RUTH Marr (Letters, January 28) bridles at the suggestion that she and other continuing Yes campaigners inhabit a "parallel universe".
I suppose it depends on the perspective of the observer.
In the universe which most of us inhabit words have defined meanings and facts and evidence govern beliefs and actions.
For example: in the normal universe there is a system called "democracy". In a democracy you have a campaign followed by a vote of the electorate. The votes are counted and the party or proposition which garners the most votes is the winner. The other party, accepting the will of the electorate, concedes and goes off for a rethink.
In the continuing Yes universe you also have a system called democracy, but in this case the vote is counted and, if you don't get the most votes, you just ignore the result and claim that 45 per cent is a bigger number than 55 per cent, therefore although you lost you actually won. Also, you complain that a newspaper-sponsored headline during the campaign has so misled the voters that 10 per cent changed their minds overnight and voted the "wrong" way so, even though you lost you actually won.
Moreover, you claim that the offending newspaper story is either (a) a solemn promise which has been callously broken or (b) a false promise which was deliberately designed to be meaningless and/or never delivered. In either case, contradictions notwithstanding, you actually won.
I don't know if it is fair to accuse Ms Marr as an individual of inhabiting a parallel universe. I do know that she says what a lot of Nationalists are thinking. And when a group of people can get the understanding of language, facts and logic at 180 degrees to the actuality in the manner of the continuing Yes followers it may not be a parallel universe of logic that they live in, but it certainly has that appearance to the informed observer.
Alex Gallagher,
12 Phillips Avenue, Largs.
IAN Bell writes that the fact the Coalition has held together speaks volumes about decadence and self-interest ("Groundhog day will end bringing the house down", The Herald, January27 ).
Another view would be that it shows commitment, strength of purpose and willingness to compromise and work together.
R Russell Smith,
96 Milton Road, Kilbirnie.
WHILE you are probably right in your assertion that after the forthcoming General Election either David Cameron or Ed Milliband will be the UK's Prime Minister ("All that is clear is that there are 100 days to go to poll", Herald editorial, January 27), I suspect many, if not most of your readers, like myself, are relatively unenthusiastic about either prospect.
In this respect I am reminded of an NP campaign song in the run-up to the October 1974 election in which, in an ironic adaptation of a Simons & Garfunkel chart-topper,the following shameful admission was made:
"I've voted once for both sides now -
For 'Right' and 'Left' and yet somehow
It's their illusions I recall -
I really don't like them at all."
That campaign was a prelude to the SNP's most successful General Election result to date - ith 11 MPs being elected together with 42 other SNP candidates , including myself in the Rutherglen constituency, securing a respectable second place. With the current opinion polls displaying an unprecedented level of SNP support the party has high hopes of at last overtaking that performance, though there are still another three months to go until the election, and as Harold Wilson sagely remarked all these years ago, ""a week is a long time in politics".
Nevertheless, if we are to persuade the Unionist parties to deliver genuine Home Rule as well as full fiscal autonomy, along the lines of their pre-Referendum "Vow" to the Scottish electorate, then we must surely strain every sinew to achieve this objective by returning as many SNP MPs as we possibly can.
Ian O Bayne,
8 Clarence Drive, Glasgow.
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