A majority of us can count, First Minister

WE have become accustomed to annual shifts in the grades and pass marks for Highers exams. In 2015, the pass mark for Higher Maths was notoriously reduced to 34 per cent.

Something similar seems to be happening in our national politics. In 2016, Nicola Sturgeon is recorded as having said that there should not be another separation referendum until it was clear that a majority of people in Scotland wanted independence.

‘It would have to be a majority of the people of Scotland’, she said.

Last Thursday, Miss Sturgeon’s separatist party won 45 per cent of the vote in the general election.

Immediately, Miss Sturgeon demanded a new referendum, based on her alleged mandate. Has the SNP’s definition of ‘majority’ been reduced to 45 per cent?

JILL STEPHENSON, Edinburgh.

SO, judging by her post-election Indyref 2 rhetoric, Nicola Sturgeon doesn’t plan any time soon to respect the democratic will of the 55 per cent of Scots who, last Thursday, didn’t vote for SNP and their divisive nationalist narrative.

MARTIN REDFERN, Edinburgh.

Give us all a choice!

FOR Nicola Sturgeon to accuse the British Government of not being ‘democratic’ in opposing another Scottish referendum is ridiculous. The debate is not about Scottish independence; it is about breaking up Britain.

The truly ‘democratic’ course of action for the Government would be to allow all stakeholders across the UK to vote on whether they want to end our vibrant 300-year-plus union.

People in Scotland have already said emphatically they want to remain part of the UK. I suspect people elsewhere will say the same. Will Miss Sturgeon support this clearly ‘democratic’ approach?

IAN WOTHERSPOON, Edinburgh.

Necessary reforms

IN HER column, ‘Swinson, the woman betraying women’, Sarah

Vine (Mail) made inaccurate and inflammatory comments about the trans+ community.

The proposed reforms to the Gender Recognition Act (2004) instigated by Theresa May’s administration were shamefully dropped from the Conservative Party’s manifesto, and it is to former Lib Dem leader Jo Swinson’s credit that she was drawing attention to the discrimination and harassment which trans+ people face on a regular basis.

Simplifying the lengthy and sometimes demeaning process of acquiring a gender recognition certificate would emphatically not allow any man to identify as a woman or vice versa.

Gender reassignment is not undertaken on a whim, and official documents such as passports and birth certificates have to be changed before any legal recognition takes place.

It is wholly incorrect to imply that trans+ women are likely to harm other women. If anything, they are more likely to be the victims of abuse. KEELEY-JASMINE CAVENDISH,

London SE21.

Undignified display

I WAS utterly appalled at the crass behaviour of First Minister Nicola Sturgeon on learning that Liberal Democrat leader Jo Swinson had lost her seat in the General Election.

There is admiration for Miss Sturgeon as ‘an impressive leader’ even from those who do not support her party or policies, and even from many people south of the Border. I believe she has now well and truly cancelled out much of that veneration by her undignified and unbecoming conduct on Friday morning. JUDI MARTIn, Maryculter,

Aberdeenshire.

On guard

MALCOLM CLEMESHA suggests that ‘progress’ should be accepted by the striking train guards (Letters). As he isn’t going to lose his job, that is easy to say.

I appreciate the inconvenience being suffered by passengers due to the current rail strikes over this issue, but guards on trains are necessary. Getting rid of them would be a short-sighted action as they do far more than simply shut the doors.

They keep an eye on unattended bags (vital in this day of heightened security concerns); help less able passengers — on at least two occasions, my partially-sighted husband and myself had to move to another platform urgently as it had suddenly been changed, and it was only by the intervention of a kindly guard that we didn’t miss our connection; and they provide hugely helpful on-board advice for the likes of us.

For example, one lovely guard noticed my husband might have problems with the changeover at a main station. He suggested that we got off at an earlier small station to catch a different train (going to the same eventual destination), meaning we would have a seat rather than fighting for one.

The rail companies have a duty of care to their customers. Don’t let ‘progress’ come at a heavy price.

Mrs T. Newman, Gloucester.

In the frame

HARVEY WEINSTEIN, seen in public again after some absence, looked very much the broken man: unkempt, expressionless and bent over a walking frame (Mail).

Did he ever consider appearing in any of the films he financed? A talent gone to waste, surely.

TERRY HICKMAN, Southampton, Hants.

New goal

AS EVERYONE who loves football would surely agree, we should be encouraging an attacking game, not using VAR to rule out entertainment in the form of goals by letting them be disallowed for mere fingernails being ahead of the last defender.

The offside laws should be changed so that the goalscorer is regarded as being onside unless there is clear daylight between them and the last defender.

The offside rule was originally brought in, when the game was played purely on an amateur level, to deter blatant cheating by a centre forward.

But it has sadly evolved in the professional era as a way for ultra-defensive teams to strangle the life out of an enjoyable attacking spectacle for the paying audience.

KEN HOBBINS, Birmingham.

A tea’ser

REGARDING the misuse of apostrophes (Letters), a board at a National Trust restaurant in the West Country announced: ‘Tea’s are served from 4pm.’

This was written in chalk and I was able to rub out the aberrant apostrophe. Very satisfying, as was the tea.

BOB WALLACE, Hurstpierpoint, W. Sussex.