IT’S time, Nicola et al, to come clean about independence. We supporters concede that you have had a difficult two years and you have managed them superbly, but now is the time to put your money where your mouth is. National is the middle name ... we’ve seen a lot of the Scottish and very little of the party (unlike our neighbours! Sorry about the pun!) but we signed up for that middle word.
It hasn’t been an easy journey for you, but maybe you have all got a wee bit too comfy and complacent at being the governing Scottish party. But hey, if you have changed your mind, and prefer that option to the one that we have pinned put hopes on, be up front and move over. There are plenty of folks itching to drive us forward to our much-desired goal ... and they would get support!
Stop the prevarication. We know that Covid is still around and we respect your caution, but hey, what are the rest of the elected members doing? By my count, there are enough to be heading up the necessary groups to spearhead a drive to independence. Stop the platitudinous soundbites. Stop punting out promises. We need a date, and we need it now. We’ve been shackled to a corrupt system long enough. Your laissez-faire faltering is not making the undecided change their tune; in fact you are causing wavering among those we managed to persuade and disillusionment among the faithful!
While you are all looking to options and being honourable, there’s a gang of unscrupulous avaricious Tories beavering away at undermining and removing the structures that are in place and we can’t afford to let them. The appalling disrespect of our elected members couldn’t be more telling. The current sleaze eruption is being exploited by the media to keep the eye off the real Tory ball: saving the Union! We want out – get us out. Honour your middle name SNP.
E Ahern
East Kilbride
I’VE always been a bit of a “geek” with regard to inspirational phrases, especially when I can link them to the independence movement. Like so many, I have been disappointed with the apparent lack of progress. We seem to be dawdling, and despite what’s happening all around us (the chaos at Number 10) we appear to be just marking time as we wait for a definitive course of action and timescale for indyref2.
In this current vacuum and to retain our determination and to help us focus with the task in hand, how about: “The race is not always to the swift ... but to those who keep on running”. Despite the power-grabbing and adversity coming out of the Westminster government, how about: “Do not fear the winds of adversity. Remember: A kite rises against the wind rather than with it.”
The greatest inspiration, of course, should come from our leader. I was therefore so pleased Nicola recently stated that the Government would decide “within weeks” the legislation that’s needed to pave the way for indyref2. Like so many I believe the sooner the better. So may I be so bold as to draw Nicola’s attention to the ultimate leadership quote: “The speed of the leader determines the rate of the pack” Please make it happen ... soon!
And for those who are feart or dithering over independence. Remember: “You cannot discover new oceans unless you have the courage to lose sight of the shore.”
Robin Maclean
Fort Augustus
A BIOGRAPHER of Abraham Lincoln, writing of US politics in the 1850s, makes a comment that is relevant to politics today here as well as in the USA. Following a notorious incident in 1856 when a southern Congressman, Preston Brooks, attacked and severely injured a Northern Senator, Charles Sumner, in the Senate, Brooks was hailed as a hero by the South and vilified in the North.
David Donald noted that the reactions of North and South made it “apparent that something dangerous was happening to the American Union when the two sections no longer spoke the same language, but employed rival sets of clichés to describe the Brooks-Sumner affair”.
Readers of The National will, I am sure, see how true that is both of American politics over the subject of Trump/the attempted coup of January 6 and of UK politics over the subject of Brexit/the conduct of Johnson.
Sadly, it is evident also in the independence debate on the part of the Unionists. Where today is the sentiment expressed by Ruth Davidson when she said in 2017: “Let me be clear. Nobody, not me, not anyone, is expecting the SNP to give up on independence. That’s what it believes in and it’s a perfectly honourable position to take?”
It has given way to the petulant aggression of Douglas Ross and Stephen Kerr, who simply indulge repeatedly in the clichés that David Donald deplored – seen most recently in last week’s Question Time.
On it, the leader of the party whose primary objective is independence for Scotland is dismissed as a “separatist”, a term, incidentally, which seems to apply to 50% of Scots. Similarly, the word referendum cannot be spoken without the adjective of “divisive” being attached to it.
If there is an argument for the Union, let us hear it, rather than the clichés and childish name-calling better suited for the playground.
Gavin Brown
Linlithgow
“TOTAL rhubarb” is not a great metaphor, Boris. It might have been more apposite to say it was total tattles or it was a plethora of peas or a cartload of carrots or even a lashing of lentils – which are the ingredients, come to think of it, of a good soup ... of which at the moment, Boris, you are well and truly in!
Bill Drew
Kirriemuir
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