Readers’ Letters: Today’s woke warriors would have cancelled Rabbie Burns

If he were still among us, the ploughman poet would be reviled for exhibiting every hated trait of what these puritans condemn as “toxic masculinity”.

Like those enraged witches and warlocks in Tam o’ Shanter, they’d come swarming after poor Rabbie, furiously trolling him on social media and demanding that his public appearances be cancelled:

“Ah Tam! Ah Tam! Thou’ll get thy fairin’!

In Hell they’ll roast thee like a Herrin’!"

Martin O’Gorman, Edinburgh

Role models

Instances of violence towards teachers in Edinburgh secondrary schools have risen by an unacceptable 92 per cent since 2021, with a similar increase nationwide. The perpetrators are almost exclusively boys.

​A powerful reason for these statistics is the lack of a positive masculine influence on young boys’ lives, both at home and in the schools themselves. This vacuum is all too readily filled by the toxic masculinity of the likes of Andrew Tate and Tommy Robinson online.

Several years ago, Gareth Southgate emphasised the vital importance of male role models in impressionable young boys’ lives, an irreplaceable position, which should be filled by fathers, all too many of whom are absent.

The vast majority of teachers are female, who do a wonderful, if too often impossible, job, parental as well as educational.

An imaginative project in secondary education is the introduction of so-called “campus cops”. Community policemen become involved in regular visits to schools, and talking with groups of boys.

This initiative, pioneered successfully at Eyemouth High School, could be extended to footballers and tradesmen. Male role models are there and ready to be used.

Ian Petrie, Edinburgh

Burnham’s folly

As a major and long-standing member of Labour, Andy Burnham was fully aware that his application to be selected for the forthcoming by-election would be refused, and for perfectly valid reasons.

His actions were deliberately aimed at causing bad publicity for the Prime Minister and fuelling anti-Starmer sentiments within the Parliamentary Labour Party. He will have a lot to answer for if the party is seen to be split, and he will be responsible for it being cast into the political wilderness come the next general election.

Pauline Carruthers, Edinburgh

Dead end tech

John McLellan asks “Why build wind farms local people don't want only to pay them billions to stop producing electricity” (Scotsman, 24 January). The real question should be: why build wind farms at all?

It is shocking when government ministers don’t know that wind turbines do not produce any energy at all, full stop. Stand one in a giant hangar and see what happens, or doesn’t. Place an array of solar panels in a dark hangar and see what happens, or doesn’t.

The first law of thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created or destroyed; it can only be converted from one form to another. “Renewables” should accurately be called energy collectors or converters. They collect energy that already exists, wind or sunlight, and convert what little there is into electricity.

Therein lies the perpetual problem. If it is dark, still and cold – typical midwinter conditions – there is simply no energy to collect, literally leaving us in the dark! As we frequently discover, in still, frosty weather, wind “energy” is a technological dead end.

Much better sources have what is known as greater energy density. For example, water is 800 times denser than air, so hydro is always going to give much greater conversion than wind. Coal is intrinsically denser than wood, so much more thermodynamically efficient.Nuclear wins the energy density stakes hands down.

US Energy Secretary Chris Wright has criticised the UK over its drive for renewables and wryly pointed out that Germany has wasted $500 billion on green energy and now produces 20 per cent less electricity at three times the price. He called the energy transition worldwide “the greatest malinvestment in human history”.

How could that mean anything other than economic decline?

George Herraghty, Lhanbryde, Elgin, Moray

Rugby legend

I wanted to say how much I will miss Allan Massie’s Saturday rugby columns, and how sad I am to learn of his health issue. His knowledge was immense and his own views were not only thought-provoking, sometimes humorous and unbiased, but he provided lovely rugby memories from bygone days.

Brian Laughland, Edinburgh

Missed opportunity

Edinburgh University was reported last year to be facing a £140 million defict after years of making a profit. The response of Sir Peter Mathieson, Principal and Vice Chancellor of the university, was to stop recruitment.

Then President Trump declared war on US universities. A number of leading staff are seriously disaffected. In other countries a race has started to approach and recruit some of these people. What should interest us in particular is those in the sciences. They present a unique opportunity to recruit. But I am told that Edinburgh’s ban still applies.

As a graduate I have always been proud to be an alumnus of one of the great institutions in the world. This is as a result of high-class recruitment.

How can we abandon this opportunity? In capital terms Edinburgh is the third most wealthy university in the UK. In revenue terms, scientific research is supported by special government grants. In a similar way I have been a benefactor and others like me must wonder if, after the David Hume fiasco, there is any point in responding to appeals?

Hugh Mackay, Edinhburgh

Identity matters

Tim Hopkins writes: “As a gay man, I have been attracted to cisgender (non-trans) men, and to trans men. I am attracted to the whole person, not to the letter M or F that was written on their first birth certificate” (Letters, 23 January).

In ordinary language and in law, a “gay man” is a biological male with a sexual orientation towards other biological males. “Trans men”, as I understand it, are biological females who identify as men, and may take steps to masculinise their appearance. Men, gay and otherwise, may experience attraction to masculinity wherever they perceive it; but that does not broaden the definition of a gay man, nor does it provide for gay men treating female bodies as a valid object of gay desire. If Mr Hopkins is implying that only “real” or virtuous gay men do so, that sounds uncomfortably close to the logic of conversion.

My use of the term “trans-identifying” (Letters, 21 January) is not intended to deny anyone’s existence. It simply recognises that an identity claim is being made. This matters because such claims continue to be deployed in an attempt to override sex-based boundaries, including in the case of spaces and services where those boundaries exist for good reason.

Mr Hopkins’ rebuttal to my point that trans-identifying people have no more inherent common cause with LGB people than with straight people is anecdotal: his involvement in a Section 28 protest nearly four decades ago at which a trans entertainer appeared. That tells us nothing about any present-day, shared material interests.

Brian Forsyth, Edinburgh

Off track

May I endorse Robert Cooper’s comments (Letters, 26 January) regarding when work is to take place in a public area and the notification to be sent to other companies to combine the use of the opening.

This reminds me of the time the old tram lines were removed from Edinburgh streets, in particular, Newington Road. The work finished on a Friday, the road surface in pristine condition that would be a joy to travel over. That joy lasted until the Monday morning when the utilities arrived. By the time they left it was no longer pristine but a patchwork of repaired holes.

Charles Lowson, Fareham, Hants

Building saved

You report on “Concern over removal of 86 trees in Midlothian” (23 January). Mavisbank in Midlothian, built by William Adam in 1723, is the most important building at risk in the UK. It has stood derelict for 50 years and is finally within touching distance of being saved. We were delighted to receive news that our plans to repair the building have received permission but the landlocked house can only be rescued if consent is granted for a new drive.

The plans put forward have been the subject of detailed local consultation and refinement and have the support in principle of all the statutory consultees. No ancient or veteran trees will be removed to enable its construction and will be outnumbered by new tree planting. This is a small price to pay to enable one of the nation’s most celebrated buildings to be saved from imminent collapse.

Dr Anna Keay OBE, Director of the Landmark Trust, Berkshire

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