WHEN the Tories’ Scottish branch manager, Tweedledunce Dross, claims the SNP have crashed the case for independence, doesn’t he prove he lives in a parallel universe and has no understanding of Scots’ desire for independence from the Conservative and Unionist “God” awful party he prostrates himself to?

While the SNP are an important part of the drive for our regaining independence, they are by no means the only, nor even the most important part of the cause. Fifty years ago (incidentally, the last time we supported Dross’s party in any number), indy was being pushed by a few lone but dedicated SNP voices. They were largely disregarded, but history records how they bravely took up the cudgel and laid the ground for where we are today.

What Dross fails to recognise is how times are different. The SNP remain a valued partner in the cause, but they are by no means the only, or even main driver for indy. That is now the domain of the exponentially increasing grassroots movement, which is now comprised of many organisations like Business for Scotland, Salvo, Yes campaign Scotland, All Under One Banner (AUOB) and others – too many to mention here – and not least this National newspaper, which is a rallying beacon in the fight to win democratic justice for we Scots.

Dross and his erstwhile red Tory partner Tweedletwee Sarwar, the English red Tories’ current branch manager, fail to understand the real reason Scots demand independence is because we’re embarrassed at the policies successive Westminster governments of either Tory colour have inflicted on us, despite us not voting for them.

If they understood the Scottish ethos, they would also understand how we detest government using the courts to stop workers exercising their right to withdraw their labour to get a fair pay deal. We deplore driving the poor and working poor to depend on the charity of food banks to feed families. We detest energy prices being hiked while energy company profits are going through the roof, boosted by government handing out taxpayers’ money to directly bolster their bottom line.

We are ashamed of a government that breaches human rights with asylum refugees and even our existing citizens across the board. We are angry that we are lied to by being told we’re partners in the UK union, but not enough to to leave it, as the Tories did with EU membership by Brexit; a fundamental breach of the human rights of those living in Scotland.

Thirteen years of austerity, the system reining back our living standards with pay restraint, profits maintained and increased through inordinate and opportunistic price inflation, tax breaks for the wealthy, public service workers poorly paid and working in financially restrained services, child poverty increasing, pensions and benefits restrained and the gap between rich and poor in this sixth largest economy in the world a disgrace any government would be ashamed of. But no shame by these two political pixies, and the self-serving, anti-democratic parties they serve.

Witnessing the ludicrous and excessive handling of the police search of Sturgeon’s house (to intentionally impart a vision of a crime scene usually reserved for murder suspects), who doubts the political system has “conspired” to take her down? And Murrell? And the SNP?

All to no avail, because the grassroots knows full well that there is an alternative to living under the yoke of the UK union.

And an independent Scotland freed from the residue of the long past and failed empire mantra is the only way forward for the Scottish ethos of fair and equitable governance.
Jim Taylor
Edinburgh

What is going on behind closed doors? Why are the press and media not covering the Prime Minister’s visit to Scotland in full?

It would appear that they have been excluded, begging the question: “Why?” Surely the PM is not camera or press shy!

Those strange happenings are happening at the Scottish Conservative conference in Glasgow and perhaps,

just perhaps, the record of the Conservative government at Westminster justifies this action.

After all, the cost of living crisis we are all living through is as a result of the Conservatives crashing the economy, so perhaps the decision by conference organisers not to expose the PM to the Scottish press and media was taken with good cause!
Catriona C Clark
Banknock