I DISAGREE with Stewart McDonald when he says “marching won’t win us any votes” (Thousands expected at independence march as organisers reject call to ‘stay away’, The National, June 3).

A convivial parade of up to 20,000 people, bearing colourful floats and witty banners, marching for six miles right through the centre of Glasgow from one end to the other sends a powerful message to hundreds of passers-by in a way that no leaflet or even canvasser can do. By weight of numbers it conclusively refutes the oft-repeated and never-challenged mantra that a second referendum is “unwanted and divisive”.

This kind of march can only be organised once or twice a year whereas leafleting and canvassing can be done on a regular basis. As political activities they’re not in competition with each other. They both have essential parts to play in the short-term campaign to the next election and the long-term campaign towards self-government.
Mary McCabe
Glasgow

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Bullets, bombs and rhetoric will not bring peace

DID you hear the patronising claptrap from Theresa May yesterday? There she was standing outside Number 10, telling us we must show the world the true values, “British” values; no other values in the world it seems counts. We must defeat this Islamic extremism by bombing Syria, defeat Islamic extremism by closing down internet freedoms (invoke the Snoopers’ Charter) although nearly all recruitment into Daesh will be done peer-to-peer, not online.

Want to stop this evil on our streets? Then firstly stop selling arms to Saudi Arabia, enabling them to bomb Yemen. If Saudi Arabia is truly a friend, advise that friend not to support Daesh fighters with money and arms. Support the UN and diplomacy in bringing about stability across the Middle East — mostly Libya, which Cameron’s government left in a lawless state after his intervention there — but mostly let all MPs at Westminster seriously consider the foreign policies of the UK and ask themselves, in truth, if they are making friends or enemies across the world by their actions.

“Bairns not Bombs” was used a lot in the Yes campaign, and the story behind the slogan was that we would rather spend money on our bairns than spend it on manufacturing bombs, and more so nuclear bombs. I say think of the bairns in Yemen, Syria, Libya and countless other countries, whom we have killed, maimed and even today starve because of UK bombs and intervention in other countries’ affairs. As we saw in the bad old days in Northern Ireland, and more recently on the streets of London and the hall in Manchester, bombs and bullets don’t bring peace, nor does stubborn rhetoric outside Number 10; only a hand of friendship and diplomacy will achieve that end.
Walter Hamilton
St Andrews

SATURDAY’S Long Letter by Peter Kerr seems clinically to sum up the reasons for the decay of parliamentary democracy in the UK.

I have often wondered just why Britain’s current political leaders seem pygmy-like compared to those I remember from former years. But as Mr Kerr points out, the purging from the UK parties of anyone of integrity and individual thought goes a long way to explaining this sad loss of quality. When one thinks of individuals like Denis Healey, Barbara Castle, Rab Butler or Jo Grimond one can only cringe at the diminished stature of their successors.

The tragedy is that with such paltry figures now running Westminster there is almost nothing to stop our elected dictatorship from driving through the most cruel and ill-judged of laws. Of course the fault lies not only with individuals. The entire corrupted Westminster system is no longer fit for purpose and the sooner we get out of it the better.
Peter Craigie
Edinburgh

I SEE that some candidates in this election are standing and advertising themselves under false, non-existent parties.

By that I mean parties that are not registered with the Electoral Commission as political organisations with the appropriate checks and balances as to finances, membership rules etc.

The two parties I have definitely seen to date are “The Scottish Labour Party”

and “The Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party”.

Unless the candidates promoting themselves thus have left their London-based party and set up stand-alone Scottish ones, then surely they are committing some form of fraud, even if only under the Trade Descriptions Act?

Surely we cannot pretend that it is permissible to be something which is not, especially when stand-alone parties in Scotland are a live, controversial issue.

It is so obvious, so why is nothing done?
Richard Easson
Dornoch

17,000 people marched in Glasgow on Saturday.

Did you hear it being reported on the British Broadcasting corporation on the 10 O’Clock news?

No! Me neither.

They had a complete news blackout of it. Not even on their webpage on Sunday.

Why am I playing my TV licence to such a racist organisation?

Can you imagine 17,000 people marching in London and it not being reported on?

No! Me neither.

Pay up, put up and shut up!

Scots are being treated as fools.
Myra Macleod-Nolan
Address supplied

I HAVE just watched the BBC Scotland interview by Glenn Campbell, with Nicola Sturgeon, and I’d like to offer the BBC some kindly tactical advice for the future, as follows.

When you conduct such an interview, and wish to project the belief that the invited audience has been selected to cover both sides of the political argument, try and forewarn them not to all clap and applaud in unison when an aggressive criticism has been made by one of them against the First Minister.
Alasdair Forbes
Farr, Inverness-shire

IN Hemsworth, an English constituency, a group of protesters came up with a real phrase which is to the point and may well come about if the slide in the polls for May continues.

The group said loud and clear: “Make June the end of May!”
John Edgar
Blackford