AS a young club cyclist in the 1970s I knew some old members of the Glasgow Clarion CC, and tremendous characters they were too. Full of tales of bikecraft and of life in the vast network of Scottish youth hostels in the 50s and 60s.

I honestly fail to see the point Michael Fry is making in his piece (Why we should not weep that bastion of socialism has bitten the dust, June 22). If it is that the abandoning of socialism by the Clarion CC is a final victory for free-market economics then what does he make of the fact that the Primrose CC, a cycling club with a decidedly Tory ethos, died many decades ago? In the heyday of British cycling circa 1890-1960, many special interest clubs existed. The Spartacus CC was a Communist club and the St Christopher’s CC, which had a Catholic ethos, still exists.

READ MORE: Why we should not weep that a bastion of socialism has bitten the dust

The late Victorian period Mr Fry lauds did indeed did win higher real wages for some, but only with the activism of the growing trade union to make that happen. The social history of the industrial revolution shows, via government reports and archive pictures alike, the degradation and squalor which typified working-class living conditions, I therefore challenge Mr Fry for evidence of this capitalist nirvana he portrays.

Cllr Andy Doig
Scotia Future

OH to inhabit the world of Michael Fry, where capitalism is king, social Darwinism is the order of the day and the pursuit of equality is both fruitless and absurd. Mr Fry has attacked the ideology of socialism more frequently than a McCarthyite lawyer, so it is predictable if a tad tiresome that he should announce his view that socialist principles are moribund in this country.

Using the vehicle (pardon the pun) of the Clarion Cycle Club's changes to its historical constitution to abandon its anachronistic socialist clause, Mr Fry smugly somehow interprets this as the demise of socialism, a pat on the back for philanthropical bankers(!) and businessmen and a loud hurrah for free enterprise. 

His “pub bore” affirmations that “clever people earn more than stupid people” and “hard-working people earn more than idle people” are positively Dickensian and I fear he is only a heartbeat away from using terms like the “deserving poor” and welcoming a cautious and humane return to workhouses throughout an independent Scotland.

Recent research showing the UK has the worst inequality of any country in north-western Europe in the 21st century demonstrates the consequences of Tory austerity policies and right-wing libertarian capitalist greed. It is particularly ironic and euphemistically convenient that Michael Fry rejects the term “equality” as abstract, ignoring the millions of people who depend on food banks, are paid subsistence-level wages or have to negotiate a bureaucratically challenging benefits system.

The principles of socialism such as social equality and social justice are what we must aspire to in an independent Scotland, not Michael's pipe dream of a laissez-faire country where natural selection permeates our economic and social existence.

To quote Keir Hardie: “Socialism proposes to dethrone the brute god Mammon and to lift humanity into its place.”

Owen Kelly
Stirling

AS a sea fisheries officer for 33 years, recent letters on this subject tweaked my interest. I served aboard fishery patrol vessels and fishery research vessels. In her Tuesday letter Fiona Matheson is correct in that restoring the three-mile limit would not be a panacea; it would though help a bit.

Trawling is a very effective way of catching anything on the sea bed – the operative word is anything. It is an environmentally bad method of fishing, damaging to the sea bed. The demand for fish of course ensures that trawling is here to stay, but control in inshore waters is essential.

READ MORE: Science – not nonsensical 'common sense' – must guide fisheries policy

Hook-and-line fishing is probably the best method to catching demersal fish; it is a method practised by some Norwegian vessels and gets you prime fish with little damage to the environment. It is a fact that many of the older methods of fishing were more environmentally friendly, drift netting for herring rather than the purse seine being a prime example. In my younger days, seining or fly dragging was a method used by many fishermen, this is I believe a gentler method of demersal fishing than the more brutal trawl.

I have addressed here only fishing methods. The economy and economics are not my field but both impinge on each other.

Very many years ago the Cameron Commission reported on Scottish fisheries. A section of this report always sticks in my mind. Lord Cameron found that every fisherman he spoke with was strongly in favour of conservation, but it always seemed to be some other fisherman who had to do the conserving!

Captain R Mill Irving
Gifford, East Lothian

I HAD to re-read your news item “SNP MP calls for disinformation commissioner to tackle fake news” (June 22). Stewart McDonald recommends in his report that political parties and faith groups should run disinformation events. I can’t think of any organisations better qualified for the task.

Sandy Carmichael
Cromdale