I AM mystified as to why the SNP ... or SOMEONE ... doesn’t put out an official statement about this “once in a lifetime pledge” which never happened. Douglas Ross is now saying “Nicola Sturgeon signed a pledge” which we know is a lie, he surely knows is a lie, and anyone who is even half-awake in Scottish politics knows is a lie. And yet there has been no official statement even now.

This is not something debatable. Even if, by a stretch of the imagination, you could transform an exclamation of encouragement to the voters into a promise (a clue: you can’t), this “signed pledge” did not happen. It does not exist and never did. Could someone please make that official statement?

READ MORE: Douglas Ross ‘rewriting history’ with indyref2 claim

However, something that Alex Salmond definitely did say (I heard him say it) was that his aim was to make his job redundant. As Charlie Ambrose rightly points out (Letters, August 5), and as I have been pointing out ad nauseam for more years than I care to remember, independence is not about Nicola Sturgeon/ Alex Salmond and it is not about the SNP. It is about Scotland getting the government it votes for.

I suspect a lot of us will vote SNP in that first post-indy election out of sheer gratitude. But thereafter I am looking forward to voting Green again, as I always did when I was living in England. And if the Scots decide to vote Tory, well, I won’t like it, but I will like the democracy that has led to that Scottish Tory government.

And, please, enough of this in-fighting. Let’s get indy first and then make the sort of Scotland that we want to live in. We will disagree, and that’s healthy, but for now let’s hold together. In this too, keep the heid.

Max Marnau
Selkirk

WHY does the current situation in Yemen attract only minimal attention across media and press outlets, including The National? The lack of publicity regarding the daily murder and starvation of ordinary people in the country must silently assist the perpetrators.

Perhaps The National, which in part reflects the moral integrity of the SNP and its wider readership, should mount a sustained campaign to help bring an end to this conflict and Britain’s disgraceful role in it?

Ronnie MacDougall
Glasgow