PETER Kerr’s excellent long letter in yesterday’s National illustrates exactly how post-Thatcher “free market” Britain has totally eradicated all values of trust, decency and respect that existed within our society not so many years ago (Letters, March 20).

I often look back on 1930s Germany and the film footage of the tens of thousands who attended Hitler’s Nazi party rallies and it still astounds me as to how so many normal, everyday people could have been so deluded, almost euphoric by Hitler’s agenda of hate and destruction. The power of unfiltered and persistent propaganda from the political class promising a new Utopia to the masses will inevitably, as Hitler has shown, lead to events that shape history by war.

Take some time to look around to see how today’s modern society is dividing into the fortunate and the unfortunate, with the vast majority finding themselves being fed persistent lies and propaganda from a sloped media promising economic utopia from a political class who have also been stealthily stripping away all civil rights and liberties disguised as “keeping us safe from terror”.

I cannot remember a time in my lifetime where our society has been so insecure, sectarian and racist. The likenesses to 1930s Germany in free-market Brexit Britain are uncomfortable to say the least. People who believe that our political class are keeping us safe and have our interests at heart should perhaps heed the the words of the great Benjamin Franklin, who said: “Those who give up essential liberties for temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety”.

Graeme Goodall
Buckie

MICHAEL Fry should either bone up on or steer clear of subjects about which he clearly knows very little (Nationalism flourishes when we feel good about Scotland, The National, March 20).

He compares the relative poverty in Scotland with the absolute poverty of Somalia – “a country where subsistence cannot be guaranteed”. He seems to be unaware that we have a UK benefits system which deprives large numbers of people of some or all of their subsistence incomes as a matter of course. But regardless of that fact, dismissing poverty because it is not absolute is reductive and, quite frankly, insulting to all those suffering relative poverty in one of the richest countries in the world. The corrosive effect of living in relative poverty in a rich country has been fairly well documented. I suggest Mr Fry do a wee bit of reading on the subject.

I do agree with him that we need to appeal to all sections of society if we are to win the next indyref, including wealthy and well-off people. And I absolutely concur that we are a country rich in all kinds of resources. But speaking out about the poverty and hardship being experienced by Scots by virtue of the fact that we are part of a toxic Union is a vital part of the argument for independence for me.

Finally, Michael states that in Scotland “the overwhelming majority have access to the basic necessities of life: food, a place to stay, medical care.” He has omitted to mention one of the key features of modern poverty in this part of the world – fuel poverty. In a cold country like Scotland, adequate heating is a an absolute necessity, but you only have “access” to it if you can afford it. Many can’t. I am one of those people, in that I can’t afford to keep warm most of the day, though I am fortunate in that I can currently afford to pay for three to four hours of low heat in the evening. Mr Fry is welcome to come and stay in my house for a few weeks, where the donning of several layers of clothing, a hat, coat and scarf, two pairs of thermal socks, etc will still leave him cold, breathing in the chilly air all day, and at increased risk of a stroke or heart attack. He can experience the joys of relative poverty first-hand!

This isn’t talking Scotland down, or self-pity – it’s about highlighting shocking social injustice, something I dearly hope an independent Scotland can one day eradicate.

Mo Maclean
Glasgow

SEEMS to me Michael Fry is saying a negative view of Scotland produces less Yes votes. Certainly there is far too much emphasis on the Yes movement as a social justice movement, which may be self-destructive in terms of actually achieving the goal. I’d like a more equal, democratically accountable, republican Scotland. But I’m getting none of that if we don’t get a Yes vote first.

Alistair Shuttleworth
via thenational.scot