I TRY to get The National every day. Sometimes it can be difficult – not because I experience difficulty in finding copies, but because of the paltry amount paid to me in the way of a state pension. Sometimes, if I have an unexpected extra expense, I have to deny myself the opportunity to keep up-to-date with the truth about what Wastemonster is really doing to Scotland.

Yet when I can get it I do so. I suppose that must make me a bit of a masochist! You see, whenever I read it I find myself becoming angry, frustrated and full of despair. Surely only a masochist would inflict such suffering on himself!

Angry because I regularly see the lies and the contempt for Scotland that flow continually from the Tory government and the lacklustre response to this from any of the other “Unionist” parties. The SNP certainly do their best, but Scotland can never really be heard in such a biased set-up, where we will always be the minority, and whatever suits England will always be the majority.

Frustrated because I know that only your paper is highlighting the disgusting attitudes and behaviours and contempt for Scotland flowing out of the House of Commons. So, the majority of the Scottish public don’t get to hear about it. The rest of the press and the communications media (BBC and even ITV), tend to cover it up and not report the truth about the way the people of Scotland are being treated. Did any of them accurately, if at all, report any of the recent All Under One Banner marches? They couldn’t get away with it on Wednesday because it happened right in front of Holyrood.

And full of despair because it doesn’t seem to matter what we or our Holyrood government do, the Westminster Tories will completely disregard it and do to us whatever they want. The first chapter of this saga was laid to rest the other day with the passage of the Brexit bill through parliament. Or should I say through their tyrannical regime?

Chapter two has now started with the statement by Fluffy Mundell to the effect that the Tories will now continue to override the legislation of the Scottish Parliament as they see fit – with the obvious implication that we can’t do anything about it – and we must do as we are told by a government we didn’t vote for and which, incidentally, only represents some 30% of the entire British population. As a contrast, the SNP represent some 40+% of the people of Scotland.

There’s only one way out of this and that’s independence. But there’s one big obstacle facing us: we need Theresa May’s permission to hold a referendum and there’s no way she is going to allow that. Her sole intent is to destroy the Scottish Government, the will of the Scottish people, and make Scotland into an integral part of England.

The Scottish Parliament has a mandate for independence already, and an independence-supporting majority of MSPs. Can’t they just save us all the pain and suffering by making a unilateral declaration of independence? Why wait for a referendum we will not be permitted to have? Let’s just get it done and dusted now!

Charlie Kerr
Glenrothes

IN his book Unleashing Demons, David Cameron’s former spin doctor Craig Oliver says that on the night of the Brexit referendum David Cameron promised Nicola Sturgeon a say in the negotiations.

The actions of the Tories in grabbing the returning powers from Brussels, in violation of the Sewel Convention, has shown this pledge as yet another Westminster lie.

Tory proconsul David Mundell has even asserted that Westminster will overrule Holyrood on any issue it sees fit, devolved or not.

While devolution has been ripped up, the ermine-clad comrades of the British Imperial Labour party sat on their hands. Then right on cue Gordon Brown is wheeled out. This old abused circus lion is being called out to jump through hoops of fire one last time. After devo-max and federalism it’s clear that after all he has done for us, and how much he has suffered on our behalf, Gordon still feels he has a contribution to make.

Labour feels Scotland is diminished if Gordon Brown is not given some sort of role. However, the facts are it was his “light-touch regulation” that lead to the financial crash and bank bailout.

The Westminster parties have nothing to offer Scotland. They wheel out the same old has-beens to tell the same old lies time after time.

Being surprised that 2014 Better Together pledges have been broken is like being astonished when the anti-gay televangelist is caught in his car with a rent boy. Or when a “graduate” of Trump University isn’t qualified to do, well, anything.

Alan Hinnrichs
Dundee

HAVING read Saturday’s edition of The National I would like to say to R Mill Irving (Letters, June 16): do you really think using language like “the enemy within” and “well-entrenched fifth columnists” does the Yes cause any good?

How are you going to cope with that attitude when you go canvassing for votes and get told people’s real everyday worries like local services, jobs and pensions etc? And as anyone who has canvassed or phone polled will tell you, when the voters tell you exactly what they think of your policies, what are you going to do? Call them the enemy within?

David Ritchie
North Ayrshire

HOW naive and insulting is the Tory pretence that that the increase in funding for the NHS is because of a Brexit dividend? Who do they think they are convincing by rolling up five years of increases to come to the false number that the Leave campaign wrote on the side of their bus as the UK’s annual contribution to the EU?

The NHS has been underfunded by this nasty party since 2010 so that they could fund huge tax concessions to the richest people in Britain.

Mike Underwood
Linlithgow