ANDREW Marr has spent too long in the metropolitan bubble to understand what is actually happening in Scotland ("Marr warns of Anglophobia risks in referendum run-up", The Herald, August 17).
Supporters of independence in Scotland aren't hostile to English people but they do want to escape from a jingoistic, aggressive British state which acts for the privileged.
Scotland has shown in the areas already devolved that it makes significantly different choices from Westminster and that includes the Blair/Brown governments. On the ideological spectrum, our decisions have been solidly social democratic and socially liberal. The gulf keeps increasing to the extent that we are now different political societies. What drives independence supporters is certainly not anti-Englishness but the desire to extend Scotland's political values to the other areas of state power.
To try to compare the xenophobic, right-wing, racist Ukip to the outward-looking, egalitarian, civic independence movement supported by SNP, Greens, Socialists and many not involved in parties was a disgrace. Andrew Marr should apologise for equating them. He referred critically to the young people who demonstrated against Nigel Farage. I know some of them. It is ridiculous to suggest that they are anti-English; they are the same young leftists who organise anti-racist demonstrations. To tell Mr Farage to go home is fortunately a sentiment with which the great majority of people in Scotland agree.
There is nastiness in the referendum debate, but if Andrew Marr cares to do some homework and compares the material that has come over the past year from Better Together with that from Yes Scotland, he will see where the balance of nastiness has come from.
Isobel Lindsay,
9 Knocklea Place, Biggar.
I AM surprised and disappointed that such an experienced and well-respected journalist and broadcaster as Andrew Marr should have raised the subject of Anglophobia while promoting his book at the Edinburgh Book Festival. It looks as if the Scots-born Mr Marr has "gone native", having spent too much of his working life in the bubble of the London media village, where the scribes and broadcasters constantly reveal a complete misunderstanding of what the independence debate is about.
Wishing to achieve independence and regain control of our own nation's destiny has nothing at all to do with hatred or dislike of England or the English.
Such Anglophobia barely exists in Scotland and is playing no part in the campaign north of the Border.
In fact, we already have a close affinity and a great deal in common with the millions of English citizens in the north-east and north-west of England, and perhaps also the south-west, who share the same frustration about the lack of knowledge or interest in their areas shown by the London-based metropolitan establishment.
However, unlike our nearest neighbours across the Border, we in Scotland are fortunate to have a chance next year to escape from this situation.
We can end the rule of a parliament and government in which we have less than a 10% representation, and whose financial, economic and social policies seem more tailored to meet the needs of London and the south-east.
To have that ambition is not being Anglophobic or racist, it is simply being confident that we are capable of running our own affairs and controlling our own nation's destiny.
Iain AD Mann,
7 Kelvin Court,
Glasgow.
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