GEORGE Kerevan’s article has given me a clear insight into what I’ve considered to have been his factional political position when he was an SNP member (Why something needs to change in our politics and the push for indy, April 19).

My view is that there has been some wrong thinking by some in our movement that Nicola Sturgeon and her government’s sole position for achieving an indyref is to await “permission” from Johnson or continue to request a Section 30 order.

They have at least one other declared route, which is that, should there be a majority SNP government or independence-supporting Holyrood, they would seek a decision to hold a referendum without Section 30 and put the onus on Johnson to mount a legal challenge against it.

If Westminster legislates to prevent the above happening, it opens up a whole new set of political circumstances. We cannot yet know what they will be. If the SNP have other political avenues under consideration, why would they start them and allow the Unionists to analyse them and how they can defeat them?

From what I have been reading from some deep-thinking political and legal columnists in The National, the Johnson government are about to throw everything they can (legal and otherwise) at our movement. They will use the full force of the civil service, whose mask of impartiality is ripped off and is now a tool of Johnson, should there be an SNP or indy-supporting Holyrood.

Our movement needs clear, honest analysis as to how we grow and proceed – any incorrect actions could prove to be very challenging.

Passion alone or rash action because of impatience is something we cannot afford to have in our struggle.

Bobby Brennan
Glasgow

DO the SNP not realise how annoyed indy supporters are by them telling us to waste our list vote? Do they not care? The list vote should be Green or Alba except possibly in two regions. Even in those two regions a list vote for Green or Alba is more likely to elect an indy MSP because those parties will not have any constituency seats. No amount of spin from the SNP can change the rules of arithmetic.

Andy Collins
Yes North East Fife

I MUST respond to the article by Greg Russell in the National on Friday referring to the postal ballot report in which I am quoted (Research on postal voting ‘is nonsense, April 23). Dave Thompson claims in this article to have “debunked” the DSF report compiled by me, I did not have sight of his claims when I made the comment.

The DFS Report claimed that there was interference in the postal ballot, it did not claim that the interference altered the result of the referendum, I repeat the DSF Report made no such claim, so Dave’s attempt to show that this is not likely can’t be considered a debunking of any claim made in the report..

The issue, which seems to have been missed by Dave, was that such “interference” was by itself illegal and rendered the ballot invalid. He uses his experience as a local government officer to claim that the figures quoted in the report are normal, and to be expected and should therefore cause no alarm.

With all due respect to Dave, and his experience, I would suggest to him that this approach is invalid for the simple reason that postal voting on that scale had never been experienced before so it is not something which there was a lot of experience of. Can Dave, from his own extensive experience tell us when in any ballot he saw a turnout of 96.4%? Has he ever came across that in his life? Does he in fact think that is even possible for an electorate the size of Argyll & Bute?

What about the public reports of people talking, with apparent knowledge, on the content of a ballot, such as John McTernan did four days before the ballot boxes were opened? McTernan appeared to know what the percentage of the turnout was going to be, and what the contents of the ballot was. What is Dave’s response to this? Has he experienced this in his career? Does he think it is normal?

Dave is right in one thing, we were not experts we were amateurs looking at things for which we had no answers, but it seems Dave, with all his experience does not have any answers to the important questions either. If Dave has not got answers to the important questions why is he getting involve?

This referendum, is being used by the Unionists very day as a stick to beat the nationalist with, yet there are pretty sound grounds for saying that it was interfered with and should have been declared invalid on legal grounds. We have had no satisfactory answer from the Unionist how Ruth Davison got information about the content of the postal ballot before the boxes were opened, does Dave think that’s OK then?

Andy Anderson
Saltcoats

SO lazy incompetent lying fraudulent clown Boris Johnson has been texting Billionaire Tory donor James Dyson. Dyson did not wish to pay UK taxes and asked the Prime minister to help him avoid them Johnson acquiesced.

Dyson was an ardent Brexiteer and alleged enthusiast for the United Kingdom. In 2003, he sent 800 high-skilled jobs to Malaysia. This decision allowed him to double his profits. In 2012 he called for employment protections to be “loosened” to make it easier to fire workers.

Johnson’s sleazy texts comes on top of the Rishi Sunak,Matt Hancock and Robert Jenrick lobbying scandals. The level of Tory sleaze is unfathomable.

