BORIS, our clownish, inept Prime Minister, has certainly not set the heather alight in America. He appears to have bumbled through many of his TV interviews, has not inspired any confidence and failed to negotiate a free-trade deal with America. This is despite talking confidently of doing just that post-Brexit.

When he met up with Biden in Cornwall last June, he tried to rekindle a favoured relationship with America. There, he and Biden re-examined copies of the 1941 Atlantic charter. This was the guiding blueprint for life after the Second World War that Churchill and Roosevelt created together, which in turn cemented a close relationship, a precursor of the so-called “special relationship” that Churchill announced in his 1946 speech.

In it they agreed on certain principles, common to both nations. Believe it or not, one included the right of all people to “choose the form of government under which they will live!” It also had eight points including the right of “self-determination”. How ironic and hypocritical is this of Boris with regard to his relationship with Scotland and his continued blocking of indyref2?

If only he would live up to his rhetoric. He always falls short. One can’t believe a word he says. His fingers-crossed, wishful-thinking approach to problems as well as Brexit and his anti-immigrant policy have all come back to haunt him. No HGV drivers, high heating costs, food shortages, petrol pump shortages and a winter of discontent heading our way. We are certainly not short of reasons for independence. Things will only get worse until we achieve it. Nicola, please go for it sooner than later. Please!

Robin MacLean

Fort Augustus

MARK Ruskell’s article (Green recovery needs safe, reliable transport, Friday) piqued my interest following a trip my partner and I made to Swansea to attend a commemoration wake for a dear friend who died 15 months ago. For obvious reasons we could not attend at the time.

The article included buzz phrases such as the “people’s railway” and “run in the public interest”.

Our intention was to travel by train in August and to that end we enquired via numerous ticket sites as to the price of a return ticket for both of us. The cost was £400. In the end we drove down and back for the cost of £347 which included stopovers in hotels on the outward and return trip, three nights’ hotel accommodation in Swansea and the cost of fuel. If we had gone by train the whole trip, excluding food and drink, would have cost us approximately £750. I think these figures sum up one of the problems with rail travel.

Alan Hind

Old Kilpatrick

I AM genuinely pleased that my contributions have drawn out the commitment of so many SNP, Green, Alba or whatever politicians to the cause of independence. And equally that they are of such calibre that people rush to their defence.

However, I maintain that my original point is valid. Too many people have been elected purporting to support independence. It is time they demonstrated this by supporting local Yes groups and providing leadership. Too many seem to believe they were elected for their charm, wit and intelligence. I am sorry to be the one to tell them that they weren’t. We elected them because they said they were pro-independence.

It is time some of them demonstrated their commitment. If I appeared to tarnish all of them with the same brush I apologise. But if the cap fits…

Name and address supplied

WHILE welcoming Henry McLeish’s eventual conversion to support independence (The National, yesterday), it’s been a long time coming. We can’t wait for everyone to take as long as Mr McLeish to make that shift to support independence, too many people are suffering now under the corrupt Tory Government and there is no other alternative if we want to create a fairer country.

The Tory Government has syphoned off public funds into the pockets of their supporters and friends with dodgy Covid deals while saying there is no money to help the NHS or any other public service. People have died due to the incompetence and greed of the Tories and more will die.

Others feel under pressure as they see the tax burden fall on the low paid and pensioners see the value of their pension fall even further. All the while the Labour Party has done nothing but abstain in vote after vote. Any viable Opposition party should have had a field day when there are food and fuel shortages – yet Labour are nowhere to be seen.

There is no alternative to the continuing Tory rule if we remain shackled to this failed union. We need our independence as soon as possible. Let’s stop the bickering between independence supporters and truly unite behind the prospect of an independent Scotland.

Cllr Kenny MacLaren

Paisley

OVER the past few days a small number of individual SNP members have written to The National to state that their own MP, MSP or local councillor did take part in last Saturday’s Day of Action, organised mainly by Believe In Scotland.

I think that the main point they have missed is that there was a very distinct lack of direction and participation from the SNP leadership. What is the point, apart from collecting their subscriptions and donations, of having a mass membership if you don’t even ask them to take part in these significant events?

