Tim Rideout’s challenges to the SNP's position on currency need to be heard

No, this is not political correctness gone wrong, it is a stitch-up by the SNP leadership to try shut up a powerful critic. They want avoid trying to respond to the work Tim has been doing which exposes their threadbare currency policy.

The SNP leadership have been unable to effectively respond to the challenges Tim has made to them in writing and at conference, so they are trying to shut him up.

READ MORE: Police Scotland 'assessing' Dr Tim Rideout's Priti Patel tweet

Well it will not wash. Dr Rideout is no racist and everyone can see that, so the SNP leadership do not need to go into superdrive to defend Priti Patel.

If using satire in the way he did to expose the hypocrisy of a figure in authority is racist and unacceptable, then Rabbie Burns would have been expelled from the SNP because he did that frequently.

No, come off it Nicola, don’t attack Tim like this when he is off on holiday. Try engaging with him and listening to his sensible ideas about a future Scottish currency, instead of sticking your head in the sand and trying by any means, fair or foul, to avoid addressing the currency issue properly.

Andy Anderson
Saltcoats

SO despite the support for Dr Tim Rideout in a letter by David White, we have just accepted the fact that the SNP has suspended Dr Rideout’s membership.

Is that so? This is an outrageous decision taken by some sad arbiters of what constitutes racism, with no sense of justice or humour. As an early member of the SNP in 1965, I am happy to be sacked because I put it to you that Patel is more racist than Dr Rideout.

READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon pledges to root out racism in SNP after Tim Rideout Priti Patel remarks

We cannot just ignore this, because his financial expertise can dig us out of a bloody great hole we dug for ourselves in 2014 regarding currency ... remember? We need his help, and this mindless action by some woke mentality is an insult.

Having been a passenger on one of the last East African Airways flights from Entebbe (Uganda) to London having been at my sister’s wedding in Lusaka, we were surprised that a sudden influx of desperate Asian migrants filled the plane although there were empty seats shown at the booking in Lusaka. Apparently, the seats were paid for at the entrance to the plane. They were a pitiful sight hanging on to their few belongings and were welcomed on board by the cabin staff.

I cannot understand the morality of any descendent of that group undertaking every political trick in the book to deter, and indeed criminalise under new legislation, those in a similar situation. Classic hypocrisy.

I too prefer to offer a robust defence of a man who can, and has been willing to, show immeasurable financial advice and organisation in Scotland’s quest for independence.

Shame on you SNP.

Doug Drever
Dundee

WELL done, Dr Tim Rideout! You have, in your satirical question regarding Priti Patel, highlighted the FACT that, under the inhumane rules that she imposes on current desperate refugees, her own family would have been sent back to their country of origin. That you correctly identify that country makes the comment accurate, not racist. Shame on the party that penalises a member on the basis of the insinuation and misrepresentation of others, rather than fact.

L McGregor
Falkirk

READ MORE: Economist Dr Tim Rideout suspended from SNP following Priti Patel Uganda comments

I DON’T know a great deal about Tim Rideout other than what I have read of him in The National, but I doubt he is a racist.

We must look at a different dimension in this case. It gives us a lesson that we in the independence movement should take note of. If you are a well-known supporter of independence and especially a leading figure within the SNP, you have to be aware of the consequences and repercussions of the comment or opinion you express. Claiming that what you said is merely satirical or humour will make no difference.

The Unionists, Tories or Britnats and their mouthpiece media will seize on it to discredit the speaker and by extension the SNP and movement for political advantage and hope to create division. I could be wrong, but I suspect that is the context in which Mr Rideout was suspended.

We know the blatant hypocrisy and double standards of the Unionist machine, and that Unionists of all kinds can insult and lie with impunity. The reality is that those in the independence movement (especially the prominent ones) cannot act in like manner even if they wanted to.

Bobby Brennan
Glasgow

JUST what is going on in the SNP? The impression I am getting is that the party leaders are sidelining prominent, intelligent and active supporters of independence. Alex Salmond, Joanna Cherry, Craig Murray, Tim Rideout; who will be next – Richard Murphy, Gordon MacIntyre-Kemp, Ruth Wishart?

When compared with the corruption, lies and bullying committed by Westminster MPs and ministers, the misdemeanours of the above sanctioned people are footling. How on earth is Priti Patel still in post, never mind the rule-breaker in chief who, but for a massive backlash, would have kept the dishonest Owen Paterson in parliament?

Either the SNP is trying to water down support for independence, or it is being ridiculously sensitive to Unionist censure. Which is it? I think a modicum of Boris’s trashing of the rules should be imported into Holyrood.

Richard Walthew
Duns