I WONDER what MPs Clement Attlee, Aneurin Bevan and Jennie Lee would have made of the current economic crisis, dangerously stretched health service and rampant inflation.

In the post-war years in debt-ridden Britain, they followed the advice of the economist J M Keynes and rebuilt Britain’s infrastructure, rehoused returning soldiers and created millions of jobs in the drive to nationalisation – the most successful period of the Labour Party, unsurpassed in achievement by anything since!

Our current Prime Minister proposes to halve inflation by some mysterious process and is going to create jobs – how, or what kind, is not specified. All the jobs created in that post-war period of joined -up infrastructure creation brought in millions in taxation to the Treasury; there was low inflation because there were many necessary projects to be carried out and an ongoing process of the recycling of money.

READ MORE: First Minister says Scotland's hospitals are 'almost completely full'

In the last 14 years all workers have seen the shenanigans of the casino bankers rewarded for their crashing of the economy, zero-hour contracts, food banks, Brexit and government failure to address tax evasion on a major scale.

It is hard to comprehend how the current government feel able to talk to trade unions about “reasonableness” and the need to accept pay offers well below the rate of inflation.

There is little brightness in the future, particularly in the north of England whose travel infrastructure is as poor as the north of Scotland’s – little evidence of the long-promised “northern powerhouse”.

In an independent Scotland with our own currency and a modern economy, geared to the majority population, we would enjoy a friendly relationship with our near neighbours in England and European and Scandinavian friends.

Working people everywhere have to defend their standard of living and access to education, health and culture – united we stand, divided we fall!

Maggie Chetty
Glasgow

THE Sunday National’s report regarding the more pragmatic view of NHS union leaders in ending the political “blame game” has certainly restored my faith in human nature a tad and it is good to see a lot of reputable people, and others, “seeing through” the politicisation of the NHS crisis while antagonists like Anas Sarwar and D Ross suggest very few solutions to problems that would severely test any sitting government (Union leaders will push for ‘national NHS conversation’, Jan 8).

Such a suggested collaboration of like-minded people with a common goal of conversing regarding the major issues/problems and debating on how to gradually evolve and establish a slicker, more effective and durable NHS for the future (and not for the short-term) is well worth considering. It won’t be easy under the current fiscal constraints and challenging circumstances that have plagued the NHS.

READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon says she has 'never' used private healthcare

However, the time for open, honest debate regarding these pressing issues is definitely the right way to go instead of following a tit for tat “blame game” that has been regularly deployed in the Holyrood debating chamber by political opponents who don’t “get it” at all. The words “embarrassing” and “ill-advised” come to mind.

Bernie Japs
Edinburgh

THE UK’s warmest year on record, worldwide glacial melt and a royal punch-up to entertain us. Friday’s National gave the reader an excellent insight into what truly matters and what doesn’t.

As Britain slides quietly from a democracy into a “billionairedom”, how concerned are the big-money boys about the climate? Must we depend on them for a solution? Do they think their growing wealth makes them immune? The developed world’s current lifestyles have 50 years left at the most without dramatic change. How to do it? Set an example, or panic and enact draconian legislation when the tide is lapping the doorstep?

There seem to be few politicians in Westminster with the ability to understand that the fast-developing threat needs in-depth action now. Will it be for an independent Scotland to lead by a new age of Scottish Enlightenment? Let us hope so.

Iain R Thomson
Strathglass

I HAVE noticed a growing trend of the London media referring to someone from Britain. Boris Johnson kept referring to a “British nation” and I heard an English historian refer to the Picts as a tribe of ancient Britons. This is all a ploy to confuse Britain and Briton.

The Island of Britain is just a piece of real estate where lots of tribes have lived, but never a British tribe. The Britons lived in an area that stretched from Brittany through Cornwall, Wales and Cumbria to south-west Scotland and spoke a form of Welsh Gaelic. The Picts were mainly found in north-east Scotland and their language is unknown. But both occupied large tracts of Britain, while the English were still living as savages in the forests of Germany.

I refer those interested in our true history to a book called The Isles by Professor Norman Davies, who writes a history of Britain and Ireland from a Celtic perspective.

Ronald Livingstone McNeill
Strachur