Do the time warp

Recently, within my late father’s memorabilia, I came across a letter published in The Scotsman on 27 November 1976 in support of the Scotland is British Campaign aimed against the then proposed devolution bill.

This campaign was unsuccessful and we now live with the consequences. In the intervening 40 years there have been many global and truly significant “material changes” with far greater consequences, for all of mankind, than Scottish independence but it seems to me there have been some constants throughout this period: the continued waste of parliamentary time discussing the SNP’S sole mission and their inability to develop any meaningful or coherent answers to any of the basic issues relating to the running of an independent country they yearn so much to do, such as currency, banking, economy, border control, trade with the rest of the UK, fishery protection, education, health, etc, etc.

I wonder if any of your learned readers can offer a reasoned and supportable estimate of how much time and therefore cost, and also other overheads and pension contributions, that have been incurred pursuing the current FM’S pet project inherited from her predecessors.

It is clearly a nonsense to succumb to an opportunistic indyref2 during these uncertain times of Brexit and all that goes with that. To paraphrase my father from his letter of 40 years ago – “This parliamentary time would be better used attending to the nation’s economic and other ills”. Or in modern parlance – get on with the day job for which you were elected.

Forty years of empty, costly SNP noise …

AL MACNIE Craighall Terrace, Edinburgh