We should be thankful that it’s a MAD world

Brian Quail’s claims (Letters, 2 December) that the Supreme Court denied the “democratic will of the people”; the very people who emphatically expressed their democratic will on independence a bare eight years ago. This was a “once in a generation” referendum as the SNP’S White Paper stated quite clearly! So be it.

However, Mr Quail goes on to describe our country as a “rogue state”, which is “manifestly criminal” for owning our nuclear deterrent! Well, whoopee for that, I say.

Let me remind him that the Ukraine was a major nuclear power which gave up its nuclear arsenal when given security guarantees by Russia, the USA andtheukunderthebudapest Memorandum of 1994. Now, the army of Russia, its nuclear-armed neighbour, occupies a substantial proportion of its territory and have killed many thousands of their people and destroyed billions of pounds’ worth of infrastructure. This demonstrateswhathappensto nations that give up their nuclear deterrent.

Has Mr Quail been blissfully unaware of Russia's attempts to blackmail us with their nuclear weapons? The only thing preventing them using theirs are ours. This is called “MAD” (Mutually Assured Destruction), meaning that if we get fried by their bombs, they get fried by ours. We know that they know that we know that they don't want that.

Mr Quail is clearly the sort of man who would have given that nice Mr Hitler everything he wanted in 1938. Perhaps he should consider where that would have left us.

ANDREW HN GRAY

Edinburgh