From: "McAlpine J (Joan), MSP" <
Date: 13 November 2014 00:35:28 GMT
To: Paul Younger <
Subject: Re: disingenuous comments
Dear Professor Younger
I answer to my constituents, not Fergus Ewing. Buccleuch Estates previously made similar complaints to Fergus about my speaking up for my constituents. I will continue to put my constituents in Canonbie first and will not be intimidated by yourself, Buccleuch Estates, or anyone else.
I do not claim to know "a great deal about you" as you suggest. I do know you are a Director of Five Quarter, an unconventional gas company. I know that Buccleuch Estates, who have treated my constituents in Canonbie badly in my view, have a shareholding in that company. Unfortunately the general public who read the BBC article don't know that. It was not revealed in the academic research to which you put your name. The public have a right to know these facts. That is the sole purpose of my release.
With regards to your other points - I made it clear in my release that Five Quarter is not fracking. I deliberately did not name your co-author.
My email does not mention the expert panel so I am unclear as to your point on that matter. Why should the "Expert Panel" mitigate the lack of transparency in a quite separate piece of research you authored? For your information I did make it clear to the Scottish Government at the time the expert panel was set up that my Canonbie constituents were very unhappy about the industry links of some members of the panel, including yourself.
Regards
Joan McAlpine MSP
Dear Ms McAlpine
We have never met, though clearly you feel you know a lot about me, to judge from your press release earlier today, which has been passed to me for comment via the Press Association. You will no doubt see what I responded to them in due course. I would have thought it a basic courtesy to check such facts with me before publicly defaming me, but clearly your standards of professional behaviour do not match up to those you urge on others.
However, I did want to take the opportunity to point out to you that, far from failing to publicly declare my directorship of Five-Quarter, as a member of the Scottish Government’s Expert Panel on Unconventional Gas, which reported in June this year, I have very publicly declared this interest via the web-site and publications of your own government. Take a look at http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Resource/0045/00456579.pdf, in particular p. 88. So your own government have, with my full cooperation, widely publicised my directorship of Five-Quarter. Clearly this was not considered a conflict of interest with my involvement in technically evaluating shale gas or coalbed methane issues. If that was good enough for the responsible Minister, Fergus Ewing (who invited me to serve on that panel), I fail to see why it is not good enough for you. Maybe we can discuss this together with Fergus?
You express surprise that no such statement was made on the web-site of the journal. Five-Quarter did not fund any of the reported work, and have no involvement (nor do they ever plan to have) with fracking, shale gas or coalbed methane. They are solely concerned with subsea coal reserves. It would therefore have been utterly irrelevant and misleading to mention them in the ‘acknowledgements’ section of our paper, which is the only place QJEGH provides to disclose any such interests.
I should also point out that, contrary to your assertion, I do not have a “paid post” with Five-Quarter, and I would be obliged if you would retract that untruthful statement. I helped found the company, from my own pocket, and have never received any fees or dividends. By any standards, I am unpaid. I am in fact a non-executive Director of the company, not empowered to take decisions on its behalf.
I am also astonished that you have implicitly suggested that the lead author of the paper, Dr Rob Westaway, who has no involvement with Five-Quarter or with any shale gas, coalbed methane or fracking company, had somehow been influenced to write this paper on account of my involvement with Five-Quarter. That goes beyond insulting me to insulting another colleague, whose integrity is beyond all doubt even by your own twisted standards.
It is ironic that you have made all of these mistakes in a press release in which you urge that “… journalists should do a bit more research before publicising …” academic research. If you had done a little more research yourself, such as taking the basic courtesy of contacting me before you took too defaming me in writing, you would have known these things.
Given all of this, and given my ongoing role as a member of another expert panel convened just a week ago by Fergus Ewing, I think an apology would make not only personal but political sense: otherwise you are discrediting the work of your own government with your ill-judged and intemperate slur.
Yours faithfully
Paul Younger
Professor Paul L Younger FREng
Rankine Chair of Engineering
and
Professor of Energy Engineering
School of Engineering
Room 623, James Watt Building (South)
University of Glasgow
Glasgow G12 8QQ
SCOTLAND
Tel. 0141 330 5042
Mob. 07711 391 066
Web: http://www.gla.ac.uk/schools/engineering/staff/paulyounger/
Email: