A rant concerning bees and poison

This is the text of an email I have just sent to Richard Lochhead MSP (Richard.Lochhead.msp@scottish.parliament.uk), the current Minister for Rural Affairs. I very strongly urge you to write to him, too. I strongly urge you not to copy my text, not least because my text is extremely intemperate, but also because the more different messages he gets from different people the more persuasive it will be.

Standingstone Farm,
Auchencairn,
DG7 1RF

Dear Richard Lochhead

I was shocked and angered to see on the BBC website today that you are backing the interests of foreign pesticide manufacturers over the vital interests of Scottish farmers.

Without bees, there will be no neeps with your haggis; no kale, either. There will be no raspberries to serve afterwards. There will be no rapeseed oil to fry your mars bar. Without bees, we shall have no plums, sour or otherwise. We shall have no apples. There will be no heather on the hills. No clover will fix the nitrogen in our pastures, no wild flowers will bloom in our meadows.

To put all that at risk to save two years of poison-peddlers profits is shameful, contemptible, unworthy of you and of this nation.

I have worked for the SNP at every election these past forty years. Just yesterday, I was on the street campaigning for Yes Scotland. But you make me wonder why I bothered. What is the point in seeking independence for this nation if you will sell our interests to foreign agribusiness at the drop of a hat? Independence is worth having if - and only if - it makes a change. You seem determined to persuade me that it will not.

Shame on you.

Simon Brooke