No understanding

SNP Finance Minister Derek Mackay got a furious reception last Friday when he met Aberdeen City and Shire business leaders who are leading a campaign seeking relief from scandalous hikes in business rates, some over 200 per cent.

The SNP also trundled out that great business expert, Lanarkshire SNP MSP Christine Mckelvie, whose killer argument was that one of the leaders, Score Group, were “Tory Cronies” who had funded Better Together.

Clearly she and Mr Mackay don’t understand the growing fury at the SNP up here, or that local employers are neither afraid to speak out in public, nor to their workers, most of whom they know by name and work beside. Ms Mckelvie’s, and Mr Mackay’s “on-high”comments, devoid of local knowledge or empathy, will be another nail in the coffin of some decent local SNP councillors’ careers in May, and of the short, cynical reign of the “Team Sturgeon” junta in Holyrood. Especially if the public bodies, qangoes and governmentcontract-dependent businesses in the Central Belt start to speak out too. ALLAN SUTHERLAND Willow Row, Stonehaven Nicola Sturgeon said she would represent all the people in Scotland, whether they voted Yes or No in the Indyref. If this is so, then surely a proportion of her MPS in London will be instructed to vote yes (or abstain) in the vote on the Bill to trigger Article 50, which would then clearly represent those Scots who voted to leave European Union. ELIZABETH HANDS

Etna Court Armadale, West Lothian