WINIFRED McCartney, in the letters page of Saturday, is not correct to state that Labour did not build any ferries in their years in power in Holyrood. A quick look on the internet will tell you that between 1999 and 2007 around ten ferries were launched including, for example, the MV Loch Shira, which ironically was built at Fergusons of Port Glasgow and launched in December 2006 at a cost of only £5.8 million. As far as I know it still operates on the Largs to Millport route. If we want to attack the Unionists we must be sure of our facts.

If we are to persuade the people of Scotland that independence is the way to go we must do better, possibly much better, than Unionist governments that have gone before.

The final bill for the two ferries currently still languishing in the Port Glasgow yard is possibly heading somewhere towards £400m. That is almost £80 for every person living in Scotland.

READ MORE: Sovereignty will be the key to unlocking Scotland's independent future

It is more than the inflation-adjusted cost (£300m) of the two famous luxury liners Titanic and Britannic built in Belfast more than 100 years ago. They were also built side by side, but in around three years as opposed to the more than six years which have passed since work began on our current two ferries.

In addition, Scotland’s Auditor General Stephen Boyle has confirmed that the Port Glasgow shipyard has absolutely NO IDEA how some £128.25m of the public money was spent due to poor record-keeping.

The Labour Party may have left us a huge PFI debt but the possible £400m ferry bill will also have to be paid. The hundreds of millions of pounds of over overspend will have to come from other Scottish Government budget headings, including presumably the health service, the police, local government and welfare.

We need to do better than this.

Brian Lawson
Paisley

DOMINIC Raab sure doesn’t mess with Mister In Between! He accentuates the positive (almost all the complaints were dismissed) and eliminates the negative (a cabal of Marxist leftist human-rights-loving activist civil servants conspired against his progressive popular Tory policies, and it’s no fair). Are we really at a stage where doubling down and making up nonsense has become normal practice for failing politicians in this United Kingdom?

Derek Ball
Bearsden

READ MORE: Key points from the report that forced Dominic Raab to resign

MR Raab has, by his resignation letter and BBC interview, shown that the report on his behaviour has been spot on the money. The civil service is the engine of government providing live data and research to guide all ministers through the pros and cons of policies. However, Raab has revealed that any data that doesn’t agree 100% with him is not up for debate and the civil servant who tabled it deserves to be bullied. Such arrogance is what promotes bad policies.

Mike Underwood
Linlithgow

REGARDING Dave McEwan Hill’s contention (Letters, Apr 22) that there are enemies within, I remember the late SNP National Organiser, John McAteer, saying 50 years ago that “as we become more successful we must expect to be infiltrated – and it won’t be the man who sells the raffle tickets”. So, who is the low-life who is leaking videos etc? He, she or they need to be identified and sent packing in their Trojan Horse back where they belong.

Ruth Marr
Stirling

IN response to David White’s letter in the Sunday National, I would also like to add that I donated monies that would have been included in the "missing" amount being investigated. Not only do I want my donations excluded from this investigation but I have recently donated another small amount to the SNP in the last couple of weeks. I am not a member of any political party but I believe that as an independence supporter I should help as much as I can any organisation that works toward the goal of self-determination.

John Vosper
Port Glasgow

I NOTE that former lawyer Stuart McDonald MP has been appointed as SNP treasurer to replace Colin Beattie MSP, who replaced Douglas Chapman MSP, who had in turn replaced Mr Beattie. It is beginning to appear that being an elected member of a parliament is the main qualification required to be SNP national treasurer.

Mr McDonald has around 66,000 constituents to represent in his Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East constituency as well as being the SNP’s Westminster spokesperson for justice and immigration. His parliamentary profile reveals he is also a member of five Westminster committees and nine all-party parliamentary groups. He is vice chair of four of the groups covering such diverse topics as Trafficked Britons in Syria and Choice at End of Life.

READ MORE: Stuart McDonald MP appointed as SNP treasurer

Given the current interest in SNP finances and a hope that there may be, at some point in the not-too-distant future, a final conclusion and a detailed explanation of the many issues raised, it rather begs the question of whether Mr McDonald has the necessary time and even qualifications to juggle all these Westminster jobs and also get to the bottom of the SNP’s complex finances.

If the SNP has indeed 70,000 members, is there no fully qualified charted accountant, perhaps a recently retired one, who could come to the aid of the party? Surely what is needed is a fresh, independent face who is not dependent on the SNP itself for his or her principle employment?

Iain Wilson
Stirling