RORY Bulloch’s intemperate attack on our Scottish Green Party friends (Letters, June 2) is offensive and ignorant in the extreme. Yes, The Scottish Greens might have some radical ideas; yes, they might occasionally campaign for measures that are rather impractical for a governing party to consider; however our planet needs Green parties as a conscience, and with COP26 taking place in Glasgow later this year the world’s eyes will be on us, so it is imperative that we show that an independent Scotland would be part of the solution and not a continuation of the problem.
READ MORE: Greens have more influence on Scottish life than their vote share warrants
Land reform, rewilding of our nation, concrete moves away from fossil fuels and reinvestment in the green economy, pedestrianising our cities, restructuring our commuter roads to include proper cycle lanes, and protecting the integrity of our seas and wildernesses are all implicit in SNP policies; but we need our Scottish Green Party conscience to hold our feet to the fire and ensure that our promised land is one that is fit for our children to live in. So let’s embrace the Scottish Greens and include them in making radical, practical but absolutely essential policies for our future.
After all what would an independent Scotland be worth without an environmental soul?
Ross Meikle
via email
THE letter from Rory Bulloch is by chance placed next a photograph of swimmers at Portobello. This illustrates clearly that the commonsense policy of taking care of the environment now known as “Green” is not new.
Edinburgh was infamous for the practice of emptying night soil in the streets with only a warning shout of “Gardyloo”. This material percolated down to the Nor and Burgh Lochs, which in time had to be drained as health hazards. The sewers that replaced this system drained into the Firth of Forth and Portobello was in turn defiled.
Sewage treatment works were built and by the dint of constant complaint the beaches were restored. Sand was dredged back from the sea bed, the beach was raked clear each day and now people enjoy their sports there. This was just commonsense care for the environment and ourselves, and shows what is going to be the approach of government by consent – not coercion or guile.
The form of government must be co-operative. That is why the Greens working with the SNP is common sense. As soon as we become independent – and we are free to treat each other and the planet with the care they deserve – the better.
Iain WD Forde
Scotlandwell
RORY Bulloch, I think we need a little calm when contemplating the influence of the Green Party on our lives. It seems clear to all parties that we are eating the world faster than it can repair itself, while at the same time we are failing to provide for all of the citizens of the world.
Left to their own devices, the SNP have shown that they will drift to the traditional “economy”-driven agenda where “economy” is largely measured in pound notes. As an SNP member, I welcome that there is someone willing and able to pull on the helm sometimes and pull things back a little to a slightly corrected course. I’m not sure either that “rejected by the electorate” is a good description for any party gaining seats at our parliament. By that argument, the SNP are “barely accepted”’ by the electorate, which I don’t think anyone would accept as a reasonable viewpoint.
A coalition of complementary views is very welcome to me, and to many others, I think.
Donald McGregor
via thenational.scot
HOW long will it be before the hierarchy/senior staff of the SNP face the fact that the original trickle of those leaving the party, the numbers leaving to support Alba and now the resignations of most of those elected in November to the NEC, all mean there is a real problem that needs faced and solved? Or are all the members out of step but oor Jock?
Surely no message could have been clearer that the membership was tired of being ignored and their views blocked than the election of so many new folk to the NEC, all dedicated to working restore transparency and the right of the members to be heard? Yet now, almost all of these new appointees have resigned in frustration at their inability to make the breakthrough that they had promised the members.
Is it any wonder that so many have now sought a new home in the Alba party? It would have had no need to exist if complaints and warnings from the SNP members had been taken seriously a long time ago. As things stand, it seems that the control being imposed at the top of the party, far from preventing dissension, is actually diminishing, perhaps even destroying, the very political entity that we need to negotiate the independence that we intend to vote for.
Who is responsible for this? Is it the result of a husband and wife team at the top trying to create a protective shield round our First Minister? What price independence if this problem is not dealt with “yesterday”?
L McGregor
Falkirk
I THINK Stephen Paton is being a bit too harsh on the SNP with the comment regarding sanitary products (Why SNP-Green collaboration could be start of something great, May 31). Credit must be given to Monica Lennon for her determined pursuit of giving the products free to all females. But it must also be recognised that the SNP government established three pilot schemes on the matter and introduced free products in a limited way afterwards.
READ MORE: Why an SNP-Green collaboration could be start of something great for Scotland
When Ms Lennon first put forward her proposals, the SNP agreed in principle but first had to estimate their cost, as any government would need to. When she put her bill before Holyrood the SNP supported and drafted the necessary legislation. In that regard, I think the SNP have a right to claim partial credit for being the government who introduced it.
While I would agree that Monica Lennon deserves a lot of praise and thanks, I think Stephen saying it was a cheap and dishonest trick on the part of the SNP is unjustified.
Bobby Brennan
Glasgow
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