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This morning, I received through the letterbox a miscellany of pre-election pamphlets from all the leading Scottish political parties. The pamphleteers had all included the usual vitriolic castigation of each other by rival parties but one pamphlet from the Conservative and Unionist Party exceeded all others in negativity by giving explicit advice on" How to stop anotherindependence referendum ". The whole focus of their pamphlet was, surprisingly, not why I should vote Conservative but how I should vote in order to prevent another referendum on Scottish independence. I may be naive but I was under the impression a referendum was a means of putting a question to the electorate to establish its opinion on a possibly vexatious or contentious subject and was, in effect, an official opinion poll. It seems strange, even ominous, the Conservatives should be so anxious to prevent such a poll from being held and in the process, to gag public opinion. Are they afraid of the possible result?
During the recent televised debate on the forthcoming elections, and participated in by nearly all the leading parties, the Conservative leader Douglas Ross quite cynically avoided answering any questions on any subject whatsoever without turning the question around to the matter of the SNP'S promise to hold a referendum. He did this so often and with such persistence that eventually, all the other participants, as one, rounded on him and demanded he answered at least one question without deviation. In all my life, I have never seen such a display of unanimity among politicians!
Nicola Sturgeon has frequently been criticised for "banging on about independence" but I suggest that if the Conservatives persist in "banging on" about stopping the referendum, they will only gain a reputation for trying to undermine democracy in this country to an even greater degree than has Vladimir Putin in Russia and in the process, they could bring about the break-up of the United Kingdom more speedily than the SNP could ever hope to do.
ROBIN WHIKE Craigmount Park, Edinburgh