Sturgeon’s petty reaction to Swinson losing seat will come back to haunt her

As a former BBC TV Scotland correspondent who reported on the SNP in the early 1980s when independence was as remote as Rockall, I hope that I may be allowed to refer First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to the advice of Winston Churchill: “In victory, magnanimity”.

As the principal of a PR company, I can assure the SNP leader that her fist-shaking glee at the defeat of the only other Scotswoman to have become the leader of a major political party will come back to haunt her.

She can maintain that she was celebrating the success of the SNP candidate and not the political demise of Ms Swinson but she cannot realistically expect the rest of us to believe that.

If Ms Sturgeon is to lead her people to the promised land of independence, she will find things will go better for her if she takes the anti-english edge out of her argument. Tommy and Jock have fought and died together in too many foxholes and trenches over the past 300 years for the ties of comradeship and common British nationality to be severed by rancid rhetoric that seeks to deny the bonds of friendship and common interest that presently bind the union.

No one should forget that whenever Scotland and England have been separate countries in past centuries, it has always – always – ended in blood.

MICHAEL COLE Michaelmas Barn,

Laxfield, Woodbridge, Suffolk

The footage of Nicola Sturgeon pumping her fists euphorically at the news that Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson had lost her seat to the SNP was truly awful.

In the race for the award of the most inappropriate behaviour by any political leader in 2019, it was right up there alongside the pictures of Jacob Rees-mogg draping his gangling legs across the benches in the Houses of Parliament – eyes firmly closed as if asleep.

It is true that the First Minister

later issued an apology with a thoughtful assessment of the situation, but it should serve to remind her that actions have consequences and that she would be welladvised to think carefully before she acts.

This is relevant also to her headlong push for a second independence referendum. The SNP got 45 per cent of the votes in the recent general election – exactly the same as the margin by which the last independence referendum was lost. The latest Panelbase poll of Scottish voters carried out between 3 December and 6 December showed a majority still opposed to independence by a margin of 53 per cent to 47 per cent. So the logic of the claim that she has a mandate for a second referendum escapes me.

She should pause and reflect on the inescapable fact that referendums have consequences that extend far beyond the results. Has she forgotten the dreadful, heartrending divisions stoked up by the last independence campaign?

So, instead of pursuing this ill-conceived ideological dream, it would be far preferable to concentrate on providing more effective leadership and oversight to the Scottish Parliament. Perhaps she should ask herself how it could possibly happen on her watch that the two latest NHS hospitals to be built in Scotland are both unfit for purpose, and in the case of the new Royal Hospital for Sick Children, wasting many millions of taxpayer’s money with the building lying idle?

The apportionment of blame will take months if not years to ascertain, but the responsibility surely lies ultimately with our leader – the First Minister.

So, please, concentrate on the day job. Unless and until it can be shown that a consistent majority of the people in Scotland are in favour of holding a second referendum, and/or in favour of independence itself, the case for a second referendum has no merit – no matter how loud the rhetoric. RICHARD HALLIWELL Ainslie Place, Edinburgh