THIS past week the the pound sterling (GBP) has dropped around 1% in value against the USD and the EUR due to the public remarks made by two men.

First of all, the Governor of the Bank of England, Mark Carney, increased the basic interest rate by 0.25%. One would have expected the GBP to climb on this news but it didn’t. That was due to what Mr Carney later said, ie that the MPC “would cut rates if needed”. In other words, the increase now could be undone later. The GBP dropped 0.8% on this remark.

A few days later, Cabinet member Liam Fox stated that – in his view – the chance of a no-deal Brexit was 60-40. One assumes that Dr Fox, being a Cabinet member, has access to information that the public does not have. The GBP dropped another 0.2% as a result.

Imagine now that Scotland had been independent this week and that its currency (SCOP) had been fixed to the GBP on a 1:1 basis (parity). The SCOP would also have lost 1% in value. The truth is, these two men would have been foreigners! Not accountable to the Scottish Government! And yet they would have knocked 1% off the wealth of Scotland.

I know that there are people who would advocate such a coupling (parity) due to the fact that England would be our biggest trading neighbour. However, fixing the exchange rate at parity would only confirm the present arrangement – you can today offer a tenner from the Clydesdale Bank to a bank in England and you will get a BoE tenner in return. By accepting parity Scotland would be throwing away any chance to have an independent financial policy. The futures market for the GBP for the next 12-18 months does not look rosy, so do we want to be coupled to such a currency? I hardly think so.

Of course England is our neighbour and our biggest trading partner. So is Germany to Denmark and Sweden. The Scandinavians allow their currencies to fluctuate within a certain bandwidth and that hasn’t proved to be detrimental to their economies. Apart from their inherent distrust of foreign “power”, this is one of the main reasons why neither country has joined the euro. Scotland could do the same.

The currency market functions differently to the stocks and shares market. It has no regard for emotions and reacts rapidly and brutally. If you don’t believe this, look at what has happened to the Turkish lira this week. The currency market doesn’t like surprises and absolutely hates nasty surprises. See what happened to the GBP when the referendum result was announced. It’s a question of trust. I fail to see how parity with the GBP can enhance financial trust in Scotland.

Scotland has one particular failing and that is a lack of self-confidence and conviction at times when these qualities are really needed. I hope that a new Scottish currency will help to do away with Scottish doubts.

Hugh Michael Eckersley
Sögel, Germany

READ MORE: Fox ridiculed for embarrassing Brexit U-turn

MY Unionist friends tell me “Aw it’s been over 300 years since we joined up wi’ England, we can’t change now”. It is apt, then, that in 2018, the centenary for women’s suffrage, we remember that the disenfranchised people of Scotland rioted for days in the streets when the 1707 Act of Union was proclaimed. There was no vote for the people, they were ruled by a self-seeking aristocracy.

It is only 100 years since approximately 50% of the sovereign people of Scotland, at last, won the right to vote. This was with the emancipation of women, aged 30 or over, who were householders or married to a householder. What is less recognised is that it was only in that same year that all men 21 or over were entitled to vote. Until then you had to be a householder, which eliminated about 30% of men from voting. The entitlement for women to vote at 21 only came in 1928, and a universal vote for 18-year-olds came as late as 1969.

In this context, in such a short time, what a long way we, the sovereign people, have come towards restoring Scotland to an independent state. From when, in 1967, Winnie Ewing won the Hamilton seat, becoming the sole Wasteminster MP for the SNP, to 2014 when 45% of Scottish voters voted for independence and then, since 2015, the majority of Scottish MPs have been pro-independence. The vote in Scotland has, of course, now been given to those 16 years and over, for local and Scottish Parliamentary elections. And it is with these young people, if we can encourage them to get out and vote, that we, the enfranchised, sovereign people, will no doubt succeed in reversing more than 300 years of servitude to the English parliament.

Alastair Sutherland
Edinburgh

ALTHOUGH perhaps viewing the issue from a different perspective, I share Kenneth Sutherland’s disquiet regarding “Tories out” chants at AUOB marches (Letters, August 11).

I believe those chants imply that Tories out, Labour in, would somehow improve Scotland’s situation and I have always given short shrift to Labour-ites who claimed that voting Labour, New Labour or any old Labour would benefit Scotland.

Although many of my views hover somewhere to the left of Karl Marx, give me indy and as far as I am concerned, the population can vote for the Flat Earth Society if they so wish.

Malcolm Cordell
Broughty Ferry, Dundee

READ MORE: Letters, August 11

I APPLAUD and agree with the excellent analysis from David J Fallows (Letters, August 11) on the positive but limited achievements of Scottish devolution and the growing necessity for full independence. I would add that, whether for an individual or a nation, freedom and independence are natural desires in the pursuance of a fulfilled destiny and that power by proxy is no power at all.

Grant Frazer
Newtonmore