ewing's
years of European power she and her SNP colleagues have done nothing to
create this international centre for excellence. Not a single meeting,
not a single delegation, not a single job, not a single windmill. Not so
much as a vague feasibility study.
The longstanding policy is a convenient function. Its purpose is to
hide the truth from our community, from the Highlands, and from
Scotland.
That truth is spelled out by Gail Finlayson, who writes: ''The SNP do
not see any future for the nuclear industry inside an independent
Scotland.'' No future. That is the policy. Now let's have the rest.
When the SNP close Dounreay what will they tell 1700 Caithness workers
and their families? When the SNP close Torness what will they tell 650
Lothian workers and their families? When the SNP close Hunterston what
will they tell 850 Ayrshire workers and their families? When they close
Chapelcross what will they tell 300 Dumfriesshire workers and their
families?
Finally, when their excellent and longstanding policy switches off
more than half of Scotland's electric power (Scotland is proportionally
the third biggest nuclear energy producer in the world with four times
as much nuclear power as, for example, England) what will they tell
Scottish industry and Scottish workers?
In Caithness we have been waiting on the SNP's alternative. Meanwhile
the Tories have axed 800 jobs, with Mrs Ewing's total support. How long
must the rest of Scotland wait on the SNP's alternative and how many
jobs will go with SNP support?
D. H. Milnes,
Staff Side Secretary,
AEA Technology,
Isauld Lodge,
Reay, Caithness.
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