Speaking for Scotland
Sir: I wonder if it is wise of Charles Moore (Notes, 18 March) to assume — as so many do — that because they lost the independence referendum back in 2014, the Nationalists do not speak for Scotland? In the following general election Scottish voting virtually wiped out every political party north of the border, other than the SNP. Might it not be wiser to assume that the Scots had thought again?
Ian Olson
Aberdeen
Birds, gangs and economics
Sir: Simon Barnes is correct in his implication that the trapping and harvesting of small birds by criminal gangs in Cyprus is enough to make the average Briton squeamish (‘Little birds, big trouble’, 18 March). However, while this may be so, the current system of enforcement is clearly failing.
The problem Barnes describes seems to the uninitiated observer to be a variation on the classic the tragedy of the commons. While nominally anyone may benefit hugely from bird-catching if they get away with it, no one is willing to police the area effectively.
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