I WAS very interested in the views of L McGregor of Falkirk (Letters, September 21) who predicted that the “current Tory machinations” would see the eventual closure of the Holyrood Parliament.
While I suspect the chances of that coming to pass are currently fairly small, I would not be very opposed to that happening.
That single desperate act of political vandalism might just awaken some of the 40-50% of Unionist-voting residents of Scotland to the fact that the Westminster government has nothing but contempt for them and their families.
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We have in a sense been living with a pocket-money parliament since it first met in 1999. It has done its level best to cushion us from the worst of the Westminster government’s policies, but Holyrood is a parliament dependent for almost all of its revenue on an annual handout from the parent parliament in London. A handout which the good folks of Scotland are constantly being told is over-generous and charitable. Perhaps the actual closure of Holyrood will awaken us from the dream that it had any real fiscal power.
Perhaps as we emerge into the real world with its twin terrors of Brexit and Covid – the re-introduction of tuition fees, prescription fees, bus fares for the elderly, the privatisation of the NHS in Scotland, mass unemployment and the prospect of decades of austerity – it will shake folk into a realisation, or even a consideration, that independence is the only long-term solution.
Brian Lawson
Paisley
I AGREE 100% with Alan Crocket’s letter (September 21) on the subject of using the May 21 Holyrood election as a vote for independence.
My belief is that Westminster will be so focused on the Brexit and Covid-19 chaos that they will have no appetite to allow us to leave, as the departure negotiations will take stretched resources to breaking point.
They will also be busy restricting Holyrood decisions with the UK Internal Market Bill.
Robert Anderson
Dunning, Perthshire
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