WHO has not wept with laughter at Billy Connolly in his prime? Nevertheless, his anti-independence comments – coupled with a somewhat tacky attachment to his royal near-neighbours and to fawning London luvvies such as the over-rated Michael Parkinson – made many of us almost weep with frustration.

He did real damage to the cause over the years by bolstering waverers with a sentimental or tribal attachment to the Union (“if the Big Yin’s against it, that’ll do me...”) in 2014. His other notable “achievement” was to make the “eff word” ubiquitous, destroying this venerable swear word’s power (when nothing else will do) and encouraging every teenager, untalented “comedian” and scriptwriter to use it mindlessly every third word.

READ MORE: Billy Connolly hits out at 'pathetic' Scottish Labour politicians

Still, Sir Billy’s “pro-Scottish Republic” sentiments are welcome, although he seems a little naive, and lacking conviction, about politics and “nationalism” in particular (Connolly says a Scottish republic is a good idea, June 12). Perhaps he is unfamiliar with the immortal words of Andrew Fletcher of Saltoun when the Scottish Parliament was sold down the Forth and up the Thames in 1707: “Show me a man who loves all countries equally with his own, and I will show you a man who is entirely deficient in a sense of proportion. But show me a man who respects the right of all countries, but is ready to defend his own against them all, and I will show you a man who is both nationalist and internationalist.”

It has been a long road Billy, but hang in there – and we all wish you a long and pleasant retirement. We are on our way to the fairer and more prosperous society you knew Scotland deserved way back in the shipyard.

David Roche
Angus

BILLY Connolly has made a very long journey from standing beside the Tories in 1979 to oppose even the limited devolution that Labour offered that year, to clearly supporting Scottish independence now. Any tendency to berate must be set aside by a generosity of spirit which welcomes with open arms those have now embraced Scotland’s right to control its own destiny.

However, Mr Connolly’s previous disdain for what he considered to be Scottish nationalism offers a chance for supporters of independence to examine, as some correspondents and columnists in The National also have over recent months, how we should designate ourselves and the impressions that creates. In the late 1930s the great Roland Eugene Muirhead, president of the SNP, made clear the disdain of the party for the rising European dictatorships of Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco. So Muirhead and his associates in the early SNP proudly held fast to the adjective of “nationalist” because it was implicit to them in the Scottish context that they were asserting the rights of a nation, not denying the rights of other nations as the fascist dictators did.

With the rise of authoritarian leaders such as Trump, Putin, and Erdogan today, we are in a similar position as in the late 1930s where nationalism and intolerance are in parts of the world conjoined, and it is understandable that this has made some of the current SNP leadership reluctant to use the term “nationalist” and even express unease about the party’s name. However, as well as being used by Welsh and Irish nationalists in the same historical context that the SNP has used it, it also has been used in the Indian and African liberation struggles by the likes of Ghandi and Mandela. Therefore, we should not bow to the fearmongering propaganda of the Unionist press but rather, like the LGBT movement, turn terms of Unionist abuse into badges of honour by re-appropriating them to the wider Yes movement.

Cllr Andy Doig (Independent)
Renfrewshire Council

I UNDERSTAND that LBC terminated its contract with Nigel Farage because he likened Black Lives Matter protestors and their actions to the Taliban; and that the celebrity ambassador chosen by the National Trust for Scotland, Neil Oliver, has likened actions of the same protestors as pointing the way to the guillotine. To me, these two statements look similar. The two men share the same views concerning independence for Scotland.

READ MORE: Farage slammed for comparing Black Lives Matter to Taliban

I am not arguing that anyone should lose their job. But the NTS is surely aware that with Neil Oliver as president it is already widely seen as resembling a political campaigning organisation which advocates state nationalism. Consequently, the pro-independence community already feels alienated.

Neil Oliver’s recent comments seem likely to alienate yet another community. Does this not highlight something the NTS management should “think very carefully” about?

Prof Aonghus MacKechnie
Edinburgh

I FOUND Kirsteen Paterson’s article on the Wallace Statue intriguing (Wallace monument emergency repairs, June 12).

Many years ago we had a caravan and used to go quite a lot of weekends, most often to Melrose.

It was also a habit to do forest walks and on one of them we came across the Wallace Statue near St Boswells. I do not think we were aware of it, but just came across this massive statue in the middle of the forest.

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We had a dog at the time, a quiet Golden Labrador bitch; we were unprepared by her reaction to the Wallace statue. She barked furiously, her hackles were raised, and she snarled. Perhaps she was just frightened, but the reaction was extraordinary, and unprecedented.

I had forgotten about this until I read the article.

Jim Lynch
Edinburgh

REGARDING The Sunday National article about the removal of statues linked to those involved in the slave trade, I am sure there will be many opinions as to what to do with these statues.

I would suggest to wrap them in chains and manacles just like Jacob Marley’s ghost. A plaque explaining the meaning of the chains and how the person on the plinth acquired their wealth.

Most folk don’t have time to read a plaque, but chains welded on the statues would be more noticeable and force visitors to question why they are there. This would tell the story of Scotland’s links to the slave trade much more effectively than their removal entirely.

I suspect that in most cases statues are erected not so much on the basis of merit, but more to do with the money being there to pay for it.

Ian MacTaggart
Ayr

I READ in Friday’s National that Police Scotland will be able to find resources to keep an eye on certain statues, lest they become subject to the ire of demonstrations. And yet it is unable to patrol the border to prevent travellers coming from England, thereby increasing the chance of infection here in Scotland.

A clearer demonstration of why it is necessary to proclaim that Black Lives Matter would be hard to find. Or that our government, however reluctantly or inadvertently, is tied by the purse strings to Westminster power.

Time now without delay to dissolve the Union.

Andy Duncan
Fife

A CONVICTED terrorist, someone who believes in trying to kill and maim as many innocent people as possible, has been spared deportation and given leave to stay here. At the same time, we read the story of a young man fleeing for his life from the threat of exactly these sort of persons, dying alone in a hotel room, penniless and desperate, as he waits interminably for the decision he needs to stay here in safety.

Countless others have been denied the right to stay here, even those investing their life savings and their hard work to benefit our communities. So it seems the “hostile environment” is designed to favour the undesirables.

Is this the kind of Scotland people want to live in?

L McGregor
Falkirk