Searchingforafriend
I have written to your newspaper in the hope someone in Perth would be able to help me to find my friend, we used to work together , in Barnstaple, Devon and very sadly we lost touch.
Her name is Thea Nicoll, although she could have married and changed her name.
I think her parents ran a post office at Almondbank. It would be lovely to hear from her, we used to be such good friends.
If anyone can help me, my email is susbd2@aol.com and my phone number is 01769-573132.
I would love to know how she is and where she is, please get in touch
Sue Boden
There was widespread jubilation as the Scottish elections results were declared, especially by those MSPs who retained their seats and new MSPs.
They were delighted to secure a seat on the gravy train providing huge salaries and gold-plated pensions.
Politicians in Scotland would never be able to command salaries ranging from £64,470 to £157,861 in the real world.
In the year prior to the pandemic £17 million of expenses were claimed. That is an average £131,783 for each MSP.
The Scottish Parliament’s revenue and capital budget increased from £94.6m to £110.6m.
Devolution has been a disaster for taxpayers. Instead of an independence referendum, what about a referendum on MSP numbers and mega-expensive Holyrood?
Clark Cross
SNP victory, the party achieved 47.7 per cent of the constituency vote in these elections, the highest achieved by any party since Labour’s victory in the 1966 UK general election, when it achieved 48 per cent of the vote, including 49.8 per cent in Scotland.
The SNP now holds an amazing 85 per cent of the constituencies in Scotland, smashing the 63 per cent of seats won by Tony Blair in Labour’s 1997 landslide victory.
Let us not forget, Prime Minister David Cameron enacted a referendum on Brexit with a paltry 36.1 per cent of the vote and this was enacted by Boris Johnson with a mere 43.6 per cent of the vote.
The Scottish Parliament now has a proindependence majority (64 SNP MSPs plus eight Greens) matching that of the 2011 election which resulted in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. In that year the SNP achieved 45.4 per cent of the vote on a turnout of just over half the electorate, considerably less than the 64.2 per cent turnout achieved in the 2021 elections.
People can disagree on how the UK Government should respond to demands from a pro-independence majority in the Scottish Parliament, but the partypolitical composition of that majority is of no constitutional significance and shouldn’t in any way influence the decision.
Alex Orr