Scottish Tories are being sleekit and dishonest about the election

However the facts are that, in Holyrood, 72 seats out of 129 are for independence-supporting parties and in the constituency or first-past-the-post vote, the SNP took 62 out of 73 seats ie 85% of the seats available; the highest number of constituency seats won by any party in Scotland.

Along with the highest turnout recorded, the SNP have broken Scottish Parliamentary records with the number of votes received, and achieved the highest share of the constituency vote ever recorded in a Holyrood election – and this after 14 years in power. And yet Ian Blackford, our nation’s representative in Westminster, is ridiculed every time he stands up to speak. Courtesy along with democracy has abandoned Westminster!

In any democracy this was a landslide result which ensures the governing party can implement all its manifesto promises. With the LibDems and Labour continuing to lose votes, it is certain they will come to accept that this Scottish Parliament has a mandate for a second referendum.

Grant Frazer
Newtonmore

GREAT British Railway? Who wants this, or needs it?

As an exercise in binding the Union together, it’s already failed for me. The pedantry of this latest Union Jackery rebranding wheeze just got my back up.

As an exercise in improving the rail service, it’s also doomed to failure.

What government continually fails to understand is that our railway system is too expensive and the fare structures way too complicated to be attractive.

When I had to make the journey to London to attend a family double funeral, although I’d have preferred to travel by train, I got a return air fare for less than half the price than the rail fare.

Unless one is clairvoyant and can see well into the future, more environmentally friendly rail travel is substantially unaffordable to casual customer potential.

Doesn’t it seem incredible that such a vital public service should be run for non re-invested profit generation rather than to get polluting personal transport means off our roads?

Add the cost of this rebranding to the huge cost of HS2 and the impossibly high prices charged for that, presumably targeted at more commuters to the already overheated London economy, isn’t it certain that the problem is only going to get worse, not better?

No-one in Scotland could surely be impressed with this latest Boris buffoonery, which lurches from the nonsensical, through the inane to the downright ludicrous.

However, doesn’t what this latest wheeze do perfectly is reinforce about the UK union the simple maxim that we’re Scots, get us out of here?

Jim Taylor
Edinburgh

THIS obsession of labelling of initiatives as being British, Union Jacks being dusted down and hung around the country, British haggis, British shortbread, and now the Great British Railways. Does Westminster not understand when they do this, it generally (for most of us) does the very opposite? The rush for half-baked trade deals is pure panic – a Government struggling to get us out of this almighty mess we are in. The British label for many of us is not the bulldog spirit that emerged out of World War Two,or the wonderful NHS emerging from the shadows of war. This repackaging is mere propaganda. Thank goodness most of us see it as the gigantic con it really is.

Robin MacLean
Fort Augustus

FOR the second time in so many months we have seen, in horror, the significant amount – not tiny minority as reported in some tabloids – of so-called Rangers fans abuse, attack and terrify the public and police and lay waste to famous landmarks, bringing mayhem to the streets of Glasgow.

It was refreshing to hear the First Minister and deputy condemn this and for the first time call out the vile anti-Catholic sectarianism of the “mob”.

We watch other clubs in Scotland, England and abroad celebrate when their team win a cup or league and its usually one of healthy celebration and togetherness, but alas not for “Teddy bears”,

Where does all this come from, behaviour that is shameful in this day and age?

Make no mistake about this, the people who conduct themselves in this manner somehow believe they represent the apprentice boys of Derry or King Billy at the Battle of the Boyne where anything goes to keep the “papists” in line.

They are indoctrinated at an early age with myths, tales and anti-Catholic diatribe, their belief that Scotland is first and foremost a “protestant” country which must be protected from the church of Rome by fair or foul ways.

Coming from an Irish Catholic background appears just as bad, even although I’ve moved on in my education and views, which are alien to any religion.

Many people of the Irish diaspora feel threatened by the many institutions which played their part in propagating anti-Catholic propaganda. It may seem extreme to say but it can be at times like how people of colour, no matter their views, are picked on, attacked and even killed just because of their skin.

Thankfully the vast majority of people are not like this, but when you have a significant number of human beings, male and female, following a football club whose history encouraged such views then it must be time for our society to call time on this club, or better still the decent, passionate fans who want no part of this in their club to take action and say enough is enough AND cleanse the club of such bigotry.

D Gill
Kinross

MANY years ago I went to the state school that served my area to the east of Edinburgh. We did not consider this to be a non-sectarian establishment (whatever that may have meant) It was simply referred to as “the school!”

