ANOTHER day, another intervention from Gordon Brown, this time to tell us that his beloved North Britain needs to raise taxes on hard workers to mitigate policies imposed by Westminster: a red, white, and blue tax which will enable us to soften the brutality of UK governments whilst also enjoying the majestic glory of the establishment (Brown accused of hypocrisy on poverty claims, August 15).

Who but a pinch-penny pleb wouldn’t gladly pay for the thrusting foppery of Rees-Mogg and Johnson? Who but the tax man could price the worth of ensuring that the state is the embodiment of their privilege?

As usual, Brown’s delusive narrative avoids the reality that we already pay for governments that we didn’t vote for. He wants his Union tax to lift children out of poverty, a crucial necessity, but he fails to explain how we mitigate Corbyn’s desire to waste our British taxes on Trident, Brexit, and the socialist Lords banking £300 per day as they quaff the finest champagnes. It doesn’t take the tax man to calculate the cost of a Labour vote.

Paying once for the policies you don’t want and paying again to counteract them may seem like the self-deception of obsessional Unionism, but it should be remembered that not all of Brown’s constitutional buddies want us to pay more.

Ruth Davidson wouldn’t tax us more for being British, because she believes that we should bow to the will of Westminster, that we should accept the bedroom tax, accept the rape clause, accept the fiscal calamity of Brexit, accept the hostile environment which refuses visas to writers and artists invited to the Edinburgh festivals.

Davidson’s call to “make Britain great again” was met last week by right-wing thugs, some of whom wore baseball caps with just such a slogan as they vandalised a bookshop. Does Brown really believe that the tax man can save Scotland from British intolerance?

As the Scottish Government puts money into feeding hungry children, Brown’s intervention is no coincidence, his insistence upon a Union tax to save Scottish children from poverty is nothing but a figleaf, portrayed as social justice, which hides the shame of Westminster.

With each intervention Brown makes it clearer that Unionism has a cost that we all must pay, one way or another.

Iain Simpson
Edinburgh

YET again Gordon (Doom and Gloom) Broon pops up to give us his unwanted opinion and as usual ignores any problems caused by him during his disastrous tenure as Chancellor and then Prime Minister. Apparently child poverty is set to increase and it’s all the fault of the Tories and the SNP.

He forgets to mention that his miserable stint as PM failed when he went into a General Election promising more severe austerity than Thatcher (his first guest to 10 Downing Streets once he had eventually worked his way in there).

Forgotten of course is his role in selling off the UK’s gold reserves when the price of gold was at an all-time low, forgotten was his destruction of final-salary pensions (except for his own) and of course he also forgot to mention the disaster of his PFI policy, which has left public-sector organisations crippled with unaffordable debt. Gordon Brown is a busted flush, he destroyed the economy and was later probably one of the worst Prime Ministers in living history – with only the hapless Theresa May running him close!

I get it that Mr Brown is trying to flog another book, but going by his last one it will only be a matter of weeks before it can be picked up in bargain book stores for less than the cost of printing it. Somehow that seems an appropriate metaphor for his political legacy.

Cllr Kenny MacLaren
Paisley

THINKING about what Henry McLeish has to say about the European Court of Human Rights, and the legitimate rights of parts of member states to secede subject to democratic means and a democratic societal model, I was minded to briefly consider the roads to independence followed by other nations.

For New Zealand it seems independence was always a negotiated, evolving scenario. For Canada, independence was negotiated by elected representatives of the member provinces. When Australia became fully independent in 1986 it was down to legislation passed by the state, Commonwealth and Westminster parliaments and negotiated by democratically elected representatives.

This leads me to conclude that while democratic roads have been followed in every case, referenda have not necessarily been the norm when it comes to negotiating with the Westminster Government. Rather it appears independence has been negotiated by democratically elected representatives.

Perhaps there is a pattern here and it’s time to put independence back on the SNP manifesto – with 50% or more MPs or MSPs elected, it would be time to start negotiating. Looking to erstwhile political watchwords, voters might be asked to lend their votes for independence for the sake of Scotland’s young people and for us all.

Iain Lappin
Perthshire

READ MORE: Henry McLeish: Europe could hold key to Scottish independence

THE so-called Advocate General for Scotland, Richard Sanderson Keen, is not “for” Scotland at all. He is only the advocate for the English regime in matters relating to Scotland. Of course he would claim the Scottish Parliament is not sovereign – that’s what his masters in London pay him to say.

So we can just ignore his politically biased pronouncements along with their Court of Supreme Haivers.

Linda Horsburgh
Dundee