WITH 10 DUP MPs delivering an additional £1 billion for health, education and infrastructure in Northern Ireland, one awaits the enormity of additional riches 13 Scottish Conservative MPs will be able to deliver for Scotland.

Alex Orr
Edinburgh

IT seems the UK Tory government treat David Mundell MP with the same contempt as everyone else. He promised that any extra money the DUP got for Northern Ireland would result in Barnett consequentials, thus Scotland getting additional funding. However, that has been ruled out by Damian Green – effectively Theresa May’s deputy PM. So what now for Mundell – will he push for this money that be promised Scotland or will he retreat behind his desk in the Scottish Office?

Cllr Kenny MacLaren
Paisley

I’VE heard of contractors handing brown envelopes to councilors and private companies inviting MPs to dine but I had never heard of votes blatantly for sale before today. I wonder what Teresa May would pay for my vote at the next election?

Jessma Carter
Lindores

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Why do the Tories really want to leave the EU?

WHAT are the Tories really up to with Brexit? A government is elected to to look after the best interests of the population, both physically and economically and to protect them from the consequences of bad decisions.

We all know that there was no clamour from the general public and that the EU referendum happened for purely Tory Party internal reasons.

And we also know that David Cameron held it fully in the belief that the result would turn out differently.

But they got a majority in favour of leaving and suddenly believed they were in a utopian dream where they could do what they liked and blame it on the “will of the people”. Opponents became avid believers overnight and wanted to press ahead, even trying to bypass the authority of Parliament.

Then they held a General Election to “strengthen their hand”. To do what? Create a dictatorship?

It all went wrong and yet they are still behaving arrogantly and secretively as if they think they do have the divine right to do what suits them.

The whole country is confused, with no idea of what Brexit will mean, and we have been told that we are already poorer and that it will get worse.

Wouldn’t an honest government say “Look, folks, this is not a good idea. Let’s call it off”. But not the Tories.

I am convinced they have a hidden agenda in all of this, a vested interest. Honest brokers? I doubt it. They have spectacularly shown themselves to be liars.

Aren’t you suspicious? I am.

Robert Johnston
Airdrie

READING Vonny Leclerc’s column about how not following through can be a sensible strategy (Quitting can be a sign of strength, rather than weakness, The National, June 26), the first thing that came to my mind was the Brexit shambles. Why a marginally won advisory referendum based on a campaign of lies has been dogmatically translated into hard Brexit being “the will of the people”, and to hell with the consequences, is anyone’s guess. But I smell several rats. I guess I’d better get used to that smell as that’s what we’ll be eating in years to come. On the European and world stage, the UK is thought of as a “country in decline”.

Katy Knight
Perth

THIS morning I switched on BBC Scotland to hear someone being given a fairly long slot to talk about the urgent need to maintain and build additional aircraft carriers and destroyers at a cost of countless billions of pounds.

A little while later I switched on Sky News, which was very briefly interrupted by an advert/plea asking the viewers for a small donation to help save the lives of children who are suffering from cancer. Do I need to comment further?

Dave Beveridge
Address supplied

WILLIE Rennie is right when he refers to “keeping the referendum on the table because for the SNP independence will always be first and foremost,” (Blackford: We are party of independence but best deal on Brexit the priority for now, The National, June 26).

How right he is! And there are good fundamental reasons for this. Scots will always get the government they vote for, not the Tories in Theresa May’s botched regime. Scots voted to remain in the EU and not for Brexit. There would be no EVEL, aka English votes for everyone’s laws.

No House of Lords where unelected flunkies get posted to boost the Tories.

Above all else the debilitating incorporating Union of 1707, which for the three Unionist parties and Willie Rennie in particular will always be “first and foremost”, would cease to exist!

John Edgar
Blackford

IN the late 1800s, Keir Hardie’s first election manifesto pledge for the Independent Labour Party was equality, temperance and home rule for Scotland.

I am sure many Labour voters are unaware that the current manifesto states the “Labour Party believes that the United Kingdom should be more federalist.”

What does this mean and why is there a lack of concrete proposals or even discussion on this?

Similarly, the Scottish Liberal Democrats include this in their manifesto too.

I believe that maximum home rule would be an economically and politically self-sufficient Scotland within the United Kingdom.

According to a local Labour councillor, we already have home rule in the form of the Scottish Parliament. If that is the case why is it still on their manifesto?

Again, a Keir Hardie Society speaker, when asked about home rule, stated that Hardie was “never terribly specific about what home rule was!” It seems strange that a manifesto commitment over one hundred years old should be not only be nebulous but also inert.

Even stranger is that most Labour voters that I have talked to are unaware of the existence of this clause. Would staunch Unionist Labour voters find full home rule distasteful?

It would be interesting to find out how many voters in favour of the Scottish Parliament are now Unionists against independence.

Similarly, why does home rule in the fullest sense appeal to Labour and Scottish Liberal Democrats, but independence does not?

WJ Graham
East Kilbride