Letters: Influence of Greens at Holyrood is a positive

Despite my passionate desire for Scotland to be independent, I consider the Green Party to be a force for the future and believe their principles to be sound.

Their support for scrapping the council tax is based on their principle of subsidiarity, their belief that power should be moved to the lowest level possible, ie local authorities and community councils.

Unfortunately the ruling SNP government, being only in part master of its own destiny due to the imperialist cast of the UK Parliament, is not as willing to see the sense of subsidiarity, the setting up of Police Scotland being an example. They tend to hoard power and responsibility. This of course makes them more vulnerable to blame, whether fair or not.

Thus there can arise such debates about such details as Green Party influences which can do no good. We are about to be confronted by problems of enormous scope which will require Green solutions. The sooner we are independent, the sooner we can prepare for the task of working together on this project.

Iain WD Forde
Scotlandwell

I READ Donald Anderson’s Long Letter in yesterday’s National and learned a great deal from it. What he did not say, though it is inherent in everything he did say, is that the Labour Party’s housing policies have always been designed to create a captive and underprivileged population who could be manipulated to vote Labour. This in turn helped to maintain the fiction that real change is possible from the Westminster circus, on the occasions when Tory rule becomes too unbearable.

I still recall standing outside a polling station at the famous Hamilton by-election in 1967 and hearing a local Labour polling agent greeting approaching voters loudly with shameless offers of council flats, “if you vote the right way”.

Of course many chose instead to vote for Winnie Ewing, left, as we all know. But too many still seem to be historically conditioned by their circumstances and by a complacent media. True, many of the young have broken away from the unthinking allegiance of their parents’ generation and it now seems that Scotland’s future rests in their hands. I for one am confident that it is in good hands.

Peter Craigie
Edinburgh

I THOROUGHLY enjoyed Thomas Clark’s article (There’s anely yin man can save Scottish Labour … Alex Salmond, The National, March 29).

Here is a whimsical scenario. There is no doubt in my mind that Alex Salmond is a socialist, more so than many in the Labour Party, and no doubt in my mind that the main bone of contention in the Scottish Parliament is independence for Scotland. However, once independence is attained we are going to need a closing of the ranks and a unified programme to rectify all the mistakes of the Union.

There is a long tradition in the Westminster Parliament, but not the Scottish Parliament, of crossing the floor. I would remind readers that Winston Churchill switched parties from Tory to Liberal and probably vice versa – I cannot remember all the details. More recently we saw elected Tories becoming Ukip, briefly anyway.

This is pure speculation by myself, but imagine the hysterics in the Opposition benches in the Scottish Parliament.

Alex may be having hysterics too!

Jim Lynch
Edinburgh

GORDON McIntyre-Kemp’s weekly column in the National is always balanced and instructive and this week’s offering was timely indeed (Whatever happened to the Yes side’s Brexit bounce? The National, March 29). The precise date of the next referendum is very important, but a definitive statement that we will soon be applying for one that kicks off a campaign will be the biggest benefit.

We need to be campaigning as we move into the summer months.

David McEwan Hill
Sandbank, Argyll

IS Theresa May living in a parallel universe?

She tells us Brexit will keep the UK Union together? Do we finally have proof, if it was needed, that the lunatics have taken over the Westminster asylum?

Scots voted to remain in the EU and as the Brexit shambles unfolds, increasing numbers are clamouring for independence and Scotland is even now preparing for it.

What part of this does our erstwhile PM not understand?

Jim Taylor
Edinburgh