PROFESSOR James Pickett brings trenchant realism to his assessment of post-referendum politics (Letters, October 27).
The 55 per cent of people who voted No did not wish to dismember the UK and render many friends and family as foreigners. They recognised that a currency union without an economic and political union was a recipe for financial and economic chaos. They were not last-minute converts to more devolution. They were British, Unionist and the clear majority of Scots.
What is more intriguing is why, despite the obvious economic disaster that independence would involve, 45 per cent voted Yes. It seems to me that many people come over all oyster-eyed at the mention of "Scotland" yet they cannot articulate Scotland in terms of a distinctive language, culture, traditions and economy. For them, Scotland is defined by a line on a map. The sense of belonging and of "home", that the diaspora might hold, does not matter at all. Crossing the line is what matters : it constitutes treachery. Native Scots having moved elsewhere did not deserve to vote in the referendum, but, oddly, temporarily resident EU foreigners did. This nationalist view is cock-eyed and too often slips into bitterness and Anglophobia.
However, the other nationalist group comprises the public sector professionals, the devotees in the media, academe and the arts, and the client state of that washed-up creed, socialism. Driven by a toxic mixture of moral superiority, sanctimony and pure self-interest, they have a peculiar obsession with income redistribution as "equality". They refuse to accept any economic fact that contradicts their cherished views: it is so much easier for their fevered minds to invoke "project fear", victimhood and a capitalist ruling class conspiracy. For these people an independent Scotland is their last chance of a socialist society.
They portray the UK as a wickedly unfair society from which only independence can deliver Scotland. But recent research papers published independently by the Insititut Molinari in Brussels, by the Julius Baer Bank, and by Credit Suisse (the Worldwide wealth report) confirm two things.
First, among the developed nations, the UK, owing to its high level of private home ownership and widely distributed capital ownership, is one of the least unequal societies, far less so than the United States, and those paragons of leftist virtue, Sweden, Denmark, France, Germany, Finland and the Netherlands. The second finding, which is devastating for nationalists and others on the Left, is that high levels of taxation and the big state do not correlate positively with more equal and more happy societies.
The Left across the UK to a greater or lesser extent cling to the views considered above, but in England, Wales and Northern Ireland they are not so misguided nor so atrophied as here in Scotland that they believe dismembering the UK is the solution to their problems.
Richard Mowbray,
14 Ancaster Drive,
Glasgow.
PROFESSOR James Pickett perpetuates two myths. First, that the recent referendum was "decisive" when in reality a margin of 11 votes to 9 after an unprecedented sustained state-sponsored campaign of misinformation, deceits and intimidation was hardly a ringing endorsement for the Britnat status quo.
Secondly, the nonsense that Scotland is in receipt of a subsidy from rUK. Any excess of Scottish expenditure over total Scottish income is a deficit covered by borrowing. The good professor has perhaps overlooked that the UK as a whole borrows. On a population share "Scottish" borrowing more than covers any Scottish deficit since the inception of the Barnett formula, ergo Scotland is not and never has been subsidised by rUK over any reasonable time frame.
Incidentally, as far as the London "surplus" is concerned, having a company head office located in London does not mean income is generated in London and its tax receipts are therefore wildly flattering. Also, in the pathetic accounting carried out by the UK, Scotland is allocated a share of expenditure on such obviously Scottish things as London sewers and transport infrastructure. An "investment" not a "subsidy", apparently.
I dare say many elderly feel patriotic about the Union as the professor suggests. At 64 and a marathon runner I don't feel elderly but that will be my demographic. Yet the sight of Union flag-waving crowds cheering on the young men and women returning from the latest ghastly deployment of dubious legality against Islamist insurgents in a futile effort to impose democracy is shameful rather than patriotic.
It will take a reinvigorated post-referendum SNP and wider Yes movement to persuade just 1 in 11 No voters plus a few more to reconsider and change sides at the next referendum and the people of Scotland will take responsibility for their future.
With the corruption at the heart of Westminster and the Union exposed with each passing day converts in sufficient numbers should be quite easy to find.
Clive B Scott,
11 Hillhead Drive, Falkirk.
BOB Holman's desire ("It is time our Scottish Labour MPs showed their true radical mettle", Agenda, The Herald, October 28) to see the reversal of the decline of working-class Scottish Labour MPs flies in the face of the suggestion contained in your front-page lead article ("Frontrunner Murphy set to launch leadership campaign", The Herald, October 28) that Kezia Dugdale and Jenny Marra are possible candidates for the deputy leadership of the Scottish Labour Party in the wake of Johann Lamont's resignation (and with a view to later leadership presumably).
According to the curricula vitae of those two women given in The Herald ("Race for top Labour job … and credentials of candidates", The Herald, October 27) both are career politicians (graduates in law and history respectively followed by junior unelected political roles before election); hardly working-class, either of them, by any realistic interpretation of that term.
Darrell Desbrow,
Overholm, Dalbeattie.
I READ with interest Iain Macwhirter's column ("Murphy is good news and bad news for his party", The Herald, October 28). The fact remains that if a Trident nuclear supporter, Iraq War defender, NHS market reformer, and proponent of a Westminster-driven Labour Party is the frontrunner to lead the Scottish party then it begs the question: what is Scottish Labour for? Time to fold the tent if he is elected as leader and come clean. Scottish Labour no more. Welcome the Labour and Unionist Party of the United Kingdom.
Roddy MacDonald,
I Glenmount Place,
Ayr.
DO the churches plan any palliative services to heal the many wounds in the Scottish Labour Party following its civil war?
John Patton,
50 Fir Park, Tillicoultry.
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