I WENT to a political talk from a “leftie” on Tuesday night, from Robin McAlpine at the Carnegie Conference Centre in Dunfermline. As you might imagine, SNP members were characterised, if not directly, as having some sort of homogenous hive mind. “SNP peak has been passed” was just as predictably forecast.

And yet there was insight, methodology, and a good deal of sheer hard work in evidence. Nobody could say that Robin McAlpine has not been thinking about things.

Presentation-wise there were no slides or charts, no supporting evidence, just a furious-paced delivery, as words flew forth from an engaged and passionate presenter.

Half an hour slipped on to 54 minutes with ease. When the break came, the audience had been carried there in almost stunned silence. A quick coffee and the Q&A session began. Every question was answered with the same, lengthy, data-stream engagement, at a furious rate. At the end I was impressed. But not blinded.

An audience member and Yesser was assured he was from a demographic that “couldn’t be reached”. As I looked about that room I realised just how broad the SNP church is. From asylum seeker turned into new Scot, migrants from every corner of the UK, Scots born, women, LGBT, wealthy, educated, indeed every social class. And our own chunk of lefties.

SNP members come in all hues. Robin talked of how the Left had bit their lip, and thrown jaikets on puddles during indyref1. He hasn’t got a clue about what the SNP members actually are. We are together, focused and driven.

We’ve all packed so much of the baggage of our beliefs to join in the long fight to make Scotland and independent country that we don’t even realise we no longer have our long forgotten, puddle-dooked jaikets, that lips have been chewed raw.

SNP members have accepted a multi-faced approach to independence. Duty, graft, the politics of the possible, gradualist and ever-relentless persuading and collecting more to the cause. It has been quite a journey. For some it can be measured in the span of a few years, while others remember decades of graft. For the Left to get to where the SNP are, they would need a quarter-century of steady plod.

We absolutely need the Left. Indeed, we absolutely need folk like Robin. They have important contributions to make. But never forget just how important the SNP membership are.

And don’t disparage the leadership that has delivered us unto this cusp. Having been happy to listen to a Leftie for 45 minutes, without interruption, I realise just how important the SNP is. Just how much I care about fowk fae a’ parts, jined thegithir to deliver a new Scotland. One from where almost anything is possible Intellectual ideologies are great, but so too is the the very place that they can flourish. Let’s get on with that. Build it and they shall come.

Brian Kelly Address supplied IT’S astonishing to learn that David Beckham stooped to the level of the cesspit when he joined Better Together in order to try to earn a knighthood.

Along with Cameron, Osborne, Brown and Darling he lied to undecided voters in order to persuade them to vote No.

Beckham was an average player who could not lace the boots of any of the soccer greats past or present. He was just a guy of very limited talent who struck it lucky.

Thankfully, he has been exposed as not the person he tried to con us into believing he was and hopefully his dream of a knighthood remains a dream.

He may have more money than the rest of us but he is no better than the rest of us!

Diane Buick, Lanarkshire

DURING the run-up to and after the EU referendum fishermen were led to believe and hope that a new “Sea of Opportunity” was about to open up for them. Voting Leave meant taking back control of fishing grounds and quotas.

Yet the Tories’ White Paper on Brexit suggests no such thing. Instead it says: “Given the heavy reliance on UK waters of the EU fishing industry and the importance of EU waters to the UK, it is in both our interests to reach a mutually beneficial deal that works for the UK and the EU’s fishing communities.”

As a former North Sea fisherman, this vague paragraph is a reminder that when the then Tory Government took the UK into the Common Fisheries Policy in the 1970s, an internal Scottish Office paper said that “in the wider UK context they [the fishermen] must be regarded as expendable” and that officials estimated that up to half the fishermen in Scottish waters – then 4,000 men – could lose their jobs.

That position of the current UK Government suggests that just as Westminster sold out Scottish fishermen going into Europe, it will use them as a bargaining chip to leave, perhaps to get other EU states’ support for the banks in the City of London to still have access to the EU market.

Any votes the Tories get in May at the local elections in Scotland’s fishing communities will be used by them to claim they have the endorsement of those communities to implement that vaguely worded paragraph.

Just as with so many other issues, the Tories will take it as a sign that they can do what they like to Scotland and get away with it again.

David Donn, Fraserburgh

I FOUND deeply troubling Michael Gray’s criticism of Catholic schools in the way they introduce and implement pro-life activity and projects (So-called pro-life campaign groups have no place in our schools, The National, February 7). As the writer will know, whether you support them or not, Catholic schools are legally founded serious institutions whose remit essentially includes inter alia sharing the vision and teaching of the Catholic Church.

The criticism was made in support, it would seem, of complaints from some school pupils. Gray indicated that teachers can freely hold views on pro-life but they should not be promoted within school.

In response, I would ask: on what basis can pupils and perhaps parents justify promoting their own complaints when they have clearly failed to read in full what it says on the tin?

Gerard Quinn, Bishopbriggs

MICHAEL Gray insists our young people should be given the facts yet doesn’t actually share any facts whatsoever about the pre-born. Science confirms that human life begins at conception. Every abortion ends a human life. These are facts not religious dogma.

A society that insists women can only achieve equality by deliberately ending the lives of their children has failed them. As the early feminist Alice Paul once said: “Abortion is the ultimate exploitation of women.” It’s sad that even today, with 4D ultrasound technology, so many are still blinded by tired old 1960s rhetoric about “my body,  my choice”. Can anyone truly look at a 4D scan and say “that’s not a human being”? Women and their children deserve better than abortion. 

Martin Conroy, Oldhamstocks, East Lothian 

HAS the SNP defence team been captured by the many military lobbyists who frequent the Palace of Westminster (SNP MPs clash over army recruitment of under-18s, The National, February 8)?.

Joining the armed forces is not just any other job. You are agreeing to accept orders to kill and put yourself at risk of being killed. You are also going into a intensive working environment very different from other workplaces. As the Medact report showed, young recruits are more at risk of stress disorders, alcohol abuse, self-harm and suicide.

The Ministry of Defence targets the under-18s for the infantry because they are more easily influenced. Why is the SNP defence team supporting this and trying to suppress the voices of other SNP MPs who take a more critical position?

Isobel Lindsay, Biggar