Political amnesia?

Brian Wilson in his Scottish Perspective column on Saturday once again demonstrates his selective amnesia when he writes that the fall of Jim Callaghan’s Labour Government in 1979 was the fault of the SNP when, in fact, he, Brian Wilson, was an enthusiastic part of the group which split the Labour Party, causing its downfall to let in the Thatcher Tories.

In 1979 the Labour Party, with no majority and desperate to hold on to power, promised the SNP that they would introduce a devolution bill for Scotland in return for their support.

However, George Cunningham, a Labour backbencher, persuaded the government to add an amendment to the bill so that it would fail if less than 40 per cent of the electorate voted for it.

Brian Wilson was the most enthusiastic supporter of the amendment to the extent of being chairman of the “Labour Vote No” campaign, which actively campaigned against his own party, which was pro-devolution.

This requirement had never been required in any previous vote in the UK, and, although a majority of the electorate voted for devolution, the bill was deemed to have failed because of the 40 per cent rule.

The SNP, having trusted the Labour Party, were now completely disillusioned and voted against them in a no confidence vote and so the Labour

Government fell. If Brian Wilson and his gang had supported their own party’s proposal then the vote of confidence would never have happened in 1979 and Jim Callaghan would have remained in power.

The responsibility for his fall and the subsequent victory of

the Tories was all the fault of Brian Wilson’s campaign, although he has always tried to blame the SNP and dodge his own culpability.

Now, in the same article, he has the brass neck to blame the SNP for the risk of a nodeal Brexit when over 100

Tories and almost all the Labour Party voted against Theresa May’s deal.

His mantra is always to blame the SNP for anything bad that happens.

JAMES DUNCAN

Rattray Grove, Edinburgh

Once more Brian Wilson is spot-on. Forty years ago, in an act of political hara-kiri unsurpassed before or since, the SNP MPS at Westminster propelled Margaret Thatcher into power. They, like the present contingent, claimed that they were “fighting for Scotland’’ when in fact they were blindly self-indulgent to the point of losing any connection with reality. In typical fashion they then blamed what followed on those who did not vote them.

It is gut-wrenching for those who remember to see exactly the same happening over Brexit. We should know by now that Brexit or Margaret Thatcher or anything else has no meaning or significance to the SNP other than in what way they perceive it as helping their chances of the only thing that has any meaning or worth to them – the breaking-up of the UK. The hypocrisy is eyewatering. ALEXANDER MCKAY New Cut Rigg, Edinburgh