Damned if you do and if you don’t

Sir, – I read with interest yet another ‘SNP bad – unionism is fantastic’ epistle from Jill Stephenson (November 12).

How is it that people moan when our first minister does not meet with the prime minister and then still moan when they do? It’s kind of damned if you do and damned if you don’t.

To make a story from such a meeting is exactly what Jill Stephenson does.

She understandably then goes on to once again paint a completely false picture in order to justify her position, particularly with regard to Scotland following independence.

All the financial arguments she puts forward are somewhat disingenuous to put it mildly.

If we remove the following multi-billionpound vanity projects from a future balance sheet, then what a difference it would make to Scotland – the London sewer project, renovation of the Westminster estate and the House of Commons, multibillion-pound warships, HS2, the failed multi-billionpound military tank project, Trident and Crossrail to name but a few.

Even the cost of maintaining these projects is going to be of an eyewatering magnitude yearon-year.

I would suggest that even someone with the intellectual horsepower of a gnat would see that Ms Stephenson is making spectacularly unfair comparisons.

I know of no other nation which is held back by so many grossly expensive projects.

This United Kingdom Government continues to be in denial over the carnage caused by Brexit and has now maxed out the credit card.

We will now struggle to service our multi-trillionpound debt far less repay it.

There would be no Barnett formula holding us back and we could properly fund education, health and the police in Scotland.

There are heroes working their socks off who are being held back by a lack of funding.

Scotland needs to free itself from these shackles at the earliest opportunity. Stewart Falconer. Glenisla View,

Alyth.

Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.