Rubbish rhetoric

SNP depute leader, Keith Brown trots out Nicola Sturgeon’s old favourite that parties and politicians opposed to independence are “running scared” of it.

Really? That’s like saying the SNP establishment is frightened by the UK – they’re presumably not; rather, their principle focus is to break it up. Mr Brown believes the SNP are the “only adults in the room”, though the majority of Scottish voters seem unimpressed by his party’s repetitive childish demand of “I want, I want, I want another referendum”.

Ahead of his party’s conference, Mr Brown needs to dream up some better rhetoric if he’s going to get a decent round of applause next week.

MARTIN REDFERN Woodcroft Road, Edinburgh

Speaking ahead of her long promised update on a second independence referendum, Nicola Sturgeon says: “I believe we will win over voters not with deceptively simple assertions, but with an honest assessment of how we overcome challenges, alongside vision, ambition and a clear prospectus for the future.”

That all sounds like an encouraging conversion from the flagrant attempt to mislead the people of Scotland presented ahead of the 2014 referendum, yet the First Minister goes on to say the SNP would “never pursue austerity”. How that commitment is to be kept to whilst creating a new currency and central bank and pursuing necessary spending constraints set out in the SNP’S own Growth Commission report is far from clear.

Sadly, it seems we are to be offered a whole new suite of claims, with rhetoric to

match, so that, for example, when spending is held back, it is not to be called ‘austerity’ but presumably some fancy SNP prescription to make it sound more palatable. KEITH HOWELL

White Moss, West Linton, Peeblesshire