Today's reality is that Scotland is the British Empire's last colony

England’s incessant political and military attempts, sometimes successful, sometimes not, to colonise Scotland as a vassal state, had been going on for hundreds of years before Bannockburn – never mind the Plantations of Ireland by English and Scottish protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. In the 1650s, Scotland was “annexed” by the London Cromwellian Government. The English Alien Act in 1705 was outright economic blackmail towards the 1707 union; this was not supported nationally. Opposition was vehement, led by George Lockhart and Andrew Fletcher. There are many more facts missing from Dr Young’s assertion that Scotland has not been treated as colony, including, after Culloden, brutal cultural, economic and social oppression – the infamous Clearances – and so on.

However, without the space and word count of your Big Read, to demolish Dr Young’s insidious appeal to ignore reality, all we have to do is jump to the modern history of two thriving ex-colonies, Ireland and India, and their struggle against the ruthless, cynical, asset-stripping, “divide and rule” tactics of that insatiable empire, determined without moral limitation to retain global power and rapacious wealth.

For Dr Young’s information, the last colony – Scotland – has been living through those very same tactics ever since we terrified Westminster’s rotten dregs of empire by daring to come close to independence in 2014.

And the whole truth of that – asset-stripping, demoralisation, divide and rule, attacks on leaders, constitutional corruption and manipulation – continues on a daily basis, starkly, within all of our lives.

That modern reality of Scotland as the last colony also lies in front of Dr Young but only if he cares to look for the whole truth.

Frances McKie, Evanton.

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Scots were not willing partners

I WAS familiar with the events discussed by Dr John Young. I agree we must own up to our involvement with various times in history that are not squeaky clean. However, I don’t quite agree with his interpretation that Scotland was a willing participant in the Union.

A few wealthy individuals signing away a sovereignty of a nation in a cellar in Edinburgh for greed and power, while ordinary people protest and riot outside, does not have the look of a equal arrangement. I seem to recall Burns: “Bought and sold for English gold; such a parcel of rouges in a nation”.

V Nelson, Edinburgh.

Working-class views as valid as any

 I AGREE with Dr John Young that we need histories of Scotland “warts and all” as it were. I am fully with him when he says “to fully understand modern day Scotland and how it developed, we need to understand the Ulster connection” but am perplexed by what prefaces that reasonable proposition, “it’s just history, but someone out there living in a backroom in Forfar in a kilt is going to say ‘that’s not true, you’re a traitor’.”

Why target imaginary foes for living in poor housing? Why single out Forfar? Why does wearing a kilt invalidate someone's position? Well, ok, I'll give him the kilt-wearing thing (no good ever came from that) but why might living in superior housing in Glasgow's West End or Edinburgh's New Town mean that someone’s view is (at least potentially) valid?

Should the views of a betrousered person in the front room of a council house in Glenrothes or a sitooterie in Thurso be dismissed so peremptorily?

Brian Dempsey, Dundee.

Read more: Scottish History: Ulster colonies' past being ignored, says expert

Doctors blow for Yousaf

ONLY very recently the First Minister boasted that there had been no doctors’ strikes in Scotland. This was a clear dig at England and the unsaid presumption was that things like that did not happen under his recently-completed spell as Scottish Health Secretary, presumably such was his mastery of the brief.

However, Scotland’s junior doctors must have been kept out of the loop about how wonderful the SNP was at running the Health Service in Scotland as they have just voted to go on an unprecedented strike in July.

When will SNP/Green ministers learn to keep their mouths shut and refrain from bragging and embarrassing themselves while harming the country they continually profess to love?

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh.

Why is Sturgeon treated differently?

HAVING described her as "the most impressive politician in Europe", it's no surprise that "continuity" First Minister Humza Yousaf has refused to suspend Nicola Sturgeon after her arrest and reported seven hours of questioning. But for Nicola Sturgeon, it's very likely that Mr Yousaf would not be in his job given his dismal ministerial record to date.

In the past the SNP has been quick to call for the members of other parties who have been involved in police investigations to stand aside. SNP MP Margaret Ferrier was suspended after she admitted breaking Covid rules, while former SNP MP Michelle Thomson was apparently forced to resign the party whip after being involved in a police investigation which subsequently fizzled out. So why has Nicola Sturgeon not been suspended from the party or had the party whip withdrawn until the police investigation has been concluded?

Bob MacDougall, Kippen.

No reason to thank Gordon Brown

SARAH Pennie (Letters, June 11) refers to the Edinburgh meeting hosted by Gordon Brown's organisation Our Scottish Future, and the contributions from the Labour mayors of Manchester and of West Yorkshire and the Labour First Minister of Wales; jolly decent of them to turn up, but I think Scottish voters can probably come to their own conclusions.

I'm afraid I cannot share Ms Pennie's gratitude to Mr Brown, who after all is in no position to deliver anything for anyone, and I find it somewhat strange that after many years spent in Downing Street first as Chancellor of the Exchequer, then as Prime Minister, he embodied the very form of government he now decries. Perhaps he just didn't notice during all that time that Westminster government doesn't work for Scotland, or perhaps he was too busy signing the cheques that paid for the illegal Iraq war.

Ruth Marr, Stirling.

Read more: Thank goodness for Gordon Brown

We need the Deposit Return Scheme

OTTO Inglis (Letters, June 11) thinks there is no point to the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) as "local councils provide every household in Scotland with a partitioned waste service".

That may apply to his street in Crossgates in Fife, but it doesn't happen everywhere.

I live in an apartment block in Glasgow and although the 200 or so residents do have four tiny recycling bins they are full within days and not collected for at least a month. Much of the overspill ends up in landfill.

As for some glass bottles being used as material for roads what is wrong with that? It's already being done in other parts of the world.

The same with plastic.

Two hundred years ago Scots engineer John Loudon McAdam pioneered the building of roads using crushed stones before bitumen was added to make tarmac.

Now a Scottish firm MacRebur is using plastic bottles and bags, in fact anything plastic, to revolutionise future construction work.

They are saving huge amounts of carbon emissions, and doing their bit to try and ensure we still have a planet.

Andy Stenton, Glasgow.

New uses for old glass

WHOEVER told Otto Inglis that "recycled glass is likely to end up as low-value material used in roads" is a bit confused.

For decades, the glass industry has used cullet (ground glass) to make new glass products as the energy required is a fraction of that needed to make glass from scratch using sand, silica and so on.

For years now, a Scottish company has successfully been turning waste plastic containers into road-making materials.

A significant amount of cullet is generated from bottle banks and the councils' kerbside collection services, the latter also being a major source of used plastic containers.

John F Crawford, Lytham.