Setting up a Scottish statistics office should be a priority for the SNP

He could have added that the low support for independence amongst the elderly and the high support for it amongst the young is another factor in favour of time being on our side.

I think this is right, however there is a danger in this – the great danger of complacency. The idea that things are moving in your direction and that time is on your side can lead to the belief that you are not required to do anything other than wait for things to happen. That could be very dangerous.

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Those of us who advocate independence must continue to work, and explain, and demonstrate the importance of independence, and particularly those in power need to take actions to assist it to happen.

Now there may be people in the Yes Movement who “hate” Nicola Sturgeon, but not many I imagine. There are many like myself who do not know Nicola, and who consider her a first-class politician, but feel she is not doing enough to address the independence issue. By that I do not mean calling a referendum now, I’m with Peter on that one, but doing things like, for example, setting up a Scottish Statistics Office to collate Scottish statistics. The SNP conference decided to do that some time ago, yet nothing has been done yet.

Now, any country which does not have an effective and efficient National Statistics Office is like a submarine without a periscope. Scotland will need an office of statisticians collating the data relating to our economy, not relying on data from the UK collected on a different basis, like GERS, which is worse than useless, for making assessments for the Scottish economy. The SNP should have set up such a service by now and should start right away to develop such a service. There is a lot of work of this nature which the SNP government should be doing now which they are failing to do, and that is most frustrating to many of us who can see how important it is to get this work done. The pandemic is a good excuse for many things, but it is not an excuse for this failure.

Andy Anderson
Saltcoats

THERE have been letters suggesting that detailing major changes after indyref2/Yes2 is important, but also that it is important not to go too far, else risk putting off potential Yes voters. Therefore it may well be that a varied approach to detail is required, where moderate change is clearly detailed, and radical change is in outline only.

Running in parallel with indyref2 but across the UK, “Pro-woken”, “A-woken”, “Un-woken”, “Anti-woken”, would now appear to potentially be the primary political and social divisions/positions being fought over for the next decade or so.

Scotland, having endured the Better Together lie machine in indyref1, was perhaps better placed than rUK to see through the lies being played out for Brexit “done”, Brexit “baked in”, and now the “wrong order” Brexit being “served up” and should be regarded as more A-woken than the English electorate, who still appear to be still somewhat lagging behind in the Un-woken lane.

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Holyrood 2021 has set the Scottish Government led by Ms N Sturgeon (FM) and the supportive Greens generally into the “A-woken, Pro-woken” camp, to the left. To counter this, GB News has started on an “anti-woken” platform, with the UK Government trying to rid itself of Channel 4 News, which is relatively “A-woken”.

Mr A Johnson (PM) does not do decade strategies, and indeed barely had time to formalise his plus-one for the G7 dinners. It would, however, appear fair to characterise his position/stance as centred around “Anti-woken”.

With several decade-long environmental plans based upon six-year rolling programmes and local authority rolling programmes of some three years, it may well be that detailing moderate changes and outlining radical changes make have to reflect, say, six multiple three-year rolling programmes.

Stephen Tingle
Greater Glasgow

SWITZERLAND has held a referendum on whether to raise taxes to fight climate change. The results have been declared and Swiss voters have rejected this proposed legislation by 51.6% to 48.4%. Twenty-one of the 26 Swiss cantons opted for a “No” vote.

Critics had argued that the plan would do nothing to global temperatures since Switzerland’s emissions are only 0.1% of global emissions and that the cost would seriously affect industry, road vehicles, the lower and middle-income families, young travellers and both home-owners and renters.

Scotland, like Switzerland, has very low emissions of 0.15%, and would achieve nothing but would be horrendously costly for taxpayers. The SNP Scottish Government is forever demanding an independence referendum so can we please have a Swiss-type referendum?

Clark Cross
Linlithgow