WE in Scotland are being continually and relentlessly told that we have prospered as part of the “family of nations”, and have been promised that our lot will be in every way safeguarded if we remain an essential element of “our precious Union”.

From a bygone era someone once said that if you repeat a lie often enough the people will ultimately believe it. We are also being told that integrity and transparency in government can be relied upon.

Let’s see.

Anyone, even without an economics qualification, can see that successive governments have failed spectacularly to remedy the de-industrialisation of our country. This does not mean blindly retaining obsolete craft operations, but it does mean that no effective means were taken to replace them with permanent alternatives using the skills and ingenuity for which we were world-famous. A cursory look at our counterparts in Europe or elsewhere will establish that failure, which can be laid only at Westminster’s door.

Our entry into Europe was heralded as the gateway to UK national prosperity, in preference to existing valuable relations with our friends in, for example, the Commonwealth, and the group which ultimately admitted us morphed almost surreptitiously into the European Union, rejected by us in 2016 after a vigorous campaign to remain, headed enthusiastically by those who are now the champions of total withdrawal. Transparency and integrity at their best?

The Leave vote gave us a replacement Prime Minister despite assurances that, come what may, David Cameron would see it his duty to remain in office.The successor’s assurance that no election was necessary or therefore wise was subsequently reversed during the campaign for re-establishment of local authorities, causing a degree of electoral chaos to the competing parties. But perhaps not to the Prime Minister who might just have had prior warning.

The record of the Government since 2010, irrespective of who headed it, is one of failure also to meet every one of their own important financial forecasts or aims promised before the 2015 General Election.

The same is true of action promised on immigration which by now should have been reduced to the tens of thousands. You will recall the Chancellor’s first Budget as contradicting his party’s manifesto assurance and its unseemly, hasty withdrawal. We are still being told with boring repetition that we have a strong government with a sound economy and are the fifth or sixth richest country in the world.

Why then are more and more of our people relying on food banks which are increasing month on month? Why must we even consider a financial assault on the disabled or old in our society? Why is the NHS (in England) in such dire straits? Is this part of the “long term economic plan” for which the “hard working people who want to get on” should be quietly grateful?

Why is inflation outstripping incomes? Why must we rely on Canada or Sweden to help protect our air space? Why has our army been reduced to fewer numbers than LibDem members? The social engineering programmes promoted by Westminster have not worked. Is it the case that casualties will be inevitable, but “if a few should fall it would be no great mischief”? I recall reading that observation made regarding Scottish Highlanders in the British army by a general during the 18th-century war with France. Do we learn nothing from history?

Why should Scots desire independence? The question is surely rhetorical.
John Hamilton
Bearsden

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Record on Brexit hints its the Tories who are in chaos

THIS General Election is primarily about Brexit, let us not forget, and initial steps are being made to open negotiations afterwards. Barnier, chief EU negotiator has published a task force on Article 50 negotiations, the latest up-to-date information.

In it he states the EU is ready and prepared, all structures are in place and they are about to finalise their positions on key subjects for the first phase which will be sent to the UK after the election. Transparency will be paramount and the position papers and negotiation documents will be made public beforehand on the EU website.

It is hoped that negotiations can begin during the week of June 19 and he will be able to report back to the European Council on June 22/23 on progress made.

One supposes the incoming UK government will have its cabinet positions filled and ready to start after the election and that its position papers and negotiating documents will likewise be published. Whether it will be a May cabinet or another is as yet open.

The “strong and stable” qualities May is supposed to possess are now being questioned. There has been no indication so far, however, that a May government will be open and transparent; I say it may be in power, but that may now not be a certainty. It has only formulated “Brexit means Brexit” and “no deal is better than a bad deal”, without further details.

Given Juncker’s observation that May is unaware of the complexity of the Brexit dimension and given her now proven inability to comprehend the implications and ramifications of aspects of the first manifesto led by herself, which resulted in a quick U-turn, we may expect chaos to be visible in any eventual May team.

If it is in power, it would be interesting to note whether it would report back the results of the initial and subsequent negotiations to the country via Parliament and to the devolved governments.

If not, we will all have access to the aforementioned transparent EU site and follow updates there. And if May loses the election...
John Edgar
Blackford

THE last paragraph of your article (Perth bids to ‘bring home’ the Stone of Destiny from Edinburgh as part of heritage plans, The National, May 23) sent me reaching for my Rebel Ceilidh Song Book, which I have had for over 40 years, and the first item is The Wee Magic Stane by John McEvoy.

When Ian Hamilton set out to recover the Stone of Destiny in 1950, one of the first persons he asked to take part was a fellow student, Jimmy Halliday. He refused but regretted this decision all his life, as he wrote in his memoir. He also recounts when the police were looking for Hamilton they could not find him — he was staying in Jimmy’s flat! Jimmy was chairman of the SNP from 1956-60, and of the Scots Independent Newspaper until his death a few years ago.

My own contact with the Stone of Destiny came in 1976/77; I was the chairman of Edinburgh District SNP and we were mounting an exhibition in Edinburgh. There had been an article about a minister in Dundee who had a copy of the stone, and I was to ask if we could borrow it.

He was most affable, but said he couldn’t as it was not a copy; he had been given it by Bertie Gray, and told to keep it until the first independent Scottish Parliament was set up. Gray had been a Progressive Baillie in Glasgow, and was the stonemason who owned the yard where it had been repaired. I saw him on TV once, and when he was asked if the original Stone had been returned to Westminster, he replied: “Do I look like the kinda lad that wad gie them back the richt stane?”

The minister, John Mackay Nimmo, said the stone was in St Columba’s Church in Lochee Road, Dundee. He offered to leave the church open during the SNP Conference in Dundee in 1977 and my youngest son, Peter, and myself, visited — as did some others.

The church was demolished and as far as I heard the stone was given into the custody of the Knights Templar, an organization of which I know very little. Strangely, in the Rebel Ceilidh Song Book there are songs — sung by Hugh MacDonald. Hugh was one of the Knights, and was the father of one of your columnists, also Hugh MacDonald.

As to the provenance of the Stone of Destiny, all I know is that the Stone in Edinburgh Castle is the one returned from Westminster in 1996.
Jim Lynch
Edinburgh