I CO-ORDINATED and carried out most of the Yes Scotland canvassing in my constituency last time around and I agree with Ian Dommet’s and Iain Black’s analysis of the lessons to be learned and their suggested solutions (How to win indyref2: A blueprint for success, The National, August 6). However, coming up with ways to put the solutions into practice requires further thought.

“Using the vast amounts of data collected” may be difficult. As far as I know the information collected centrally was destroyed to comply with data protection laws. For the same reason,

I eventually destroyed the thousands of sheets of original hard copy collected from door-knocking within my constituency – I expect co-ordinators in other areas did likewise.

So we may have to start from scratch again. However, it’s much easier to get people to turn out to a social event attended by Yes supporters, or even to a fun “canvassing training” event than to get them to turn out to knock the doors of strangers and engage them in political discussion.

Telephone canvassing is increasingly pointless as the few remaining landline users have already been drowned in cold calling. When I tried it, typically I would spend two hours calling 200 numbers and only 10 would actually pick up.

Groups such as the Radical Independence Campaign seemed to have the knack of getting activists to turn out in their hundreds. There should be more cross-fertilisation between their enthusiasm and the years of experience within established political parties.

As for speaking to groups of undecided/soft No supporters, the problem here usually lay in gaining access. A lot of residents’ associations and tenants’ groups were at that time still led by Labour Party members who turned their backs when approached. Perhaps it will be easier now.

When the Yes side attempted to stage public debates, these usually turned into a Yes rally, as the invited No speakers pulled out at the last minute. This was understandable. They had the status quo on their side and so further investigation into independence was not in their interest. Also, since the audience who turned up to pack the community halls was 90 per cent committed Yes, they would be going into hostile territory. Undecided supporters were generally less engaged with politics and had better things to do on a Saturday night.

Social media websites were – and still are – useful in reporting Yes-supporting facts and stories which the traditional media suppressed. Who can forget National Collective’s baptism of fire when they were temporarily closed down for reporting facts about a No donor (facts which were already in the public domain)?

However, the value of personal political blogs is more questionable. Only those who already have fixed political views bother to write or read these.

So they turn into, at best, choirs all singing from the same hymn sheet and, at worst, opposing battalions of cyber-nats and cyber-Brits trolling each other.

We know the problems and we know the answers, and are already further forward than we were at the start of 2013. We’re also dealing with an electorate which has been politicised beyond the wildest dreams of previous generations of activists. And independence is at last an idea not only in mainstream political thinking, but dominating the mainstream (witness the recent unexpected swing to the Tories as the hard Unionists held their noses and voted along that sole issue). All we have to do is develop the methodology to draw the two together: problems and answers, undecideds/soft Nos and ticking the Yes box.

Mary McCabe, Glasgow 

Godwin’s law applies in named person debates

TOP marks should be awarded to Lesley J Findlay (Letters, August 6) for managing to squeeze in references to four totalitarian regimes and likening them to the Scottish Government in relation to the Named Person scheme.

Of course when you’re going for maximum distortion, it would be inconvenient to mention that the Supreme Court judgment only mentioned the word “totalitarian” in the context of a general explanation of the principles behind the UN Declaration of Human Rights.

And in a letter liberally peppered with desperate hyperbole, it would be unhelpful to note that the judges stated that the aims of the scheme were “legitimate and benign”. Lesley J Findlay should also reflect on Godwin’s law, which states that the first person to mention the Nazis has lost the argument.

Douglas Turner, Edinburgh


REGARDING “Named Persons” issues. Many Christians worship and adore the family. I don’t know why because that is complete and utter religious propaganda.

According to the Gospel truth, Jesus offers violence on two occasions; against the money changers and against the family. Jesus loathed the family.

I quote: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life he cannot be my disciple” – Luke, 14,16. Also see, Luke, 12,51 and Matthew, 10,35. Jesus believed the family was an ungodly cesspool of evil and corruption.

Talk about the Christian pot calling the “totalitarian” kettle black?

James Graham, Clydebank

THE Rio Olympics opening ceremony was excellent: it was inclusive, topical, and historical.

It caught the spirit of Rio. The tribes of the rainforest were represented. And perhaps best of all, the refugee team. It acknowledged the poverty of the people by making it the cheapest ceremony of late. Well done.

AC, Aberdeen, via text


THE Rio 2016 Olympic Games are shaping up to be a truly fabulous event and will inspire future generations to take up sport and hopefully become good enough to represent their countries.

These games, the Commonwealth Games, football World Cup and other sporting events can do nothing but good in a troubled world. However, the environmentalists are strangely quiet about the thousands of tonnes of additional CO2 created by these events involving aircraft, transport and construction of the facilities.

Cement, steel and bricks are high polluters.

The 78,000 spectators at the opening ceremony were given a tree seed to plant to offset these emissions. Another futile green gesture.

Clark Cross, Linlithgow

OVER the last month we have had no shortage of entertainment on our streets, in our pubs and at official venues across Fife, as performers hone their programmes before their appearance at the Edinburgh Festival, begging the question, with so much talent around why is our television so poorly served?

Walter Hamilton, St Andrews

I WAS interested to read Amanda Baker’s theory (Letters, August 6) that Donald Trump does not actually want to be US president, but rather seeks the status of cheated, defeated runner-up who would have saved the nation from Mexican criminals, Muslim immigrants and radical feminists if only given the chance.

In any other context, his outrageous attack on bereaved mother Ghazala Khan is difficult to understand. Trump’s anti-Muslim views have been well documented, but it seemed a glaring mis-step for him to insult the parent of a US soldier killed in action.

Even his most ardent fans must have felt conflicted about the slur against a so-called “gold star mother” – particularly after she answered back and completely disproved his implied theory that she was not allowed to have her own opinions.

Joan Brown, Edinburgh

Letters I: Quantitative easing does not benefit the non-rich