AFTER the election result and the football result (albeit the pain lessened a bit by the Euros final outcome), Scotland is at ground zero. John Swinney’s government (and the SFA) will not be short of advice on how to rebuild, but here is some anyway ...
GET THE SYMBOLS RIGHT, starting with the national flag and the team strips. Our beautiful Saltire is azure/sky blue (Pantone 300), not the free-for-all dark blues/almost black of the Union flag (which is incorrect anyway, as the 18th-century “Jack” incorporated sky blue) widely seen, and adopted by our football and rugby teams.
No country with any self-respect would allow such a travesty – the Union Flags displayed at Downing Street press conferences (below) being among the worst offenders .
Having supinely allowed the English FA to cheekily adopt sky blue and white for several versions of their national strip, ours needs to be redesigned reclaiming those colours (and omitting the red socks of St George).
Next, our so-called national anthem. It is admittedly popular – a maudlin folk/drinking song given the blessing of the sporting establishment – which lacks most of the attributes of a noble anthem (eg French, Norwegian etc etc) – dignity, stirring melody and tempo etc.
We have extremely talented Scottish composers and musicians, so set them the task of choosing, or writing, a worthy anthem (but avoid, at all costs, a free-for-all tabloid “competition”...).
And so on – clean the streets/crack down on littering (and on unions determined to shame the country by not collecting it); fix the health service; fix the roads; compulsorily purchase land, where necessary, and build thousands of well-designed houses with first offer on them going to “native” Scots.
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It is crazy that a country blessed with so many natural and human resources is led by the nose and exploited by the larger partner in this failing Union.
If measures such as these can, at least, be under way – and they will surely be supported by the vast majority of Scots – by the time of the Holyrood election, the SNP, and Scotland, will survive the Labour avalanche and emerge leaner and stronger.
David Roche, Blairgowrie
Peter Thompson makes a number of false assumptions. Firstly I was not arguing to retain nuclear weapons at all. They need to go. Secondly, I was pointing out the real-politik of the current international situation and the consequent strategic decisions made collectively. The naive idealists fail to appreciate the nuances of what and how dictators operate and what motivates them.
Because of successive disastrous defence cutbacks we are increasingly dependent on our nuclear umbrella. That makes such weapons’ use far more likely as we are unable to defend ourselves against a major aggressor, as has been reported by many senior military analysts.
Until we are actually independent, those weapons will unfortunately remain where they are, with us as a prime first-strike military target.
We need to wean ourselves off these awful weapons and to do that we need to make our conventional defence forces more credible.
Unlike the Tories who seemed to relish creating gaps in credibility we need to modernise and enlarge our Army, Navy and Air Force. Like it or not Peter, Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un have threatened the use of nuclear weapons against us if we dare to thwart their imperialistic plans.
The only reason they have not enlarged their aggressive tendencies is because of the unwanted nuclear retaliation capability. It may well be that their threats are hollow, but so were their promises of safe havens and non-aggression.
The point I was making was that yes we can and should reawaken the anti-nuclear argument, though that does increase the need to bolster other defences in their place, but instead of focusing on the “West”, which allows protest movements, we also need to ensure that the other nuclear powers do the same – mutually assured disarmament.
If we unilaterally remove our own capability, we leave ourselves even more open to nuclear blackmail. Aggressive dictators see our ambivalence as a weakness for them to exploit. That is real-politik. So the point I am making is that we need more pragmatic idealism and less of the naivete.
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It is easy for us to sit in relative safety and under a benign(!) regime being “holier than thou” but the other people with these weapons do not respect that. I only urge caution, not retention.
Nick Cole, Meigle
In reply to Isobel MacDonald’s mention of pensioners being taxed from 2026, I should point out that the state pension is already taxed in that it is deducted from your tax-free personal allowance.
So, your allowance of (in round figures) £12,500 is reduced by your state pension of £11,500, leaving you a tax-free allowance of £1000. Any income above this will be subject to income tax.
Steven Beaton, St Cyrus, Montrose
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