APPARENTLY M&S senior management was horrified and appalled by the reply sent to your reader (M&S says indyref result means that Scotland is English, The National, January 13), and the person responsible for writing it has not worked for them for some time.

This must surely be one of the most blatant cases of shooting the messenger instead of investigating the cause. In 2014 M&S CEO Marc Bolland joined with others in penning a letter laying out their opinions on the negative effects of an independent Scotland.

Obviously this action by their senior manager was intended to influence the opinion of company employees, as well as the public, on Scottish independence.

This may have had a serious and perhaps unexpected effect on the attitude of less well-informed members of the staff, who accepted the picture of Scotland circulating at the time as being too small, too poor and too stupid to be independent as the true position.

This attitude appears to be reflected in the response to Edith Davidson and should not be wholly blamed on the attitude of the writer.

M&S need to go to some length now to show that the company does not in fact have a cultural bias towards Scotland being an inferior partner in the United Kingdom.

John S Jamieson
South Queensferry

ONCE again, I am disappointed by the front page of the National. The splash headline presented as an outrageous response from “M&S” to a (justified!) complaint turns out to be no more than the ravings of one sad, deluded individual, now apparently no longer employed by the company.

Had this “story” represented the actual official opinion and position of the M&S company, then the front page would, of course, have been fully justified. As it stands, it is no more than an example of the kind of lazy journalism normally found in the Unionist and chip-wrapper press.

I am no fan of M&S, who should never have meddled in our politics prior to the referendum, and write as someone who on a personal level has found their customer service to be less than wonderful. However, having the sole independence-supporting daily paper descend to the level of the gutter press does nothing for the cause as a whole.

Ian Duff
Inverness

FOLLOWING your headline today, I have written to M&S asking for an apology for the anger they have caused me and a public apology for their insult to Scotland. I said I hoped I’d get a better response than the poor woman in Innerleithen.

Ann Leitch
via text

IT was refreshing to read the letter in Friday’s national making such a clear patriotic case for Scottish independence and stating that we live in an elective dictatorship and are no more than a subject province. The writer says that Scotland needs to restore control over all our own affairs and self-determination in a democracy. But surely the elephant in the room is being a member of the common market, and the powers the European Commission yields over its members.

Being free from Westminster will still not make us a truly independent nation as long as we are also tied to Brussels.

J Maclennan
Inverness

IN the aftermath of extra pressure having been placed on A&E departments in Scotland largely due to falls on ice (brilliantly handled by our NHS staff), we now have another serious weather warning for next week, starting on Monday night.

The Met Office has issued a statement, which includes this: “Some roads and pavements may become icy, increasing the chance of injuries from slips and falls.”

Councils are responsible for salting the roads, and certainly make a good job of it in relation to main roads. However, they tend not to treat roads in residential areas and, most importantly, do not treat the pavements.

I’m not a rocket scientist, and my school algebra is fading, but can clearly see the equation: untreated pavements = extra pressure on A&E departments.

Dennis White
Blackwood

YOUR article in the business section on Saturday (Butcher’s Burns Night haggis film, The National, January 13) reminded me of a rhyme my father used to recite:

The haggis is a bonnie bird,

It flits from bough to bough,

It makes its nest in a rhubarb tree,

And whistles like a cow.

Derek Ferguson
Cumbernauld