AT the National roadshow in Dumbarton on Thursday, a golf club bore provided us with a momentary diversion. He tried to persuade us that we couldn’t win the argument for independence until he could persuade his 23 golf club friends who are all die-hard Unionists that they should vote Yes.

And then he left the meeting.

While Paul Kavanagh did a good job of pointing out that the GERS data is as full of holes as an Emmental cheese, and that we have really no good idea how the Scottish economy would perform after a referendum, he was too polite to sidestep the argument.

Scotland could win independence, turn into something like a Scandinavian social democracy, but with Celtic Tiger growth, and crusty old reactionaries in golf clubs would still be moaning about how the country was much better when it was run by chaps, just like them, really, from London.

The exchange brought to mind David McEwan Hill’s article (Here’s how changing the narrative will secure us a Yes vote, thenational.scot, March 28) on why uncertainty about currency arrangements was so damaging in the first Scottish referendum campaign. He made good points in arguing that the White Paper put forward four options, and proposed using the pound within a currency union as the best way forward. Yet it became clear during the campaign that the English government was determined to deny that possibility to undermine the Yes campaign. Alex Salmond ended up looking like he was trying to dance a tango without a partner.

Mr Hill misses the point that during the campaign, the technical advice changed. Many economists quickly concluded that in the face of political uncertainty, an independent currency would be more stable than a currency union. Post-Brexit, that argument is almost certainly stronger. It looks as if England is going to spend years turning inwards. At least in the next campaign, it will be much easier to argue that union with England will be as buoyant as a pair of concrete wellies.

But does that matter? Who are the people who care about currency unions? Probably the same 20 per cent of the population who look at Ruth Davidson and see a great bulwark of the Union, fighting tirelessly to stop another divisive independence referendum. That’s the same Ruth Davidson whose anger that Scottish trawlers are going to have to take quotas set by the European Union is matched by her inability to do anything about it.

I know David MacEwan Hill is arguing that we avoid fighting the economic arguments of 2014 in the next Scottish referendum. But he is still thinking about an issue which matters to people who are like boulders facing a glacier. The movement towards independence will swallow them up, carry them along, and deposit them in a new country.

Much better to concentrate on the persuadables. That’s perhaps 10 per cent of the population who seriously considered voting Yes in 2014, but didn’t, and 15 per cent of the population who would vote No just now to jump on the Brexit bandwagon. They will be looking for a mixture of hope and pragmatism. Not the 700-page offer of the 2014 White Paper, but simple messages that their pensions will be OK, their jobs won’t vanish down the Clyde, and that we won’t just be exchanging London rule for Brussels rule.

Robbie Mochrie
Clydebank

ALASDAIR Galloway’s piece of whitabooterie (Letters, March 29) may be lengthy, but it entirely fails to address Dave McEwan Hill’s succinct and very pertinent point (Letters, March 28): those who believe the EU interferes in the rights of nation states also (perversely) seem to be those who demand loudest that the EU “do something” about Catalonia.

Mr Galloway even recognises by implication the difficulty of intervention, since the best he can suggest himself is that the EU “remind Spain”! He does not need to wait for anyone else; as an EU citizen he is perfectly free himself to start a crowdfunded campaign to challenge the Rajoy regime in the European Court of Justice, as Carles Puigedemont and Carla Ponsati by dint of necessity may ultimately have to do. But action of course is always harder than mere posturing.

Robert J Sutherland
Glasgow

IN these current times, where uncertainty and discord abound, it is heartwarming to see the SNP Scottish Government continuing to “do its day job”. I refer to the new neonatal expenses fund being introduced to assist parents of premature babies in getting to hospital on a daily basis to be with their children.

This to me is a perfect example of just what our Scottish Government is trying to do. It also illustrates the overall vision that exists in this government that wants to see a more inclusive, caring society. It is another very important step in the creation of such a just society that works for each other and yet allows each of us the opportunity to blossom and flourish.

Contrast this, if you will, with the vision and the ideologies of the current Westminster government, so hell-bent on fracturing the overall UK society with their blind pursuit of Brexit that all other considerations fall by the wayside, and will continue to do so as the reality and the costs of this fantasy become more apparent. A government that decided long ago that the sick, infirm, disabled and the old were fair game to rob blind of any benefits and entitlements they had previously been owed. A government that had no feelings of guilt or remorse in trying, and failing, to redress the economy following the crash of 2008, and who now continue out of malice to keep these inhuman and nasty policies going. One can barely imagine what they will do to those who cannot help themselves once Brexit is a done deal and the country is in ruins.

It will be the same demonisation of these groups, along with immigrants and ethnic minorities, that will be the order of the day. One can have hope, however, that our Scottish Government’s aims and ambitions are far removed from the cold, cynical practices of Westminster, and this is why, with each passing day, we need to stand up to the Whitehall bullies who are trying to neuter the devolved administrations, and rein in the authority we hold at present. They fear us more than we fear them simply because we are trying hard to create a just and fair society and nation to be proud of, rather than the inward-looking, xenophobic, racist, isolationist one favoured by the Conservatives. Which one do you want to be part of? Now is the time to make your voice heard. Now is the time to shout for independence. Forget the naysayers who claim we couldn’t survive. Can it be any worse than what is in store for us?

Ade Hegney
Helensburgh