SARAH McArthur (Seven Days, Aug 4) explored the vibrant folk scene in Scotland. The emerging wave of mainly instrumental prowess has opened new doors for folk.

However, she begins with reference to Hamish Henderson – “Tomorrow, songs will flow free again ...” – and closes with Archie Fisher: “There is still a strong ... host of fundamental traditional singers with a wealth of material available to them.”

In the session scene songs have a small space, if any in some cases. I well remember a fiddler friend joking at our Dingwall festival: “OK the singers have five minutes.”

Clearly the burgeoning product of traditional music education has favoured excellence in playing to an amazing proficiency, which links to the crowds of dancers at festivals and pubs.

However, high-level performance at concerts was a key aim of the Plockton Centre for Excellence in Traditional Music, not just pubs.

Our songs are strong indeed but the inspiration of political Scotland and all its various sources here and across the pond was pawky, political and radical. That needs to return for today’s scene.

In the 1960s the Bo’ness Rebel Ceilidh Song Books provided texts for folks to learn. Folk clubs spread them as did vinyl records. A whole new generation of listeners and singers need a New Rebels Ceilidh Song Book.

I am making a start to list some older and new songs of struggle and hope. For as Willie Kellock, editor of the original songbook, wrote: “It is a Rebel Song Book uniting all the varieties of the Scottish Rebels to the realisation that what’s wrong with the world is wrong here and now in Scotland.”

Let suggestions flow in the Carrying Stream.

Rob Gibson

Evanton, Ross-shire

IN his reply to my letter in The National, supporting the use of the “Flower of Scotland” as the Scottish national anthem, David Roche advocates the use of the Scottish Government to select a panel of people to write an alternative anthem, or to select an alternative that has already been written.

In reply to this assertion, I would simply say that the true arbiters of a suitable anthem are the common Scottish folk and they have already made their choice.

Tony Perridge

Inverness

THERE appears to be much rending of garments and dare I say “conspiracy theories” regarding the proposed agenda for this year’s SNP conference.

Might I offer some insight, not necessarily on the proposed resolutions themselves, but for those becoming aerated at the lack of resolutions on how we, as a party, pick ourselves up after a particularly dreadful election.

The deadline for resolutions was June 21. The election was on July 4. Yes, I am aware that the announcement was made before the deadline for resolutions, with problems for the SNP predicted in opinion polls.

As it happens, the results were worse than all of us hoped and worked so hard to try to prevent. However, while the deadline has passed for resolutions, the aftermath of the General Election should be considered under emergency resolutions. So get writing!

This does not mean there are no problems within the party structure that require attention and improvement. We certainly can’t just wait patiently for yet another wheel to fall off the Labour government wagon!

Though “maintaining child poverty” and “hoping for a mild winter so pensioners don’t get hypothermia” is certainly lurching it to the right!

Irene Danks

Falkirk

IF you supported Labour at the election, you knew Starmer would continue to send arms to help Israel massacre the people of Gaza.

If you supported Labour at the election, you are no anti-fossil fuels activist either because you knew Westminster takes Scotland’s green energy free from the grid and forces the Scottish Government to use fossil fuels to keep your energy flowing.

If you want to be an activist, be one for an independent Scotland. Then you can support a party that wants peaceful co-operation with its neighbours and throughout the world.

Elizabeth Scott

Edinburgh

PEOPLE have been speculating on why there have been anti-immigration riots in England and not in Scotland. There has been the suggestion that we are just more accepting of different cultures.

There have been Unionist suggestions that it’s because there is a smaller percentage of immigrants in the Scottish population, so it’s supposedly easier for us to accept them. I suspect there’s something else going on.

When Thatcher’s government brought in the poll tax in Scotland, there were huge demonstrations against it as well as a non-payment campaign, all quite peaceful and (apart from non-payment!) lawful.

A year later, when it was imposed on England, there were riots.

Surely it’s not exceptionalism to suggest there’s a normally submerged element in English society all too ready to resort to violence?

Robert Moffat

Penicuik