Johnson’s defence is that he was trying to procure ventilators. This is utter guff. Established firms who actually made ventilators were sidelined. Instead James Dyson (despite having no experience of making ventilators) was commissioned to make them from scratch.

Johnson could not be bothered turning up to the first five Cobra meetings at the start of the pandemic. The Tories were warned about lack of PPE in January. Yet Johnson sent 279,000 items of PPE to China.

Johnson’s criminal regime is all about the enrichment of the Cronies. The CEO of Serco (the Tories favourite outsourcing company) was awarded a pay award of £4.9 million. Yet the NHS staff who really got the country through the pandemic are getting a pay “rise” of 1 percent which is a real terms cut.

Johnson has benefited from the mass brainwashing of uneducated Middle-aged men. This propaganda is a threat to the world. Whenever a right-winger is asked about their beliefs they like the idea of cutting taxes for the rich and getting rid of government regulations.

They will then invariably start to rant about Marxism; blame foreigners, the unemployed and say the young want everything handed to them. This is the standard right-wing trope repeated by unthinking rubes.

The right-wing worldview seems simply are incapable of producing anything that has any value or lasting meaning. This is why Johnson is appealing to provincial backwardness with peans to the flag and monarchy.

Alan Hinnrichs
Dundee

IT would seem Charles Edward Stuart still has the power to evoke strong emotions. Naturally, as the April anniversary of the Battle of Culloden comes around, articles re-awaken the story and this invites comment.

It is one of those response that I refer to now when I would disagree with letter writer Alan Anderson who opined the “...45 was in fact the worst thing that could have happened to Scotland that century, with devastating consequences for generations to follow.” (Letters, April 21). It is rather the fact that the FAILURE of that rising was the worst thing to happen to Scotland.

When Charles Edward Stuart raised his banner at Glenfinnan in August 1745, his father’s manifesto was read to the gathered clans.

It promised to restore the nation “to that honour, liberty, and independency, which it formerly enjoyed.”

This was promised in order to end the “specious pretence of a union”.

He further declared to “call a free parliament; that by the advice and assistance of such an assembly, we may be enabled to repair the breaches caused by so long an usurpation, to redress all grievences....and all other hardships and impositions which have been the consequence of the pretended union; that so the nation may be restored to that honour, liberty, and independency, which it formerly enjoyed.”

It is no wonder that Scotsmen marched with claymore blades inscribed “King James and No Union” or “Scotland and no Union”.

This is all fact and a Jacobite victory would have spared Scotland the clearances, devastation of Gaelic culture and its reduction to second-class status within these islands.

But to suggest, as Mr Anderson did, that Charles Edward Stuart is to blame for all those subsequent events is to take victim blaming to new levels.

Charles lost and the victors took all measures to ensure the Jacobites never had the chance of restoring the Stuarts to the throne AND that Scotland would never again threaten the security of the Union.

Let us not kid ourselves.

Everything we have learned subsequently about British Imperial history tells us London would not much longer have tolerated a martial people on this island, with a language and culture so markedly different to that which prevailed in the halls of power in London.

A reckoning would have come, with or without “the ‘45”, as it did for the Aboriginal peoples of the Americas, Africa, Australia & New Zealand, to name but a few of the more obvious examples.

Therefore, Scotland’s tragedy was the defeat of Charles Edward and not the fact it happened at all.

As that other legendary Stuart adherent, the Marquis of Montrose said; “He either fears his fate too much, Or his deserts are small, That puts it not unto the touch, To win or lose it all.”

Henry Malcolm
Dundee

I AM writing in response to the letter from Edward Graham-Barrie of Tai Chi Scotland.

I have always said that the foundation of the National Health Service was based on people’s existing ailments. You went to the doctor if you had an ache or a pain, and you expected a pill or a potion. If the doctor didnt give you at least a tonic, you felt cheated. No thought given to informing patients how to improve their own health, or indeed take responsibility for their own health, possibly finding out the importance of nutrition.

I take responsibility for my own health. I give myself a reiki treatment, then I follow this with the Wim Hof Regime of 15 minutes deep breathing followed by 3 minutes in a cold shower. This resets the immune system, resets the endocrine system, changes the metabolism and makes the body more alkaline and changes the biochemistry of the body. I also practice Buddhist chanting and Yoga. All of these actions play a part in keeping me healthy, and more importantly free of Covid.

We need to give people the power to heal themselves.

Margaret Forbes
Kilmacolm