The SNP cannot afford to be any less canny than their opponents

Labour, according to current polling, are likely to achieve a majority, perhaps a landslide victory, with or without the need to reclaim the Scottish seats they lost. However, will a Scottish party retain third place? The main two parties would shed no tears over the demise of the SNP and that in itself might be sufficient reason to vote for them.

If Labour are going to introduce regional initiatives or “levelling up”, with EU regional funding now gone, they will do it anyway and may even be more likely to do so with a sizeable SNP presence.

The Conservatives might not be overly unhappy to lose out this time. After all, they have made a notable contribution to the UK’s continued move to the right, which started seriously in the 1980s. They have also freed ensuing administrations from the shackles of the EU as they would see it.

Faced with uncompromising political intransigence and relentless media negativity, the SNP cannot afford to be any less canny than their opponents. Should they be returned in sufficient numbers, they will be the main, perhaps only, Westminster party advocating progressive politics.

Peter Gorrie
Edinburgh

JUST when you thought the SNP’s kamikaze election campaign could not get any worse, the party’s leader now declares to the world that he is not “comfortable” with the word “national” in the party’s name. He went on to say the term could be “misinterpreted”.

The SNP were founded in 1934 and I suspect changing the name between now and the General Election would not be a wise idea and would not save a single SNP vote – or, more importantly, gain any new ones.

Perhaps, post the election, if he remains as party leader, Humza Yousaf will be looking for suggestions. Perhaps it could become, for example, the Scottish Nice Party. Retaining the letter N would save a little on the rebranding exercise, removing the need to recycle most party posters and badges.

Once a list of suggestions has been produced, the SNP could perhaps hold a ballot of its remaining membership to make a final decision.

Seriously, this kind of political madness is doing nothing to improve the party’s chances of retaining seats in the UK election, which will be upon us in what will seem like a short space of time. The party’s current election strategy, which is aimed at removing the remaining Tory MPs from Westminster while ignoring the obvious threat from Labour, needs a serious and substantial rethink – soon.

Brian Lawson
Paisley

OVER many years I have tried to nudge Unionist friends, workmates, relatives and neighbours towards the idea of Scottish independence. Over the past few years this has become increasingly difficult.

Issues from the CalMac ferries to the never-ending gender recognition saga have made any progress in the conversion process almost impossible. Day after day another SNP, Green or Scottish Government negative issue rears its ugly head in the media. We have now learned that, in response to a freedom of information request, the Scottish Government has admitted that 280 of its 16,435 civil servants are actually registered in England and pay English tax rates.

Post-Covid there has, of course, been an increase in working from home, but the fact that around one in 60 of our government staff are apparently living in a neighbouring country came as a surprise to me.

Scottish-based workers earning more than £28,850 will pay more income tax than counterparts in the rest of the UK because of frozen thresholds and higher rates, with someone earning £50,000 in Scotland paying £1500 more than their equivalent in England.

It would be interesting to know how many of these 280 Scottish civil servants earn over the £28,850 barrier.

John Baird
Largs

IF only there was a way of getting independence fence-sitters, the don’t knows, and Unionist Scots to read the fine words from Stan Grodynski in last Saturday’s lead letter. Then maybe we would have the required majority to take Scotland out of its 1707 Union shackles to become a country, fully in its own right, once again.

The many fault lines of the UK Government picked out by Stan certainly grabbed my attention. Individually, yes, I had noted them all in the past.

But reading them together, like a shopping list, paints a different perspective, one that tells it like it is, and for every reason the Scottish population should be ready to vote positively for independence.

We have other well-laid-out arguments. For example, a Scottish currency for an independent country. We also have a well-thought-out document containing evidence of and for a Scottish constitution. We have further evidence for the reclamation of our Scottish land and countryside of which much is owned by so few.

Further evidence of our history for our independence has been uncovered and documented by the team we know as Salvo, its ancient language being modernised to fit a 21st-century Scotland, through its Claim of Right – now recognised by both parliaments north and south of the Border – that separates Scotland from England.

This is the 10th anniversary year of our first vote for independence, which almost became a reality except for the cruel shenanigans of the Westminster government. Can Scotland complete what was stolen from it 10 years ago?

Can those people responsible for all that information mentioned above complete their endeavour to collectively create the road to a successful Claim of Right for Scotland? I, for one, bloody well hope so!

Alan Magnus-Bennett
Fife

WHY did Mhairi Black fail to turn up and vote for Alba’s self-determination bill? It was good to see such strong opposition from Scotland’s MPs to the UK Government’s Rwanda Bill. It highlights why Scotland needs independence, as it didn’t matter how Scottish MPs voted.

However, can Mhairi Black explain why she turned up to vote against the Rwanda Bill but failed to turn up on the same day to vote with 48 others in favour of Neale Hanvey and Alba’s Self-Determination Bill?

Frank Wood
Port Glasgow

I WOULD encourage anyone who is interested in politics to read chapter ten of Little Dorrit by Charles Dickens. It is titled The Science of Government. It seems little has changed.

Jessma Carter
via email