Letters I: Democratic deficit can be solved with forums

In his book, entitled Against Elections, David van Reybrouk calls this the democratic deficit. There’s no organised means for hearing citizens’ voices and electoral systems filled this gap with assemblies or councils. Members were chosen by lot, funded, given training and were part of governance for short terms.

It was a period of reflection, of non-confrontation driven by facts, with the aim of achieving consensus.

Iceland (2010-13) and Ireland (2012-14) operated such systems. Their Constitutional Conventions were public and kept citizens informed of progress. The Irish Parliament put recommendations to a referendum. The constitution was amended in one case to allow same-sex marriage. In the present existential and constitutional crisis, it would be good to have such a forum in Scotland.
Barbara Addison, Max Bancroft
Edinburgh

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'Existential' may be the word Ruth Davidson is after

RUTH Davidson’s grasp of the English language is obviously as flimsy as her political values if she can use the word "fratricide"

to describe Scotland’s long democratic pursuit of independence (Ruth Must Say Sorry, The National, February 1).

I know of no-one in the independence camp who wishes to kill their brother, at least for political reasons!

The word she might have used is "existential". For what is at stake is the very existence of Scotland as a nation and the very existence of the United Kingdom as a unified state. That is the choice before us. Is Scotland a distinctive nation or is it to become a county of greater England?

Davidson’s use of inflammatory language, deliberately or through ignorance, is deplorable, if characteristic. The wonder is that the media allow her to get away with it.
Peter Craigie
Edinburgh

IT was disappointing to see Ruth Davidson resort to such scaremongering in her speech at the David Hume Institute.

To describe the movement for Scottish independence as a “fratricidal conflict” demeans her status as leader of a major political party which is currently the opposition in the Scottish Parliament.

The dictionary definition of fratricidal conflict is the killing of one’s brother, and Ms Davidson’s language, comparing legitimate political debate with such an act, is clearly inflammatory and beneath her. To exacerbate this by saying that should a referendum be called this would put Scotland “at this year’s point of global instability” is also scarcely credible, especially given a Trump presidency and a potential National Front French president. This is rather reminiscent of the scaremongering during the last independence referendum campaign.

One can only hope that should there be another independence referendum such tawdry scaremongering can be put aside, however given these comments the prospect of this happening does not look promising.
Alex Orr
Edinburgh

REGARDING your article, all this has achieved is to get Ruth Davidson’s picture on the front page of The National.

The column inches inside will do nothing to change her mind about anything and certainly will not get her to retract one word of what she has said.

The point of saying it was much like the comments of Trump – to get you all hot under the collar and wrong-footed. Scotland has no influence over what Trump, May or Davidson has to say and no sway whatsoever over the will of the Westminster Parliament.

As for Trump, let the man settle in, let the gears of office mesh, after all he is the President. He is too powerful to get on the wrong side of, so he is not going to do any U-turns anytime soon.

Whatever the Scottish Government think of Trump, they are going to have to deal with the man on his terms. He has certainly wrong-footed the media, and more than one million signatures have been gathered asking May not to allow Trump to come on a state visit since it may embarrass the Queen, with many MPs echoing that sentiment. What hypocrites, after holding a referendum on the EU when the main thrust of their campaign was “immigrants bad”.

When that day of the state visit arrives, the protesters will simply be kept well away and the BBC and Sky News will act as if all is well. They will stream their pictures around the world, Trump driving in through the gates of Buck House, May in attendance.

We will get all the pomp and ceremony at Westminster, the show must go on. The Queen and Westminster must always be sovereign, no matter the wishes of the people. Let’s use what time we have left, weeks if Nicola Sturgeon is correct, to put a strong case for being outside the Union and how Scotland as an independent nation can thrive and prosper.

Let us talk of these things, not of what we can not change.
Walter Hamilton
St Andrews

PERHAPS like some of your other readers, I actually felt sorry for (or was it just vicarious embarrassment?) Theresa no-mates when I saw her on TV in Brussels looking around for a pal to speak to while everyone else was greeting each other like long-lost friends.

Now, after her premature visits to Washington and Turkey, it appears that she is totally out of her depth, frantically thrashing around for any excuse to tell us that Brexit “will be all right on the night".

I am now of an age when I cannot have much time left to enjoy independence, but I am also fearful that if we go for indyref2 too early and fail, that will be that for the next generation at least.

For a long time, long before Brexit or even devolution, I have felt that many anti-Europeans would happily join the USA. The way things are going, it is possible that the UK could become, at least de facto, the 51st state. That threat might concentrate sufficient undecided minds, persuading them to vote Yes this time.
Jim Clark
Address supplied

THE White Paper-shy Tories and their Brexit is an insult to the whole of the Union and to the rest of Parliament.

You don’t buy a house without seeing it first. Westminster looks after itself. We don’t count in Scotland.
Glen
Paisley