I’M hugely impressed, as always, with Lesley Riddoch’s excellent latest article, and good for her delivering what she terms her “stern rebuke” because, sadly, it’s very much needed! (More voices are needed to argue against report that Scots are too poor, February 4).

All of us in the independence movement will remember with heartbreaking shame Alistair Darling’s repeated question “What will you do about currency?” to Alex Salmond, to which Alex could not satisfactorily reply. The myriad positive arguments for independence were destroyed by this one negative question. That was SEVEN years ago! To my knowledge we still don’t have a satisfactory reply, and we absolutely know the question will be triumphantly put again, along with scaremongering about pensions.

READ MORE: Lesley Riddoch: Where is the rebuttal of doom and gloom anti-independence reports?

From the day after the debate, a team should have been working tirelessly to construct the arguments to refute ANY economic charge. The Business for Scotland publication Scotland the Brief is brilliant but it fails to address these two issues. Lesley is absolutely right to point out that we’re a bit thin on the ground with experts to refute these irksome charges, which we know will be used again. And the No side know this too and must be salivating at the prospect of arrogantly asking them again. We need to wake up!

Time is not on our side, as armies of staff available to Westminster will be deployed trying to tie us tighter into the Union by foul means and the propagandists will be working round the clock to scaremonger and disingenuously poison people’s minds with all sorts of made-up drivel. And all this in the midst of a pandemic which we’ve been told should occupy 100% of everyone’s time. We will fail to respond at out terminal peril.

Jim Finnie
Pitlochry

I AGREE with the points raised yesterday by Lesley Riddoch. I don’t doubt, and it has been obvious, that there are members of other political parties etc whose actual job is to find something negative to state about the SNP and the Scottish Government at least once a day. This has to be addressed and action taken by the receiving side immediately. I also do not see it happening.

There should be people on our side with the exact same job. While negative statements – especially about finances after independence – are increasing as expected, it should continually be countered by the fact that, if true, this is what a 300-year union of Scotland with England, Wales and Northern Ireland has produced for Scotland.

READ MORE: Scottish Government rejects claim Yes vote would hit economy harder than Brexit

It might also be a good idea, when it is stated how much Scotland is “continually subsidised”, to point out that if the “rest of the UK” doesn’t want us to be independent then that must mean their governments and taxpayers are happy for that to continue. They can’t have it both ways. If something you didn’t like was costing you so much, would you not to take the first opportunity you could to make it stop?

I would think that by now, some of the Tory MPs who regularly show their contempt for Scots and all things Scottish would be volunteering to be presiding officers!

The hard truth still remains that Scotland’s contribution (financially) to the four-country Union makes it too valuable to lose. Daily opposition to Scottish independence only makes this more obvious.

Marie McIlwham
Glasgow

I TAKE Lesley Riddoch’s point about rebutting LSE economics. However, even if independence promised to make me as poor as a church mouse l wouldn’t care. For me, politics takes precedence. Here, we Yessers must keep our eye on the ball.

What, politically, we must always ask ourselves, does the Union have to offer a left-of-centre, social democratic and anti-Trident country like Scotland? Since the defeat of the Corbyn left, it is clearer than ever that the answer is Tory or Tory-light rule. When I say Tory, I mean a party now leaning heavily towards Faragism, and of which two of its last three Prime Ministers have been members of the Bullingdon Club.

Meanwhile, Sir Keir Starmer has abandoned the Corbyn project which focused, like true Labour party policies ought, on distributive justice, and now feels obliged to raise the Union Jack to win back working-class votes.

To me, both of these political options are totally unacceptable, even if accompanied by English largesse or, if not largesse, a few crumbs from the rich man’s table.

We should never let economics tell us, in the words of Hugh McDiarmid, “Oh England, what wad we do without ye?”

Alastair Mcleish
Edinburgh

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU Lesley! Thank you for finally losing your patience with the SNP and its internal shenanigans, and also your well-aimed comment about the lunacy of the departure from the Greens of Andy Wightman.

Jennifer Rodger
West Kilbride

EVERYTHING that needs to be said at this time, Lesley! Wise words indeed!!!

Alastair Naughton
via thenational.scot