THE SNP will never have more propitious conditions for achieving their main (many would so only), historic aim of Scottish indepen­dence than occurred this week.

With the benefits and privileges of being in government the SNP controlled the legislative timetable. They spent large amounts public money, through publications and other means, on preparing the ground for the referendum. Some would even say that this part of the process involved a not-so-covert politici­sation of parts of the Scottish civil service in the nationalist cause.

With the backing of multi-millionaires and billionaires the SNP had the money to outspend every other party combined, with cash left over to recruit and aid many splinter groups in support of their cause, giving the impression of broad political support for the break-up of the UK where none had existed before.

With the country facing austerity in the short and medium term they had the economic and social conditions to exploit every real and imagined grievance in many sections of society and to promise to address these grievances, safe in the knowledge that a No vote removed the obligation to deliver and a Yes vote was an absolute game-changer, allowing any such promise to be conveniently ditched if too difficult to achieve.

With an unpopular Tory Govern­ment in Westminster they had the perfect scapegoat to blame for every ill. They controlled the question on the ballot paper and they controlled the timetable and the timing of the vote. They chose a long campaign and a date to benefit from the feel-good factor from the Commonwealth Games and to coincide with the publicly-funded celebration of the anniversary of the battle at Bannockburn. They benefited from having the slickest election team and most expensive software to target voters and promise them whatever it took to persuade them to vote Yes.

They had a membership with a lifelong dedication to independence that would, like all single-issue groups, suppress any division within their own ranks and work tirelessly for the cause and in favour of their uniting dream of independence. There has never been, nor ever will be again, such a perfect confluence of factors in favour of the SNP gaining its dream result. Even so, they failed to get a majority. The inescapable fact is that, despite almost every factor being weighted in favour of the Yes campaign, the Scottish people turned out in vast numbers to reject independence.

It is time for the SNP to recognise that they have had their referendum, it was fairly and competently conducted and they lost. Alex Salmond's promise to shelve the constitutional question for a generation is the most sensible response to the expressed will of Scottish voters. No must mean No for a generation.

Alex Gallagher,

12 Phillips Avenue,

Largs.

I AM perhaps not alone in having found the last few days very difficult. I have felt powerless as the near-disastrous No campaign unfolded, yet found myself staring in wonder as the greatest political mobilisation of recent times unfolded on my doorstep, and seeing up close the incredible work of the Yes volunteers.

Watching Gordon Brown's magnificent speech last week was, for me, a release ("Brown's plea: Vote No for the sake of our children", The Herald, September 18). His "permission" granted to us all - permission to be proud of our shared British identity - I found incredibly cathartic.

The Yes campaign had been so effective that I had felt the streets of my own city seemed like a far-away place, belonging to people waving a flag that used to be mine but seemed to now represent something else. I've never been a flag-waver: but being told by the Yes campaign that the state that gave birth to my dad, my wife and my child was to become obsolete - I found that, and the inevitable language of separation, very hard to bear.

So while I applaud our amazing freedoms and democracy - all too often taken for granted - I also feel bruised and battered. And yes, definitely still British.

David McMillan,

5 Westbank Quadrant, Glasgow.