Hot air alert

Nicola Sturgeon pledges to “restart the debate” on independence (your report, 21 May ). this is yet another meaning less statement designed to placate Ms Sturgeon’s followers and commit her to nothing. Restarting a debate is simply just that, a hopeful way of digging Ms Sturgeon out of the hole she has dug for herself. The Growth Commission report, similarly, will fudge the important issues that lost the SNP the debate the last time. Ms Sturgeon has lost the trust of the voters with the “fracking” court case.

To make Scotland an independent country relies on a huge degree of trust from the electorate. That time has passed and adding in Alex Salmond, who himself misled the country over his “EU legal advice” in the 2014 referendum, just compounds the issue. Expect a lot of hot air to be generated, but little else. (DR) GERALD EDWARDS

Broom Road, Glasgow If, as reported, the SNP’S plans for an independent Scotland includes the creation of a Scottish currency, two problems follow. The first is how to ensure Scots will have confidence in this new currency so that they will exchange their pounds sterling for it and shop online with it, and not in England in GBP. The second is how the SNP can square their enthusiasm for the EU with the creation of a new currency given that all new applicants for the EU have to adopt the euro as a requirement of joining. The first problem could be ameliorated if the SNP government backed its currency with new oil discoveries and onshore gas, of which we have large reserves, and created a favourable exchange rate for the Scottish currency.

This would require a volte face on the SNP’S ideological opposition to fossil fuels, which power the world. The second problem would require a volte face of their enthusiasm for the EU, which would actually sit easily with the idea of true independence, because as a member of theeu 60 per cent of our laws would be decided by a foreign power.

WILLIAM LONESKIE Justice Park, Oxton, Lauder

Scottish Borders