Letter: Green politics

Bruce Skivington (Letters, 3 January) misses the point regarding the Scottish Green Party's economic views. The underlying principle behind Green economic policy is that in a world of dwindling natural resources, growing population and climate change, indefinitely rising living standards in a relatively very rich country cannot be assumed.

Unfortunately, no other political party is prepared to accept this reality and will continue to promise what ultimately cannot be delivered. The cake won't be getting much bigger and it has to go round more people, and that's without factoring in short-term economic contraction.

The Greens' taxation policy is not one of tax and spend, but spreading the burden more evenly, and in the current climate is more akin to tax and not cut. This is particularly true of the Greens' approach to corporation tax, which is geared towards reducing the burden on smaller companies, which don't tend to transfer their assets offshore to avoid tax, at the expense of the larger ones.

Ian Baxter

Broomieknowe Gardens

Bonnyrigg