AFTER reading Amanda Baker’s letter in the Sunday National it is clear why SNP are not going to recover.

Amanda makes her hate for Salmond clear due to “his destructive ego and the way he divided the party”. Amanda must be blind to Sturgeon’s ego, and how she divided the party. As for Salmond “sucking the teat of Putin”, is Amanda not aware that The Alex Salmond Show was refused by all UK broadcasters? He was never employed by the channel, but going there meant Scots could see his show.

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I can tell Amanda that I am one of those “shaking their head and wringing their hands and wanting to tear things apart”, but not due to the election result.

No, my anger is at the SNP cheating Scots just like Labour did, by pretending to be for indy when in truth they did nothing for a decade.

Amanda can’t see she has been conned, in the same way we were all once conned by union.

I want independence so much that I am prepared to tear things up to rebuild better. The party needs stripped back, with a new NEC, anyone not happy with a real push for indy being removed and a focus on the main job. Until members get it and do something to force change, this SNP is going nowhere.

Breaks my heart, so it does.

William Robertson
via email

IAN Murray gleefully tweeted that Scotland’s educational “attainment is at its lowest ever level, and the gap between rich and poor at its highest.”

He attaches a graph that he should have studied more carefully because it shows the overall Higher pass rate in 2024 – 74.9% – to be virtually identical to the 2019 rate – 74.8%. The same holds true for the most deprived – a pass rate of 65% in 2024 and 65.3% in 2019.

He should also recall the overall Higher pass rate under a Scottish Labour administration, which was 3-4% lower: 2004 – 70.7%; 2005 – 71.2%; 2006 – 70.8%; 2007 – 71.7%.

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Murray ignores the significant progress made on narrowing attainment gaps at the primary school level. Achievement for Curriculum for Excellence Levels (Acel) 2021/22 reported that poverty-related attainment gaps in literacy and numeracy saw the largest decreases since records began in 2016/17, and there was also a record rise in the proportion of pupils achieving the expected literacy and numeracy levels.

Finally, Murray should be reminded that Scotland’s people are the most educated not only in Europe but also in the UK. In 2019, 50.4% of people aged 25-61 in Scotland were educated to degree level compared with 44.7% in the UK overall.

Rather than politicising Scottish education, Mr Murray should focus on reducing child poverty, the root cause of the attainment gap. An excellent start would be to demand that Rachel Reeves lift the two-child benefit cap. Then he should advocate for greater borrowing powers for Holyrood. And if he really had Scotland’s interests at heart, he’d support, not thwart, the Scottish people’s right to govern themselves.

Leah Gunn Barrett
Edinburgh

IN response to Tony Perridge’s letter of August 10, I agree that the true arbiters of a suitable anthem should be the common Scottish folk. I do wonder if the majority of Scots are aware of other choices. Recently I was in Munich for the Euros, where Flower of Scotland was sung most passionately before kick-off. I was there for four days and I did not hear one other Scottish song sung! It peeves me that it seems most Scots don’t know the words of popular Burns songs. Furthermore most Scots are unaware of Hamish Henderson’s Freedom Come All Ye.

I can remember a time not that long ago in the 70s when most Scots didn’t know the words of Flower of Scotland! It was on the day of Scotland v England in either 1974 or 1976 that the Daily Record printed the words, but it took another 15 years or so before it took hold. It was sung passionately at Murrayfield in 1990.

My real wish is that all Scots embrace the words of Scots Wha Hae followed by Freedom Come All Ye but they will need to learn and understand the words!

David Beckett
Glasgow

WHILE agreeing with P Davidson (Letters, Aug 7) that A Man’s a Man for a’ That is an improvement on Flower of Scotland, it still suffers from some of the demerits of the latter. Being “worthy”, even noble, is not enough to make a great anthem.

Paradoxically perhaps, my own favourite is Scots Wha Hae – roll of drums, crash of brass intro, then, crucially, with a jauntier tempo – thrilling! Up there with, and no more martial/“bloodthirsty” than, say La Marseillaise.

We have just enjoyed a display of world anthems at the Olympics, many of them very fine.We don’t have to wait until independence is nigh before choosing a great new anthem, indeed doing it sooner rather than later will inspire us on that journey – which is why the Unionist establishment will try to sabotage the process – but it must be done carefully and properly.

David Roche
Blairgowrie