Huge potential

As someone with a background in business and finance I approached the Scottish Growth Commission’s report with an objective mind. It’s certainly a detailed analysis of Scotland’s considerable resources, innovation, hi-tech, services, oil, gas, renewables, food, drink, tourism sectors etc, addressing the gender pay gap, excessive inequality and social injustice.

The constitutional framework has changed since 2014. Brexit means there’s no status quo, Scotland will be dragged out of Europe and a single market nine times larger than the UK market, stuck in an isolationist UK. The LSE estimated Scotland will be £30 billion worse off and BOE identified incomes will be £900 a year less after Brexit. The report sets out sensible immigration policies specifically catering for Scotland’s needs, a must in order to ensure improvements in productivity that will boost growth rates and address demographic changes. The economic potential of an independent Scotland is huge.

B GRIFFITHS Llain y Capel, Denbigh

Denbighshire, Wales Marcus Aurelius advocated a stoical response to the stupidity that one is likely to encounter each day. But when we read an example of stupidity such as the promotion of a Scottish pound outwith the currency union and the authoritative reassurance by that exemplar of European statespersonship Nicola Sturgeon that such an adoption wouldn’t “put us in the same position as Panama”, then I fear that the self-possession of even a Roman emperor is inadequate to deal with the current culture of inanity and ineptitude permeating Holyrood under the weasel words “progressive policies” and “Scottish values”.

DUNCAN MCARA Viewfield Avenue, Bishopbriggs Nicola Sturgeon led the 2014 campaign for Scottish independence. She lost but Alex Salmond resigned. In March 2017, she raised the spectre of Indyref2. Her second gamble failed and she has been playing the grievance card since.

The challenge for the new SNP administration in 2007 was to show that they could govern. In 2018, the answer is clear. They can’t.

Health, transport, the economy, schools, roads, banks, police. Everywhere you look, the lustre of gold has turned into base metal after 11 years of SNP rule. The SNP have no clear vision for an independent Scotland. They didn’t in the 2014 White Paper – Scotland’s Future. They don’t in the 2018 Growth Commission Report.

An independent Scotland must be out of the EU. An independent Scotland must have its own currency with interest rates set by the Central Bank of Scotland.

Tourism is our major industry. The Seychelles, with a population of 94,000, has more five star resorts than all of Scotland. We need investment in hotels and visitor attractions, not £1.35 million bridges to nowhere.

We need a high-speed rail link between Glasgow and Edinburgh. We need multiple banks serving the needs of rural communities. We need a health service free of box tickers and paper pushers, where trained professionals can do their jobs. We need schools where teachers decide what to teach, not the central bureaucracy. We need an economy that supports the private sector, not the bloated salaries and pension pots of politicians and bureaucrats. We need potholes filled and speed bumps removed.we need a Scotland ready for the 21st century. Not a Scotland fighting the grievance politics of the last century.

JOHN BLACK The Scottish Jacobite Party Woodhollow House

Helensburgh