SO there we have it, Salmond lecturing on how the SNP should conduct their campaign and more SNP-bad letters in The National.

How dare Salmond presume to lecture anyone on how a campaign should be run, considering he failed in 2014 politically and as the sordid revelations of his personal life have surfaced he has failed on so many levels as an individual? Yet he is given the time in print to continue his vendetta against the legally elected Scottish Government. Has the editor forgotten how universally and comprehensively Salmond and his gang were defeated and indeed rejected at the May 6 elections? What is it with affording him and his minions time well in excess of their actual influence?

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Had we listened to his poisoned message in the election and elected his gang, the cause of independence would have been dealt a death blow. His price for any partnership would have been the removal of Nicola. He and his gang of ungracious wannabes can only snipe from the sidelines like the sad, rejected individuals they are and wallow in the self-pity of the truly deluded.

The electorate of Scotland rejected your message in May 2021, the electorate of Scotland rejected your message in 2014, so from that what makes you think you are of any political significance now?

Time for Salmond, his lieutenants and screaming banshee bloggers to go back to “Putin” TV. As for Scotland – well we have moved on and are backing our government in partnership with the Scottish Green Party.

Cliff Purvis
SNP Armed Forces and Veterans

I’M beginning to warm to the One Nation One Britain idea since finding out that the inveterately unembarrassable British government is red-faced about the whole farce (How No 10 backpedalled from OBON amidst media ‘ridicule’, Oct 24). There is so much cringey, twee, patronising mawkishness about it!

However, I must single out the reported Department for Education’s claim about Britain’s “tolerance” (unless you’re a foreigner of course, in which case go away); “kindness” (unless you’re starving in the Third World or in poverty here); “pride” (OK, I’ll give them that one, thinking of how inspired Jacob Rees-Mogg is by food banks); and “respect”’ (as exemplified by Tory backbenchers’ foul abuse of Scottish MPs and MSPs.)

I think OBON Day might be worth celebrating this year, as an exercise in irony!

Derek Ball
Bearsden

AS the climate change conference in Glasgow edges ever nearer, the Conservative government yet again demonstrates its complete lack of self-awareness and concern about how it is viewed by a domestic or international audience.

By rejecting an amendment to the Environment Bill that would have placed a legal duty on water companies not to pump sewage into rivers and seas, the Tories once again (see the Australian trade deal) make a mockery of the Prime Minister’s claim to make environmental issues a priority and once again show that when people’s welfare clashes with profit there will only be one winner.

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Though the decision will only have an effect on England at present,this did not hamper the usual Scottish Conservative poodles at Westminster from obeying their masters and voting to pollute rivers with raw sewage, regardless of the dangers to the health of humans or animals. Had a decision like this been made by the Scottish government then the outrage in media circles, particularly amongst the hacks at BBC Scotland, would have been positively vitriolic.

The capacity to “take back control” has never been so nauseating and exasperating in this demonstration of yet another Brexit dividend. I have no doubt that this particular Conservative government can sink even lower, metaphorically and in actuality, than casting aside venomous effluence into all of our lives.

Owen Kelly
Stirling

ON the day that it was announced that England’s city regions are to share £6.9 billion for transport projects, the Rest and be Thankful road (the A83) was closed yet again because of the forecast of heavy rain. I wonder if there is any other major road in the UK, or even western Europe, which opens and closes on this basis.

The problems of the road over the past 15 years or so have been well documented. Tens of millions of pounds have been spent, some might say wasted, on temporary work to clear debris and dig catch pits. Luckily there has been, to date, no loss of life or injuries.

A long-term, permanent solution is undeniably required. The only question is when it can be implemented. A quick look on the Transport Scotland website leads you to what they call an interactive story map – an impressive piece of web design but with no mention of real timescales or costs.

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While Transport Scotland has yet to put a timescale on work to fix the problem, in December 2020 a number of people attending a stakeholders meeting were told that work was not expected to start on the new route for at least another five years, and then it could take another five years for the alternative to be built.

So we may need to wait up to ten years for a permanent solution, it seems.

The words Rest & Be Thankful were apparently inscribed on a stone near the junction of the A83 and the B828, placed there by soldiers who built the original military road in 1753.

Some 268 years later, with all the technology of the 21st century available to us, surely we can find a permanent solution to this civil engineering problem. I have no idea how long it took the soldiers of 1753 to build the original road but I suspect it did not take them 10 years.

John Baird
Largs

IN the recent discussion of Scots and Gaelic, I well remember the suppression of “slang” in favour of “proper English”, when, even in primary schools, persistent “offenders” could be threatened with two of the best from a Lochgelly.

It also brings to mind the story of a wee boy, who asked his teacher, “Please Miss, can a’ pit oan ma jaikit?” She responded sternly, “Jamie! What is it called?”, only to receive the answer, “Aye Miss, it’s no’ hauf cauld!”

P Davidson
Falkirk