The seventh anniversary of the 2014 referendum was surely worthy of a little more effort from Scotland’s party of government? The SNP clearly had decided that they would not mobilise their hundred thousand members and the question must be asked – why was that?

Late 2023, the indyref2 date apparently in the mind of the First Minister, is only a matter of around 700 days away. Surely we are not to rely on Believe In Scotland and The National to continue to lead the campaign?

In a short time minds will start to concentrate on Christmas. After Christmas, no doubt the attentions of what little campaigning the SNP seem capable of organising will be focused on May’s local elections. Their current councillors have seats to defend. By mid-2022 there will only be around 500 days left to the proposed indyref2 vote.

There is a mountain of work required to win over the hearts and minds of those not yet convinced of the merits of an independent Scotland. The past seven years have seen little direct attempts to link, in the public’s mind, the current state of Scotland directly to the Union. The SNP need to deliver their message to every home in the land linking the problems of everyday life in Scotland with the continued dependency on Westminster.

The clock is ticking and time is running out.

Iain Wilson

Via email

HOW many other folk get to walk away from their loudly trumpeted and well-rewarded new job and then have plentiful space in the right-wing press to wring their hands and bewail their misfortune, while enjoying splendid residency rights outside the UK (Continuing with GB News ‘would have killed me’, says Andrew Neil, yesterday)?

Remember the “workers not shirkers” trash pedalled by said right-wing press and think how much sympathy they’ve shown for anyone else’s working conditions or health concerns. Them and us, indeed.

Anna Corne

Via email

MHAIRI is spot on here (Mhairi Black: Top politicians at Westminster are so out of touch it’s scary, yesterday).

The legions of “little people” (as opposed to the high and mighty) who have ALWAYS been the backbone of society are suddenly finding themselves being praised, thanked, paid tribute to, clapped for, etc, etc, as their huge contribution to society has been brought into sharp focus over the past 18 months or so.

Shop workers, delivery drivers, HGV drivers, care workers and many NHS workers are the very people who are either currently relying on Universal Credit (UC) to top up their low wages or who are likely to be reliant on benefits and/or UC in the future. Very few will have savings and investments to cushion the blow if something happens to prevent them from carrying on working.

But, astonishingly, they are now suddenly in a position of power and influence. Their labour, so long taken for granted, is now sought after. Wages may even rise to near acceptable levels. But always the spectre of unemployment or sickness hangs over them to plunge them into the kind of poverty only Brexit Tory Britain can inflict upon its poorest.

The impending loss of the £20 per week “temporary” uplift to UC will drive many to the brink of desperation. Why not use this new-found power to force the government to stop the cut? Once “menial” workers now have the power to hold the Tories’ feet to fire.

Strike action to support the poor! Drivers, shop workers, order pickers, shelf stackers – not care or NHS workers – call a day of action every week until the government feels the anger and the power of the “little” people. Anyone who can, like me, remember the unions coming out in support of the nurses in the 1980s will have seen people power in action. Let’s see if they can do it again.

I live in hope that something will eventually prove to be “the straw that broke the camel’s back” and bring down this utterly despicable, greedy, corrupt, incompetent and self-serving excuse for a government. Workers, strike while the iron is hot!

Christina Miller

Posted online

THE Scottish Government have many policies and objectives that I fully agree with. However, their strategy, tactics and planning seem to be somewhat lacking. With COP26 on our doorstep, is this not an opportunity for a more innovative and active approach to de-carbonising households?

Presently our Scottish Government’s policy seems to rely on individual citizens being pro-active and “approved and registered” contractors doing “cold telephone calling” offering public-funded grants to individuals, even though these grants require to be authorised by the Energy Saving Trust.

Where is the strategy for a more holistic approach of a street by street basis, or in block by block for flats, rather than on an individual basis? This could be a much more cost-effective and environ-friendly way of reducing our collective carbon footprint. This may be particularly so if it promoted something that could be described even loosely as a district heating scheme.

I don’t know if this is the case Europe wide. However, I understand this has been standard practice for blocks of flats in Spain for decades.

Just had an afterthought – why did something like this not get incorporated in the recent new Planning Act?

Willie Oswald

Blanefield