I WAS somewhat taken aback by Alan Oliver’s letter on a number of fronts (The National, March 3). Firstly, as somebody who has had the good fortune of occupying senior roles in corporates as well as running my own business I fail to recognise any entitlement to a “higher living standard”. I also have never encountered anybody having an issue with how I or my family lived when things have been going well and we have had nice cars, etc.

What Mr Oliver fails to recognise is that the 100,000 new SNP members were not just disaffected Labour members – they were people like myself who may have voted SNP but decided to become a part of the mechanism rather than sit on the sidelines. Are we more left leaning than the 25,000 or so members that were there pre-2014? I have no idea and, quite frankly, I don’t care – as stated the party is a broad church.

If IndyRefNew does come along let me reassure Mr Oliver of one thing: it will not be won or lost in the boardrooms of corporates, it will be won because we all stand up for what is right and to make sure Scotland is fair, treats everybody with respect and dignity and supports those that need help. It will be won in the council schemes, community halls and church halls and because people are sick of the favouring of corporates over people.
Tony McCandless
Via email

ONE gets the feeling that May is under pressure from both sides of the Brexit turmoil. Corbyn and Labour have capitulated, and its branch in Scotland has all but withered and is gasping with its surreal mission to federalise England, yet Labour is out of power north and south of the Tweed. Labour are ineffectual.

The House of Lords is putting May under pressure and the SNP government does likewise. Scotland’s case is quite simple. It voted 62 per cent to remain in the EU and has proposed to May’s regime ways to keep Scotland in the single market. So far, all May keeps wittering on about is that these proposals are being considered. The answer is simple: it is either Yes or No.

We hear in advance that her line of approach is to deflect criticism, attack the SNP government’s performance and accuse it of tunnel vision, a strange choice as the UK Government is looking through its own tunnel leading from Europe with no clear strategy what to do at the end of it. It cannot be certain of anything it proposes, as it will depend on the 27 EU members to have the final word. Scotland voted to remain. There is a majority in Holyrood for independence! Simply put, that means the existing broad arrangements would continue, subject to adjustments from a Europe which is pro-Scots. The assurances from Better Together guaranteeing our place in the EU if we voted No in 2014 have turned out to be worthless.

We have heard it and seen all before – the trek over the Tweed by Westminster types whose outbursts are becoming tedious and all too repetitive in their unsubstantiated attacks on Scotland: Kahn, Corbyn and now the Tories. Not even do they attempt “love bombing” any more, just negative snash!

These Westminster parties have one MP each in Scotland! Their “house” is collapsing north of the Tweed. They are really seen as outsiders looking in on Scotland. The UK political landscape is no longer as it was in the early post-war years. The UK parties are in the minority in Scotland and are in denial. They need to get used to that. Soon they will be out of Europe and out of Scotland.
John Edgar
Blackford

IN the past the left-wing of the Labour Party were labelled “the loony left”. We now have the looniest right-wing government in Westminster since the days of absolute monarchy. The safety net we call the welfare system is steadily being dismantled by a party which seems determined to remove the meagre resources from the poorest 10 per cent to enrich the wealthiest 10 per cent.

The movement of the English electorate to the right and the absence of a credible opposition signals an increased majority for the Tories in 2020. The subsequent years will see the NHS privatised and anything else still publicly owned handed to the private sector. They may even repeal the devolution acts.
Mike Underwood
Linlithgow