NADINE Dorries, Boris Johnson’s faithful and unquestioning groupie, pledged to resign “with immediate effect.” Then she found that her unalloyed support of Boris Johnson as a simpering acolyte was not duly rewarded.

Quite rightly, she was not on Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list. She has been denied her keenly anticipated right to wear ermine for her cloying subservience to a failed prime minister.

With her self-righteous conceit and vanity, Nadine Dorries has reneged on her promise to resign immediately and has demanded answers as to why she was not on Johnson’s honours list and why she has been denied a place in the House of Lords.

By selfishly clinging onto her job throughout the summer, she will be able to receive an extra £22,000 from the taxpayer. Her puerile behaviour is born of a bloated self-regard and avarice.

There has been mounting pressure on Dorries to resign as she hasn’t spoken in parliament for more than 13 months. Rishi Sunak has said that she is not properly serving her constituents. Another Conservative MP, Robert Jenrick, has called on her to step down. About 80,000 people have signed a petition in order to force her to quit parliament.

Nadine Dorries is the kind of creature that gives the public a cynical and jaundiced view of politics and politicians. She has no moral rectitude, just a blinkered desire for self promotion and unwarranted advancement.

Sandy Gordon
Edinburgh

RECENTLY I wrote to my MP, John Lamont, about green hydrogen and why it was not being produced in Scotland, where there is a plethora of wind energy being produced. In fact Westminster is currently paying taxpayers’ money to finance the shutting down of otherwise viable operational wind farms. This seems to me to be an inexcusable waste.

JC Bamford in England are currently producing hydrogen-fuelled engines for heavy vehicles, but Scotland is not producing any green hydrogen to service them. (I do question why the Scottish Government aren’t investing in a similar project.) The hydrogen for lorries will almost certainly, therefore, be imported from abroad.

The reply I received (John Lamont decided he was not qualified to deal with my request) from Graham Stuart MP, Minister of State for Energy Security and Net Zero, was patronising in the extreme. First, he felt he had to explain to me why hydrogen was so important. Then he went on to explain that the Tories were pressing ahead with so-called blue hydrogen. Blue hydrogen is made, of course, from fossil fuels.

It is beyond belief that with the excess wind power available in Scotland we are not generating green hydrogen. The expense involved is zero if wind turbines are being paid to shut down because the grid cannot cope with their output. Perhaps, one day, in the future, assuming the human race has a future, the grid will be able to cope with all this excess, but until then whatever is the reason for not generating the greenest possible fuel source?

Tony Kime
Kelso

DESPITE being allocated a double page in The National on August 12, Mike Russell chose not to respond to my recent letter asking fundamental questions about the energy performance legislation he is so keen to support and which is about to be used as a weapon by Partick Harvie and co to force the removal of gas heating systems from all our homes. He preferred to comment instead on Penny Mordaunt’s visit to the Edinburgh Fringe.

Sadly I have to assume that Mike is unable to answer the questions I posed. How do those of the population who cannot afford to pay their current energy bills find at least £10,000 to replace their heating systems with a heat pump? How will Scotland’s local authorities and housing associations finance the installation of heat pumps and just how can the extra £33 billion (£33,000,000,000) – around half the annual budget of the Scottish Government – be found?

These are real questions that need real answers. Who cares about Penny Mordaunt’s views anyway?

EPC, GRA, HPMA and DRS are all policies with good intentions, limited public support, badly thought out, not able to be implemented and helping to destroy the credibility of the independence movement, the SNP and the Scottish Government.

Brian Lawson
Paisley

I DON’T know how many times I have to express admiration for Lesley Riddoch’s articles, but I make no apology for doing so. Reading her pieces, time and again they inspire me (as no doubt they do others), especially because occasionally I suffer feelings of depression and frustration as to our progress towards independence.

As an activist who is now no longer able to be active I recognise the logic and common sense of her ideas and opinion, particularly when taken together with what your other fine columnists write.

Constantly I remind myself how fortunate our movement is to have The National daily.

Bobby Brennan
Glasgow