Kate Forbes and SNP need to clearly state their independence vision

It was reversed out in bright red ink. I rushed to put a copy in my shopping basket, take it to the checkout, get back in the car and drive home.

Leaving the shopping to be unpacked later, I searched for the relevant article and duly found it highlighted in a corner of page seven. The rest of the page was occupied by the unhelpful Stephen Flynn double-jobbing saga. I have now read the Forbes article three times as I was keen to ensure I have not missed something.

I was greatly disappointed.

In essence Forbes says there is a “credible path” forward for Scottish independence but she does not go on to clearly state what that path actually is.

There is no mention of a route map, a credible political process, even a hint of a thought of a practical way forward.

Instead she states the blindingly obvious – while SNP support has fallen “support for independence has largely remained resilient and that a significant component of the Scottish public continues to support independence”.

It seems that Ms Forbes’s path to independence is simply to “try and increase those figures by illustrating a compelling vision for Scotland’s future as an independent country”. I think I had worked that out by myself very many years ago.

Ten years ago the referendum result was 45% for Yes.

It has not really moved much since then despite the efforts of the likes of Mr Gray (cars), Mr Matheson (iPad), Ms Slater (deposit return schemes) and several other policy mishaps which continue to dog the independence movement on what seems like an almost weekly basis.

They sadly illustrate a “compelling vision” of what I don’t want an independent Scotland to look like.

Even if we somehow managed to get the potential Yes vote from 45% to say 60% how do we make the political leap to an independent Scotland if, for example, we are not allowed to hold another referendum?

That is the real question that Ms Forbes singularly fails to answer.

Sandra West

Dundee

JOHN Swinney has been far too nice to Anas Sarwar at FMQs, especially as the BBC and the mainstream media have failed to hold Mr Sarwar, the Labour Party and the UK Government to account for their words and actions.

Rishi Sunak followed his predecessors in rarely failing to end SNP questions at PMQs in Westminster without a retort aimed at denigrating some aspect of the performance of the Scottish Government in Holyrood no matter how illegitimate or obscure the reasoning.

Sir Keir Starmer has already followed his Tory predecessors in this regard yet still the First Minister spurns more legitimate comparisons with the performance of the devolved Labour government in Wales.

Especially on Mr Sarwar’s repeatedly favoured topics of attack being the NHS, education and government competence, the SNP can quote a variety of statistics to demonstrate the superior performance of the Scottish Government while of course still conceding that more work is needed.

If the SNP are to emphatically win the next Scottish election it must not only do a much better job of conveying the message as to why Scotland should determine its own future outside of a failed and broken “United Kingdom” it must lead increasing scrutiny of Mr Sarwar’s actions, or lack of them, and diminish, if not bring to an end, the sanctimonious words of Labour’s duplicitous branch manager in Scotland.

Stan Grodynski

Longniddry, East Lothian

A SOCIETY that beggars its children beggars its future, yet successive UK governments have done just that.

One in three children and a quarter of all adults in the UK live in poverty.

Children who grow up in poverty are more likely to end up in care, commit crimes, and abuse drugs. They’ll experience poor mental and physical health, earn less, and achieve below their potential, compared to their more affluent peers. Child poverty cost the UK £39 billion in 2023 but the true figure could be substantially higher.

Let’s lay the blame where it belongs – on the UK Government. It imposed years of needless austerity and sold off public assets and infrastructure, driving up their costs and reducing their effectiveness. Brexit didn’t help.

Scotland’s lower poverty rate is because the Scottish administration mitigated UK policies. That’s cold comfort to the 30% of Scottish children deprived of life’s essentials.

Gordon Brown told us that staying in the UK would guarantee a more just society, in particular for children. It hasn’t.

Now Brown is working with Amazon to set up Multibanks, warehouses where people queue for items surplus to Amazon’s requirements. He enlisted Peter Capaldi to beg the public for donations for these Victorian behemoths that stigmatise the poor and don’t address the reasons people are in poverty.

There’s a way to eradicate poverty – it’s called government.

But Brown doesn’t think it’s government’s responsibility to ensure people have the means to live decent lives without resorting to food or Multibanks – nor do Starmer or Reeves.

An independent Scotland could give children what they need – not just to survive but to thrive.

The Union isn’t working for Scotland, especially not for our children. While we remain in the failing UK, we’re impoverishing their future. That’s criminal.

Leah Gunn Barrett

Edinburgh