THANK you for two articles in Friday’s National. The first is a report on the views of Fergus Mutch (Former SNP man: new indy parties ‘doomed to fail’, July 17), and the second is by Lorna Slater promoting the policies of the Green party (We’re already feeling the Brexit bite of hostile Tories, July 17).

Slater comments on the Greens’ steadfast support for Scottish independence and their sound policies on green issues in general and for tackling the climate change problem in particular. With all of that I concur.

I agree wholeheartedly with Mutch that the “new” parties are very likely to fail (completely). But I am more sceptical and more suspicious than he is. I do not doubt that some of the protagonists of these new parties are honest and well-meaning. But I do suspect that for some of them at least, failure is actually the intended result.

READ MORE: Ex-SNP communications chief says new indy parties are 'doomed to fail'

Unable to find a valid argument for an outright attack on the SNP, they have decided to spoil the electoral chances of the Greens and by so doing to deprive the supporters of independence of an overall majority. Our opponents are totally deceitful and totally without scruples.

On the Lorna Slater article, I confess that, although I agree in general, I do have a few reservations about the prospect of Scotland re-entering the EU – membership of EFTA would seem to me to a preferable compromise. But I will ignore that and vote for the SNP nevertheless.

My main reason for that view about the EU is the issue of government procurement policy.

I do not like the present way in which large, powerful companies can squeeze small companies out of existence, and are then able to manipulate their accounting practice to limit their tax payment responsibilities. I would prefer an EU policy which would allow its member countries, when they are assessing the merits of rival bids for a contract, to be allowed to take into that account the cost of paying their own citizens unemployment benefit if they award the contract to an overseas company. It should be possible to allow that and still to permit honest and “level-playing field” practice. The result might then be a fairer worldwide distribution of commercial and industrial activity.

READ MORE: Lorna Slater: We’re already feeling the Brexit bite of hostile Tories

For my own part, however (if I last long enough to see independence), I will switch my own votes from SNP to Green in the blink of an eye. I have been disappointed that the Greens have been unable to gain greater support. They deserve better. A previous letter-writer remarked that their policies seemed OTT and I think that may be an opinion which is widely shared.

Let me explain why I see that as a rather blinkered opinion – which we must abandon – and why I hold that to be the case.

The scientific community declared the year 1957 to be the International Geophysical Year (IGY). During that year many countries made a special effort to measure many aspects of the global characteristics – the weather, glaciers, sea temperatures, atmospheric gas concentrations and so on. As one small part of that effort I spent the whole of 1957, and a few months before and after, in Antarctica.

My job was measuring glaciers – their rate of flow, the amount of snow falling on them, the rate of melting and of ice falling off the front into the sea, the depth of the ice, and so on. I still have copies of the maps I drew, the photographs that I (and others) took throughout that year. The results I obtained were published in The British Antarctic Survey Bulletin, No 5, Jan 1965 (pp 1-11). Those results were unspectacular. Within the estimated error of my measurements the two glaciers I chose for my study were approximately in neutral balance.

More than 60 years later, however, I can now compare my own records with what I can see on Google Earth are the current prevailing conditions.

I assure your readers that the differences I now see are stark and very sobering. We do not have any time to spare. We must act now and we must get independence to free ourselves from the stultifying restriction of the UK’s current complacency.

The recent report by world meteorologists that the unprecedented warming of the Arctic Tundra in Siberia cannot be plausibly explained in any way other than as a result of man-made the pollution of the world’s atmosphere by greenhouse gases, reinforces that view.

Hugh Noble
Appin

PS: I do hope that Nicola and her strategists have thought out what to do if the SNP and Green parties win an overwhelming majority in 2021, and Boris still says “no” to a Section 30 request. If they do have such a plan in mind then I also hope they will keep it secret until it can be sprung as a nasty surprise on the Johnson administration.