KIRSTY Strickland’s portrayal of Johnson as a hopeless coward in Saturday’s edition makes for an interesting bedfellow with the restlessness mentioned in Andrew Morris’s and Andrew Fraser’s letters on the frustrating lack of progress on our bid for independence.

Fraser and Morris’s plea for a campaign team divorced from the Scottish Government and their commendable preoccupation of getting on with the day job of managing a pandemic rather begs the question, where is the Scottish Independence Convention (SIC) when you need it?

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Those of the ca canny, don’t rock the boat tendency spout Napoleon’s maxim of never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake, which is all well and good but exactly when is the right time to interrupt the enemy? When can we exploit the glaring hopelessness which oozes from the pores of Johnson on behalf of his English constituents and his risible Britannia’s better togetherness visions for the rest of us?

Might it be that the Cummings fiasco and the virtual parliament could be the elements of an serendipitous pincer movement?

Despite the spin being put into the story, Cummings spectacularly broke the rules and put people at risk.

Johnson’s dependence on his “special one” will undoubtedly prevail and he’ll retain his job, but should a second wave of the virus surge in England’s north-east Cummings should be considered to be criminally culpable. And a second wave in Englandshire will have major repercussions on the Scottish Government’s carefully laid plans.

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Then we have the prospect of Scotland’s elected representatives being invited to present themselves physically in the House of Commons by the Leader of the Commons, much to the consternation of Speaker Lindsay Hoyle.

In an interesting tussle between Jacob Rees-Mogg’s calls for all 650 MPs to return to Westminster to “set an example” to the rest of the country by being in their place of work, Mr Speaker threatens to suspend parliament if physical distancing rules are breached, hardly realistic in the intimacy of the voting lobby.

As we all know, Scottish Government rules are that these individuals (of all political persuasions) should stay at home, and since the virtual facilities are in place, surely Union Jack and his coterie of Tory chums should have their collective collar felt by the constabulary for their sojourns south?

So here we have both a challenge and opportunity to the SNP Westminster leadership; obey their own government rules and stay put, or play the establishment toady line and turn up for work in the Westminster pantomime. Given the circumstances of the Home Farm nursing home in Blackford’s constituency surely this has to be a no-brainer.

This has to be the moment when our MPs stay at home both physically and politically as the reconvened Scottish Parliament of 1707. Let’s forget Section 30 Agreements, let’s give notice that the Act of Union is no longer fit for purpose.

If SIC are missing in action let’s go with George Kerevan’s idea of a new Scottish National Convention or Congress with the specific remit to prepare and publish a draft Scottish constitution which is then submitted for ratification in a people’s referendum.

Embodying protection to the Scottish NHS, an end to nuclear weapons, land reform, a land value taxation and a raft of protections fit for a 21st-century democracy, we win a referendum on such a what’s-not-to-like constitution and before the door to our European human rights slams shut in January.

Alternatively we win yet another round of Scotland’s real national sport – snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

Iain Bruce
Nairn