GEORGE Kerevan is right (Holyrood has a clear obligation to support Catalonia as it defies Spain, The National, October 23). History IS where it is at and the Scottish Government – if it really believes in the democratic right of peoples to vote for their independence from a dominant state – must do more than offer rhetoric, welcome as that may be to Catalonians when most of the other countries in the EU, including the UK, are hiding behind the coat-tails of specious laws drawn up to deny regions of Spain any form of real control over their affairs.

I had not been aware of the fascist backgrounds of some of the leading figures in Spain’s government and I thank Mr Kerevan for revealing it.

This, together with Andrew Learmonth’s report on Alfonso Dastis’s interview on the Andrew Marr Show on Sunday (Spain: Police films are fake news, The National, October 23), ought to ring alarm bells for the most determined EU and UK unionists because it echoes the Holocaust deniers of the extreme right-wing neo-fascists.

I salute Slovenia for supporting Catalonia’s cause but as Mr Kerevan pointed out, when it comes to EU recognition of it – far less taking any action to persuade the Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy to enter into talks with the Catalans – it might take decades for the UN to “crawl off the fence”.

Those are decades in which politicians and ordinary people in Catalonia will be jailed (and who knows what else) for expressing a perfectly legitimate political view. Obviously, the EU is more concerned with keeping itself together than it is with justice or democracy.

So I hope Fiona Hyslop will be sent to Catalonia to lend her support and that of all those in Scotland who support democracy. I hope she’s sent to Madrid, too. We are making history. Please let it be a history that we in Scotland can be proud of.

Lovina Roe
Perth

SCOTLAND has one very concrete link with Catalonia and that is our fantastic parliament building. Younger readers might not remember the circumstances of the building of our parliament.

One of the first things Donald Dewar did after Scotland voted for devolution in 1997 was to set up an international competition to find the best architect to design a new parliament building, with the public being given a chance to see the bids and vote on them. Enric Miralles from Catalonia actually came in second in the public vote but the organising committee decided his design was best so he was chosen. There was quite a lot of annoyance that the architect was not Scottish.

My memory of the times is that when Donald Dewar announced the competition he said that the building would cost about £50 million. I remember when he announced the price thinking: “Aye right Donald, and the rest.”

Unfortunately I was right. However, I do not grudge a single penny of the cost. We have an internationally recognised first-class building, thanks to Miralles. As a Catalan he was able to understand Scotland’s aspirations, thanks to Catalonia’s place in Spain. His placing of the Saltire in the fabric of the entrance hall ceiling and repeating the theme throughout the building stirs my heart every time I enter it.

So what can we do to help Catalonia now? We should write to the Spanish consul complaining about the behaviour of the government, and write to our MEPs asking them what this wonderful EU is doing about the anti-democratic actions of the Spanish Government. I’d be grateful to hear other suggestions.

Colin JW Torrance
West Linton

BANTER about Edinburgh from our friends in the west is part of Scottish life. However, I really must draw the line at Julie McDowall’s interpretation of the name Auld Reekie in her otherwise admirable book review (A colourful and gory look at a medical legend, The National, October 23).

Reekie does not mean “smelly”, it means “smoky”, the word reek coming from Old English “rec”, cognate with the Dutch “rook’ and the German “rauch”, all pertaining to smoke. Thus Auld Reekie means Old Smoky.

Dr F Toolis
Livingston