I COULDN’T believe that Cat Boyd, on Sunday’s Gordon Brewer show, admitted voting for Dugdale’s Sleekit Seven. Oh, she masqueraded it as voting for Corbyn in another country. How can you possibly vote for Jeremy Corbyn in Scotland where his Labour Party in Scotland is anti-Corbyn and supports his very downfall? Both the Corbynites and Dugdailites are opposed to any form of powers coming to Scotland, let alone independence.

Corbyn may be to the left of Dugdale, who sings from the same Anglican hymn sheet as General Davidson and Wee Wullie Rennie the Inbetweener. “God bless the Britnat day job and nobody wants independence”, to the tune of “God grant that Marshall Wade Rebellious Scots do crush“. Then, who isn’t to the left of Labour in Scotland?

The anti-SNP Yessers have yet to realise that the pro-Trident party’s minor reforms have all been met by their hated SNP government. Corbyn promise to rescind Blair’s attacks on students have already been met by the Scottish Government, as have free prescriptions; rescinding the bedroom tax, etc. – all too numerous to mention here. Most were voted against by his Scottish backstabbers, or abstained by his English backstabbers.

A 79-year-old Scottish pensioner, Brian Quail, was recently jailed for demanding peace by camping outside England’s nuclear submarine base in Scotland. The Corbynite Yessers in Scotland were too busy attacking the anti-Trident SNP to admit Corbyn was a Labour Eunuch in a Unionist Nuclear Terrorist Party. We all know which flag they metaphorically fly in their tents and it certainly is not the Scottish Saltire, or the Scottish Republican Red Duster. Like the English left leader Hyndman, who wanted a larger Royal Navy in support of Imperial Britain in the First World War as opposed to John MacLean the Scottish Republican Socialist, who was jailed for opposing the war. They have shown their true colours, by their complicit support of the Great Britain; metaphorically and effectively they are guilty of supporting the Trident camp flag, consisting of the St George cross and a Union Jack in the corner.

The so-called Yessers who voted to cut the SNP’s lead in the Westminster parliament also voted against Scottish independence, as it is certainly no priority of theirs. They prefer to score petty points off each other in their narrow wee groups, who don’t even like each other and prefer to take a rise out of the Scottish electorate by attacking the only party that can possibly deliver independence. After independence would be the natural time for democratic parties to take up their stance, like any other democratic nation. We have to win the country first. Could we even trust them after that? Could they help themselves from continually acting as saboteurs and wreckers?

As a Scottish Republican Socialist I am more than willing to take a chance on the SNP getting us to the starting gate, whilst they are pointing the other way. The Great British left can always be depended to unite on one thing: to vote reactionary and Unionist Labour under any excuse. So why should we not be suspicious of their real motives when they cannot unite to vote SNP for independence?
Donald Anderson
Glasgow

I WAS appalled by the recent comments of John McDonnell on Sunday’s Andrew Marr Show.

How he can use words like “murder”, whether prefacing it with “social” or not, to describe the terrible accident that was Grenfell Tower.

At least 80 were killed, God knows how many more in reality, and for the shadow chancellor to use it to score political points is abominable.
Archie Dickson
Glasgow

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

Tunnock’s have shot themselves in the foot in rebranding

I AM afraid that, in rebranding their products “British” for the Japanese market, Tunnock’s may be shooting themselves in the foot, by revealing either prejudice or even, perhaps, ignorance of history (Tunnock’s adapt packaging again, The National, July 18).

In Japan, there is widespread affection and respect for Scotland and in particular for Thomas Blake Glover, born in Fraserburgh and brought up in Aberdeen. Though, to our shame, he is little known in Scotland, in Japan he is honoured as the Father of their Navy and of their industrial revolution, having founded, amongst other things, the shipbuilding company that became Mitsubishi.

Most people in Japan know about him and even more recently, when Mitsubishi decided to invest in Scotland, there was huge publicity in Japan about Glover and the Scottish connection, though little mention in our media.

When the first College of Engineering was established in Japan, it was staffed almost entirely by Scots, with a close and enduring link to Glasgow.

As time went on, when those Japanese who trained there reached the limits of what they could learn there, it was to Glasgow that they were sent to further their knowledge and careers. I have even heard it said that the link to Scotland was so strong that many even had the habit of referring to “Scotland’s Empire” as their honoured beneficiary.

If Mr Tunnock, or any one of his PR folk, who have come up with this less-than-brilliant idea, had attended the lecture given a couple of years ago by a recent Consul-General of Japan in Stirling, he would have been left in no doubt whatsoever that it is in fact Scotland, not Britain, that is most highly regarded.

Might I dare to suggest that, in the midst of the current Brexit chaos, it is no time for Scottish business to be seen to favour “Britain” instead of Scotland?
L McGregor
Falkirk

ON a personal level good luck to Gilruth and Dugdale; it shouldn’t even be a story if we had true equality.

However, I suspect their story has been massaged for personal and political reasons, protected by media political correctness. And how I wish the First Minister had kept her own counsel on the matter, given the clear conflict of interest.

Isn’t Gilruth’s position as liaison officer to John Swinney in the Education and Skills department untenable? Particularly now we know that she was dating Dugdale during the General Election when she and her Labour colleagues savaged the SNP record on education?
Jim Taylor
Edinburgh

I READ Labour MSP Jackie Baillie’s comments on one of Ian Blackford’s first interviews since becoming Westminster leader of the SNP with a great degree of puzzlement. Mr Blackford said: “The economic impact of Brexit would be what swings reluctant Scots round to independence. The timing will be determined by circumstances but if we are talking about a hard Brexit, economics will be a very considerable factor.”

He added: “I do passionately believe that we can build an economy in Scotland that has an ability to deliver strong economic growth and deliver fairness.” Ms Baillie said that this interview was proof that the dream of independence was “truly in tatters”. How she extrapolated that from the words of Mr Blackford is a mystery to me. She rambled on about how Nicola Sturgeon said separation (how Unionists hate the word independence) should transcend the economy, now Mr Blackford is saying people will only back it if it makes them richer. She said that independence would cause turbo-charged austerity and leave people poorer.

That was not what Mr Blackford said nor inferred. Perhaps Ms Baillie has not noticed that poorer people, all over the UK, are suffering grievous levels of poverty and austerity under her beloved Union. Westminster has mismanaged billions over the years, including vast sums of “found” money that should have come to Scotland.

Scotland remains the only country in the world that found oil and became poorer for it.
Jim Lynch
Glasgow