Whittle’s Team GB is all too often Team England

Topic of the week: sport in an independent Scotland

IN the feature on Brian Whittle (From Olympian to Tory MSP via a gagging order from Bill Clinton, People Behind The Power, April 23), he suggests that Scottish sports will be much more successful as part of Team GB than in an independent Scotland.

The article also recalls the part he played in winning a Team GB gold medal in the four x 400 metres relay at the 1986 European Championships, where he ran the third leg of the race wearing only one shoe. I lived in the northwest of England at the time.

The headline in the sports pages of the Manchester Evening News was “England sock it to them”. Still, things have moved on since then. Or have they? Sadly, many in our media cannot differentiate between Team GB and Team England. Douglas Morton Lanark

AS a younger man and, as most were, interested in the pastime that is sport, I followed Brian Whittle’s athletics career with pleasure. Now that Whittle is a Tory MSP it becomes clear that sport does not provide all the benefits that I once imagined. My disappointment at his opposition to Scotland’s natural right to Scottish independence was deepened by his reasoning.

“I’m absolutely opposed to Scottish independence. Think of my background, a Great Britain athlete,” he says. “We can talk about benefits of being in the UK and I’d really like us to talk about the benefits, but in terms of is it central to what I do? Absolutely not.”

He expresses admirable concern for PE in Scottish schools, obesity and mental health issues. These issues, as he points out, can be traced back to “the mid-1980s”. Yes – the mid-1980s when we were ruled totally from Westminster.

Does Whittle have an opinion on the state of health, physical and mental, lack of resources for schools throughout the UK? And can he tell us what the effects of Westminster-imposed austerity is having on the issues? After all he is a politician, “accidental” or otherwise. Can he not envisage an independent Scotland, concerned with people, not posturing, attacking these problems? Whittle, who I’m sure was proud to run for Britain, may consider – and he should know better than most – that 25 per cent of Britain’s medals won at the last Olympics, were won by Scots. Not bad for that 8.4 per cent of the population whose sport would “sink massively” if living in an independent country!

This is the best reason for an overhaul of the voting system for Holyrood that I’ve read. The “list” system must go. Bill McLean Dunfermline