IT is worth looking closely at the background of Nigel Farage’s attack on the UK Government’s net-zero plans to reduce carbon emissions, basically the phasing out of fossil fuels.

Who is one of the biggest producers of fossil fuels, and has the most to lose, especially as it would severely weaken his strongest economic weapon? Vladimir Putin!

Putin and Farage have history. Nigel Farage has previously referred to Vladimir Putin as “the world leader he most admires”. The Russian government propaganda outlet RT (formerly known as Russia Today) has referred to Farage as their favourite British politician. In 2016 they offered him his own television show on RT! So a very cosy twosome!

READ MORE: Russian military ready for 'potential launch' of Ukraine invasion, Defence Secretary says

So when Putin, dependent on gas and oil, needed to counter the overwhelming evidence against his great fossil fuel assets, once again the obedient Farage jumped into the climate change debate, supporting fossil fuels.

Putin wants Britain dependent on fossil fuels and potentially open to leverage by Russia. Strangely, a similar scenario to Brexit, leading Britain to leave the powerful EU block, which Putin saw as a real threat to Russian power.

The financial backing of certain Tory MPs by Russian oligarchs is well known. How many other Tory MPs, including Cabinet ministers, have had such funding? I would hope a Tory MP would not give political support to fossil fuels because such a company or individual employed them as a consultant. Or am I being foolishly naive?

Pete Milory
Trowbridge

SO, lightweight linesman Doogie Ross posed for photies among the plebs in a soup kitchen? Al Capone ran soup kitchens and his only conviction was for tax evasion. He should have hired a London City lawyer.

The press loved Al too. He had nothing on the British ruling class gangsters. He had only to bribe the Chicago cops. The Met do not do white-collar crime and the London Boabbies are conditioned to class deference and from birth to doff their caps to their superiors. They are regarded as no more than footmen, to open doors for their superiors on a par with butlers and chambermaids.

READ MORE: Douglas Ross's Glasgow soup kitchen visit added insult to injury

British “intelligence”, security and the polis on the door at Number 10 had no idea that there were orgies going on during a pandemic, or that Boris was fiddling while London burnt. So what do we expect from a Met-neutered report? All empires end in decadence and this one is overdue.

A liberated Scotland has a different path ahead from the English peasants and serfs, once we send our colonial flunkies back to them. Whether Lord Snooty or Sir Keir the genuflector succeeds Boris Bunter is of no mind to us. We have work to do, clearing up their mess that they dumped on us.

Donald Anderson
Glasgow

READERS concerned about the 44 million people in Ukraine do not have to support the Nato camp or be in the Russian camp. However, like Scotland, the people of Ukraine do have the right to national self-determination.

This must not be allowed to become some variation of the terror inflicted on the people of Iraq and Afghanistan, but neither can we allow our official leaders to make the situation the pretext for another useless world war that will also not be in ordinary people’s interests.

Norman Lockhart
Innerleithen

READ MORE: With nuclear weapons, the Nazi idea of total war is alive and flourishing

I AM sure that most of your readers, like myself, are appalled by the threat to Ukraine and immensely proud of the principled stand taken by our Prime Minister, Boris Johnson. Could he, perhaps through the office of his representative Mr Jack, tell us what arrangements are being made to receive Ukrainian refugees?

Ian Richmond
Springfield

WATCHING American and British interests in Ukraine is like watching a Mad Max film and fighting over fuel. This threatens world peace and could end in nuclear war thanks to Mad Max Boris and his American buddies.

Glen Peters
Paisley

READERS of a certain age (around 75-ish) may remember the launch of commercial TV. On observing how this worked in the USA, many had misgivings about programme standards and delivery of ads.

In a bid to appease some of these, it was agreed that it would be made clear to the viewer, that ads were about to be screened during the programme, by use of “End of Part One” and “Part Two” captions.

It appears this is now being ignored by some channels, as the ads “pop up” unannounced, exactly as they do in USA. The tactic obviously being that you see the ad before you know it’s an ad.

What with this, and the dubbing of American ads with English voices, and the unseemly rush to privatise Channel 4, it’s a worrying time for quality broadcasting.

Roll on the SBC, which will hopefully come with indy.

Barry Stewart
Blantyre