If rumours are true that Liz Truss is considering a law that 50% – 2.1million – of Scotland’s 4.3m registered voters have to vote in favour of leaving the UK, that would be a major step forward. We need to learn from Brexit and the 2014 referendum that not only do we need a better informed and fact-checked debate, we also need a result that people on all sides can accept, and move on. Based on the 2014 turnout of 84.5%, the new rules would require a 60/40% Leave vote on the day – a result that I, for one, would respect. Allan Sutherland, Stonehaven.
Nicola Sturgeon really ought to welcome any changes to the rules on referendums because it would let her off the self-imposed hook she is on. Currently, Ms Sturgeon is at great risk of having her premature call for Indyref2 on October 19, 2023, falling flat on its face. This will be certainly damaging to her but potentially far worse. Ms Sturgeon, however, is still digging a pit for herself and her party, as it was the SNP who insisted the voting-age rules be changed in the 2014 referendum to be brought down from 18 to 16. She didn’t complain then when this was approved, did she? Dr Gerald Edwards, Glasgow.
You really couldn’t make it up. Not only have the much-needed new ferries for western Scottish islands been delayed – with the Glen Sannox spuriously and prematurely “launched” by Nicola Sturgeon in 2017, but now scheduled to have its maiden voyage in 2023- but it has turned out that it and its equally delayed counterpart. Hull 801 cannot be accommodated by ports such as Ardrossan, for whose adaptation the contract has yet to be put out to tender. This is a fable for our times, a sorry commentary on the stewardship of Scotland and its essential, devolved affairs by the SNP administration. I’d like to say that at least they can’t blame Westminster for this, but you can bet they will have a jolly good try. Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh.
Sir, – There are at least three things we can take offence at regarding Nicola Sturgeon’s series of chat shows at the Edinburgh Fringe, in particular her indulgent nationalist back-slapping with Brian Cox One, of course, is the rubbish piling up outside, which you might think would be her priority consideration given the impression it gives people of our capital. She appears not to be interested. The second is the suggestion by Brian Cox that people in Scotland are culturally different from others in the UK, by which he means England. Ms Sturgeon was nodding away in the background. I consulted my atlas of Scottish surnames and Cox does not figure at all. An online search tells me it is mostly English or Welsh in origin, but that it could be Irish or Scottish that has been anglicised. Ironically for a political activist like Mr Cox, the first record of the name was in the 1500s at Westminster in London. It is also the 69th most common surname in the UK so, culturally, it seems Mr Cox has more in common than he might like to admit to with those people he wants to distance himself from. Did I mention he is already 3,000 miles distant living in the USA – is the Scottish climate not suiting him? We already knew about Nicola’s granny coming from the north-east of England, but apparently, Sturgeon is a Norman name, the first mention of which is as Lords of the Manor of Whepstead in Suffolk, a title given to her ancestor Ralph after 1066. So, not just English but thoroughly aristocratic and establishment in the south of England and with the Battle of Hastings featuring more prominently than Bannockburn. One can speculate that the Sturgeons may well have been on the English side at Bannockburn. Herein lies the danger of talking about cultural differences while lacking in self-awareness about such possibilities. The final point made was that, apparently, we are lacking the confidence to be independent in Scotland. There is a back history to this. In the 1990s, Jim Sillars called us “90-minute patriots”, essentially a calculated insult borne out of frustration at their political failures at the time. Then we have the “too wee, too poor, too stupid” line, supposedly coined by that nice Mr Swinney. This is another insult, essentially meaning “are you too wee and stupid to accept our political analysis?” The “lack of confidence” comment suggests to me that they feel their cause is going nowhere again and that they are striking out in frustration. There is much speculation at present about Ms Sturgeon’s future, but like Mr Salmond, that future seems simply to be reciting their old lines to the small proportion of the faithful who will pay to listen. You can’t make progress with the wider population by insulting people. Victor Clements. Mamie’s Cottage, Aberfeldy.
Sir, – I refer to Derek Healey’s article in The Courier (September 5) on the SNP forecasting “disaster” for Liz Truss’s premiership But what else to expect from Nicola Sturgeon who rules the SNP with an iron rod and brooks no dissent from her policies and actions, while at the same time failing miserably to deliver what Scotland needs going forward. She is a mistress of obfuscation and self-promotion and needs to be confronted by a PM who is less polite and condescending as was Boris Johnson. It’s high time that we had a profound change in the leadership of the devolved assembly at Holyrood. Derek Farmer. Knightsward Farm, Anstruther.