SNP is a regional party with no say in Westminster policy
BOTH Iain Macwhirter (“Campaign is turning into a vile witch hunt”, The Herald, March 10) and your correspondent Maggie Jamieson (Letters, March 10) have turned their attention to the question of the possible role of the SNP in participating in a future government of the UK. Surely the democratic principle is simple: that no party should be in government if it is not accountable to the majority of voters.
In this case, the SNP chooses to be a de facto regional party in the UK; so every Scottish voter can vote for Labour and the Tories (and Ukip) but no-one outside Scotland can vote for the Nationalists.
The SNP can therefore only be endorsed or rejected at the ballot box by roughly one in 10 of the electorate, and should not be entertained for any role which would dictate to the Government of the 90 per cent of voters who cannot do so. Peter A Russell, 87 Munro Road, Jordanhill, Glasgow. I NOTE with some bemusement Richard Mowbray’s observations upon the Union and its recent history (Letters, March 10).
“Let us be clear,” he writes, “nationalism is a shameful creed which divides society, families and friends”. Following such a strident comment, he goes on to note: “We are all British, and that transcends the several petty nationalisms of these islands ...” A striking solecism, Mr Mowbray’s comments nonetheless reveal the contradictions at the centre of the mindset underpinning the pro-Union movement.
While Scottish nationalism is “petty” and a “shameful creed”, supported by the “yobbish and feckless”, nationalism based upon a British identity has no such faults. Those who celebrate the kinship of the Scots are traduced; while those who revel in the kinship of Britons are congratulated on their clear thinking and adherence to the rule of law and individual liberty.
It is worth noting that the document cited by Mr Mowbray as foundational for the communal, inclusive Britain he so trumpets – the Magna Carta – was signed almost 500 years before anything approaching what we now understand as the British state came into being; longer, in fact, than it has ever been in existence. Dr Patrick Murray, 9 Sutton Court, Kilwinning. WITH the General Election fast approaching, we voters should think long and hard before casting our votes.
The newspapers are full of conflicting claims and counter arguments from all the political parties. Let us not be too hasty in voting for change.
The UK economy is in very good shape under the present administration compared to most competing economies in the EU and other parts of the world. Do we really believe that the Labour Party would be in a position to maintain the momentum, especially if they were forced into forming a coalition with the SNP to form a government?
We are all aware that Alex Salmond resigned as SNP leader in a fit of pique. I just hope that the voters of Gordon think deeply about the consequences of casting their votes in Salmond’s favour at the General Election.
They should give some thought to his claims before the Scottish Referendum about “Scotland’s oil, Scotland’s gas and Scotland’s selfsufficiency in power supply through the usage of wind turbines”; emphatically just a load of wind.
He decried Sir Ian Wood for daring to suggest caution over future oil incomes. Who turned out to be correct? I hope that common sense will prevail and that the electorate will decide in favour of the status quo, leaving all the speculation created by those with other agendas buried. Robert I G Scott, Northfield, Ceres, Fife. “SEPARATISM” and “nationalism” are the phrase Richard Mowbray loves to employ when referring to those of us (1.6 million) who chose to vote Yes in the referendum last September.
He always goes further, though. “Let us be clear,” he states, “nationalism is a shameful creed which divides society, families and friends.”
He goes on to say that it appeals to the “yobbish and feckless.” He refuses to see that, among those 1.6million, there were people of all political persuasions.
Mr Mowbray is, I suspect, being deliberately provocative. The 1.6million voted for selfdetermination, not any kind of narrow-minded, inward-looking nationalism. That, ironically, is to be found among the little anti-European Brits in the right of the Tory Party and Ukip.
Where Mr Mowbray is spot-on is that there is a sort of nationalism and separatism that can attract the “yobbish”. The evidence of that was seen all too nastily among the Unionist/Loyalists who attacked a group of young Yes supporters in George Square after the referendum.
The vast majority of people I know, whether Unionists or otherwise, do not conflate those who voted for self-determination with nasty nationalism.
Mr Mowbray may not agree with self-determination, but his constant bleating about yobs and nationalism says much more about his own attitudes than those of the people he would seek to denigrate.
Methinks the gentleman doth protest too much. Roger Graham, 23 Cullen Crescent, Inverkip. DID you receive your leaflet from HM Government? Mine came in the morning’s post and what a nice booklet it is; every single picture in it has happy smiling faces and there’s even a picture of a handful of currency being given out.
It listed all of the great changes that will be coming along and some of the things that are too difficult for us in Scotland to handle on our own.
Did you feel patronised, as I did? Our Government tells us most days that “we need to balance the books” and that we live in a time of austerity; even the poor people on welfare are in it together with us and must make a contribution towards the national debt.
How much did this piece of electioneering nonsense cost to put out? I presume it will go to every household in Scotland. Will our UK Government accept the cost of the Scottish people putting out a rebuttal to tell where the big holes and the lack of balance in these changes are?
It is obvious that the basis of this document, the Smith Commission outcome, was a political fudge that is even now unravelling. It has not yet reached a Bill before parliament and, depending on the result in May, it is liable to further change.
The first offering has been selectively watered down but our UK Government felt the need to tell us all the good things it sees in it in the run-up to the election, just in case we forget. DS Blackwood, 1 Douglas Drive East, Helensburgh.