IN yesterday’s Long Letter (Party manifesto must be clear that an SNP vote is a vote for indy, May 22) JF Davidson expressed some of my own fears about the apparent change in the attitude of the British state towards Scotland’s nationhood and independence.

As several other correspondents confirm, the anti-independence rhetoric is being stepped up, with repeated use of violent language and imagery. If, as the letter said, the Tories are preparing the ground for a radical attack on the entire devolution settlement, this could be done by stealth, at least initially, but ultimately could involve an attempt to dissolve our Parliament. This would, of course, create a serious constitutional crisis and would require Westminster to be prepared to ignore and override Scottish opinion with total ruthlessness.

Does anyone think the Tories are not capable of such extremes? Think again, for that is exactly what they are doing over the EU. The stakes for Scotland have been raised and the rules of the game are being changed. It seems to me the SNP strategy of long and steady progress towards independence needs to be reviewed and soon.

Peter Craigie
Edinburgh

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Debate should have focused on Westminster

SUNDAY night’s leaders’ debate was a sham. It was utterly disgusting that the BBC allowed the debate to focus on devolved issues, which are not the reason we are going to the polls on June 8.  To focus the debate around the Scottish Government and devolved issues did a huge disservice to the people of Scotland. What we should have been discussing was who is the best party to go to Westminster and fight to get the Scottish Government the funding we need. Who is going to call out the Tory austerity that is reducing Scotland’s finances and directly resulting in nurses and teachers having limited wage growth – an issue that affects the private sector as well as the public sector.

During the debate audience members were allowed to hurl comments with no comeback.

There was the gentleman who was allowed to ask about the mythical £15 billion deficit when that is clearly a) based on spending on Scotland’s behalf inside the UK; and b) a debate for the next independence referendum!

Then there was the absolute whopper. The “food bank” nurse. Yes, a nurse who came to Scotland to work in our NHS, which is performing better than the NHS where she came from, the NHS that has not had thousands of junior doctors go on strike and A&Es performing at best at about 74 per cent. And yet this nurse decided to step into the bear pit created by the BBC, have a go at Nicola Sturgeon and take the focus off the British Government’s representative in our country. Don’t come to Scotland and complain when the conditions here are better than those you moved away from.

The parties should have been discussing who is best-placed to go to Westminster and try to protect our fishing rights as the Tories give them away; who is going to fight for the freedom to grow and develop our renewables industry. We deserved to hear who would go to Westminster and challenge the no-detriment clause that will forever ensure Scotland can never improve beyond what Westminster allows.

We face the situation of Scotland being trapped under a right-wing Tory Government that will force a hard Brexit on us and cost us thousands of jobs. But discussion of that was quashed during the debate to protect the Ruth Davidson, who should have been forced to defend the rape clause, the punishment of disabled people and what red lines the Tories have when it comes to protecting Scotland when leaving the EU. The people of Scotland deserve better. We deserve to be able to discuss our future without the manipulation of the state and its broadcaster.

It’s time we stood up and rejected the British state’s voice and asked for our rights under the UN to be allowed to debate without control or influence of a state that is actively poisoning our debate. It’s time we had a committee to develop ways to discuss our future on mainstream platforms without it being controlled or channelled through state-controlled or state-friendly media. It’s our right.

Mark Breingan
Cumbernauld

I WAS confounded by the way the BBC organised the leaders’ debate to allow most of the questions asked to be about devolved matters.

I thought this was to have been an exchange of views about the policies covered by the Westminster Parliament. I believe this to have been a deliberate attempt by the BBC to confuse the issues. Asked about this, Sarah Smith limply responded that it was what the people wanted. Clearly, if the debate had followed its proper course, Ruth Davidson would have been put under more pressure throughout instead of the Unionists in the audience being able to blame Nicola Sturgeon for all ills.

If the debate had been properly conducted, there should have been strong advice to the audience to keep questions to Westminster issues and Sarah Smith should have interjected throughout to remind everyone of that. I hope Bernard Ponsonby is better prepared than this amateurish effort by BBC Scotland.

Bill McDermott
Drumnadrochit

AFTER the leaders’ debate, I looked up the pay scales (2017-18) on the Royal College of Nursing’s website. A nurse with a professional qualification appears to start on band five, which has a salary scale of £22,128-£28,747 in England, and £22,440-£29,033 in Scotland, I agree nurses should be paid more but whether these salary levels necessitate the use of food banks is not a judgment I would make without knowing the circumstances of an individual. However, to attack Nicola Sturgeon on nurses’ pay when Scottish nurses are clearly paid more than their counterparts in England is, to my mind, very unfair.

Bill Hamilton
Lockerbie

IVAN McKee’s piece (We’re already starting to see the steep cost of Brexit with the process of leaving the EU only beginning, The National, May 20) quotes the Tory claim to be the party that delivers for people “who work hard and play by the rules”.

This probably refers to the unfortunates who have more than one job on zero-hours contract or have the catch-all “as required” stuck in, so anything that management needs done is your job. And don’t forget “flexible” which usually means "you do anything we ask while we reserve the right to be totally inflexible".

Playing by the rules? Providing, of course, the Tories are the ones making the rules, such as: “Let’s get rid of all this disciplinary procedure crap and get back to the good ol’ American values of A Sugar and D Trump – ‘you’re fired’.”

Barry Stewart
Blantyre