Letters: Johnson win should be SNP wake-up call

Hugh Kerr (MEP 1994-99), Edinburgh EH3.

WITHIN minutes of the announcement that Boris Johnson had won the Tory leadership battle, our esteemed First Minister was all over the airwaves claiming that the decision must inevitably lead to Scottish independence. But is she right and is it really news? I suspect that, in Nicola Sturgeon's mind, the headline “Seagull steals chip on Largs Prom” is reason enough for independence. Some day we will get a report that Sturgeon has come up with a reason not to have independence. Now that would be worth reporting.

In the meantime let us reflect on the fact that, despite almost 90 years of plotting, the SNP has been unable to deliver a plausible plan that would justify breaking up the UK. Add the fact that “independence”, should it come, would be four times more economically damaging than Brexit (not counting the cultural, personal and historical damage that would accompany such an act of senseless political vandalism). Perhaps the FM would be better employed explaining why she, quite sensibly, opposes the mess that is Brexit but continues, against all the evidence, to promote the total disaster of independence.

Alex Gallagher (Labour Councillor, North Ayrshire), Largs.

FOR the third time in as many years Scotland is saddled with a Prime Minister from a party which the Scottish electorate has consistently rejected at the ballot box, indeed at the last test of public opinion, the EU elections in May, the party of Boris Johnson and Ruth Davidson came fourth in Scotland with just over 11 per cent of the poll; nevertheless, in what is described as democracy, Mr Johnson is hell bent on taking us out of the EU, deal or no deal and against our wishes.

Hercule Poirot would have had no difficulty in detecting beaucoup d'horreur emanating from Brussels as Mr Johnson sails into Downing Street, although it could be argued that it is fitting that it is Mr Johnson who is taking over the Westminster asylum.

Ruth Marr, Stirling.

CONGRATULATIONS, Mr Johnson, you have managed to finally get the keys to No 10. From a registered voter base of 45,775,800 you secured 92,193 votes to blag your way into the top job. The votes cast for you amounted to 0.20 per cent of those registered to vote.

I'm sure the balance of the registered voters are wondering when they will get the opportunity to have their voices heard and wondering when the next General Election will be called. Not much of a mandate to rush us toward a No Deal Brexit and a most uncertain and precarious future, is it?

Anne-Marie Colgan, Bothwell.

IN the TV soap, Dallas, they used an epic plot device, that what had been broadcast for some months was “just a dream”, as a means of changing the narrative. This springs to mind as I read Kirsty Strickland’s piece about Boris Johnson ("Boris Johnson will not be the disaster everyone predicts", The Herald, July 23). Sorry, but I just don’t buy that the man we have watched for the last two decades is just a disguise, and that the “real” Boris Johnson will spring, released from his chaotic “day clothes” into our midst wearing his political superman cape and his Y-fronts on top of his Lycra leggings. Nope, the Johnson we know (and fear) is the real version.

GR Weir, Ochiltree.

I BELIEVE that Michael Gove has to accept considerable responsibility for bringing about Theresa May's Downing Street years, which Alan Roden described as a "bad dream" ("So farewell 'bad dream' May ... hello 'worst nightmare' Boris", The Herald, July 22). But for the Machiavellian touch from Michael Gove in stabbing Boris Johnson in the back at an advanced stage of the Tory Party leadership election in June 2016, Mr Johnson, and not Mrs May, would probably have become Prime Minister. At that time Mr Gove's own ambitions in that regard were unrealised and in 2019 his plans were thwarted when he failed to get on to the ballot paper sent to the Tory party membership.

Mr Roden writes of Mr Johnson, acting as Prime Minister, as being likely to turn out as a frightening ordeal. Would his acting as Prime Minister in the period from 2016 really have been any more horrendous than the performance put in by Theresa May? Having initiated Article 50 without a plan, she succeeded in losing the respect of many of her own party, of a substantial tranche of her own MPs, and of those she had to deal with within the EU. She wasted three years. Her efforts to bounce MPs and the DUP over her deal failed ignominously. Let us all hope that Kirsty Strickland proves to be particularly prescient.

Ian W Thomson, Lenzie.

PHILIP Hammond and fellow plotters, heedless of the social divisiveness of their actions, brazenly announce that they plan to continue undermining the foundations of our society. They remind me of the story of the steam train journey that involved climbing a steep hill to reach the last station on the line. All the way up the driver found he had to struggle hard to keep the train moving – at times only just barely managing to keep it in motion. On reaching the final station the driver told the guard what an unusually difficult task it had been that day to make the top. ''Yes'' said the guard, ''I was so worried I kept the rear brake on all the way up''.

Doug Clark, Currie.

DID anyone else have a sense of irony when watching and listening to Jo Swinson address the Liberal Democrats after winning their leadership contest ("Swinson: I’ll do whatever it takes to stop Brexit", The Herald, July 23)? She was standing in front of a backdrop saying Liberal Democratic party, meanwhile proclaiming that she would do all in her power to reverse the result of a democratic vote of the people of the UK. I understand she is a Unionist.

Anne Kegg, Uddingston.