A NATIONAL reader has created a bespoke billboard to display the paper outside his local newsagents, a move he says has the town’s Unionists tittering.

Rab Robertson, who lives in Almondbank near Perth, said he made the decision to create the billboard a while ago, but finally stopped putting it off due to the mounting “Westminster lies” and the ongoing Holyrood election.

Robertson, who described himself as “well retired now” having previously been a civil engineer, said: “I decided to do it because, first of all I realised when I had conversations with others, especially my contemporaries, that they didn’t really know much about Scotland’s economy and Scotland’s place in the UK.

The National:

“The National is a great newspaper but there are many people who have not heard of it and the vast majority of people who read it are convinced independence supporters already. We really need the 20%, say, who could be converted to read it. I had the idea for a while and I put it off. I decided I’d had enough of the Westminster lies and I decided the run-up to the coming election was the right time for the go-ahead.

“So far the feedback, which is only a few days, is already suggesting that local Unionists are maybe not furious, but are angry at its introduction.”

Robertson was humble about his design skills, saying he “just rustled it up” after doing a “wee sketch on a piece of A4”. He said: “I did want it so it had the newspaper in it, so I built the wee recess with the perspex because the headlines are great one-liners.”