I recall that at secondary school a couple of my pals were Roman Catholic . I know this because they supported Celtic, once a year (Ash Wednesday?) they had an ash mark on their foreheads and it seems they did not have to attend Religious Education class with the rest of our group . These were more or less the only differences ; apart from that they were just our mates!

We have lost touch over the years, but if we met up now I am sure that I would enquire with genuine interest and affection, as to how their lives had panned out and I am confident that they would do similarly with regard to myself. That’s what school friends do.

This is not at all a comment on the academic standards within sectarian and non-sectarian schools. I would simply wish to point out that in my group of friends, who mixed freely and effortlessly , we did not ,thank goodness, seem to adopt the culture of sectarian division.

Unfortunately cultural division was very much in evidence within the 15,000 or so “celebrating” Rangers fans who, last week, just seemed to want to be a part of a “look at me” crowd. I hesitate to use the word “mob”. These people are my fellow Scots – I simply want to understand their thinking.

Might it be, that because they went to separatist schools, their culture of religious clannishness has been allowed to develop and fester. Perhaps they have no pals from the “other side” to help them understand just how truly silly and meaningless religious sectarianism is.

We develop our cultural biases in our youth. Life-long friendships are often made at school and such friendships are much less likely when groups of potential friends are directed, at an early age, to separate school even when these schools are physically in close proximity.

Do we really need separate school systems?

Alex Leggatt
Edinburgh

I’M with Joanna Cherry all way in her appeal to Nicola Sturgeon to update the case for independence as soon as possible.

Real work needs to start right now on what an independent Scotland could, should and would look like. If in five years time Scotland is still part of the UK the SNP will be judged very harshly by independence supporters. Calls for yet another mandate in 2026 will fall mainly on deaf ears. Even if the Alba Party does not survive, another Alba like party, with a new leader, may surface and take over the reins of the independence movement.

I am certainly old enough to remember a time when the Labour Party in Scotland was the dominant force at all level of Scottish politics. Look at them now. This is the kind of warning that the First Minister would do well to remember.

During the election campaign the First Minister struggled at times to answer the dreaded currency question and related economic issues. She has also made clear her immediate and first priority is tackling the pandemic. I have no problem with that but the SNP has many other MSPs who are not government ministers, 50 odd MP’s, hundreds of councillors and apparently around 100,000 members. Surely somewhere in there must be the expertise and talent to re-start the work needed to make the case for an independent nation.

The past seven years have seen very little improvement in the basic level of support for independence. Those seven years were essentially wasted in the hope that making a decent job of running a devolved government would persuade a good portion of the 55% to change their minds on the future of Scotland. As the recent election result proved, not a lot of these minds have been changed.

Recent election results from England make it clear that the Tories will be in power, possibly with a huge majority, for at least the next 10 years. I have yet to hear the First Minister explain what she will do when Boris just keeps saying no.

It is time for change of direction, time for some fresh, inspired thinking and time to breathe life and money into the YES campaign.

Glenda Burns
Glasgow

I UNDERSTAND from a bit of research online that:

- In 1947 the newly created United Nations approved a plan to partition Mandate Palestine into Jewish and Arab states with over half of the land allocated to the proposed Jewish state. Palestine was overwhelmingly Arab at the time;

- Many Palestinian Arabs were expelled or fled from British Mandate Palestine during Israel’s creation (1947 -1949) and made refugees;

- Many of them were expelled from their homes;

- Many Palestinian cities and towns were destroyed by Israeli forces or re-populated with Jews between 1948 and 1950;

- Many acres of Palestinian land were expropriated by Israel during its creation in 1948.

I have deliberately used the word “many” above even though I found various estimated figures as no doubt there will be those that argue over their accuracy. I consider however that it’s vital to establish generally what happened to the Palestinian people particularly during 1947 to 1949 to understand how they felt then and since. How would we feel in Scotland if similar type of events occurred here? Pretty rubbish I would imagine to say the least!

After the treatment of Jewish people I fully understand their wish for a Jewish state. However the circumstances in which it was created has clearly had a detrimental effect on people who disagreed with the partition of their land.

I consider the foregoing should be borne in mind by those that either say both sides are equally to blame. Just as those of us wishing to live in an independent Scotland often refer back in history to the time of the “Parcel of Rogues”, it’s just as relevant when discussing the Israel/Palestine conflict to go back to the beginning.”

Name and address supplied