IT is difficult to think of a time when Scotland has been subjected to such a litany of failures by its Government.
On a river, where once were constructed some of the greatest ships ever built, we are, it seems, unable to deliver to completion two little car ferries for the Western Isles.
We have had built a childrenâs hospital costing ÂŁ150 million and a monthly charge of more than ÂŁ1 million which is unable to admit patients.
The new bridge over the Forth was completed on time and within budget only for us to discover it was built on the false prospectus that the existing Forth Road Bridge was nearing the end of its serviceable life, which in fact it was not, and is good for several more decades if appropriately maintained.
We have recently had the ignominy of having the worst rate of drug-related deaths in the world, a direct result of a policy controlled and directed by our government.
Now we learn that the Scottish Government has to pay out more than ÂŁ500,000 for legal expenses to Alex Salmond because of its abject incompetence in dealing with accusations against him ("Government stumps up ÂŁ500k for Salmondâs legal costs", The Herald, August 14).
For none of these things can the Scottish Government blame Brexit, Westminster or the lack of powers.
In case some may think this is purely an attack on the SNP it is not. Let us add to the list of political failure the debacle of our attempts to leave the EU and the consequences of the pension changes introduced by the Westminster Government which have had such damaging effects on patient care in the NHS and other less-publicised areas of our national life.
May I suggest a major reason for this catalogue of failure is those politicians whose energy and passion is consumed by the notion that the answer to our problems is either the simple act of ridding ourselves of the perceived yoke of oppression of the EU or England. The superficial analysis of both the Brexiters and the Scottish Nationalists encourages poor decision-making and wrong priorities, resulting in policy blunders as illustrated above
Roderick W Shaw, Milngavie.
PETER A Russell (Letters, August 14) asserts that âwhen we voted No [in 2014], we knew Brexit was a risk and priced it into our decisionâ, but the reality was more complex and less certain than he describes.
Since John Majorâs premiership a debate had raged in the Conservative Party about the UKâs membership of the EU, which began to crystallise around an âin/out referendumâ. However, received wisdom in 2014 was that at the coming election the following year the Conservatives would not win a majority, which remained the prediction of all the polls even on election day. Therefore, there would have to be a coalition agreement, most likely with the Liberal Democrats, who would never agree to a referendum. Mr Russellâs âriskâ of a referendum was consequently widely perceived as much less than he suggests.
Of course, when David Dimbleby announced the BBCâs exit poll after the 2015 election, everything changed as it forecast a Conservative majority, making the previously considered-implausible EU referendum pretty much a certainty. Scottish voters might have âpriced it into our decisionâ between Yes and No, but we did so at a much lesser level of risk than it turned out to be.
Mr Russelâs subsequent claim, that âthe European Commission in Brussels told us rather than due to any Unionist skullduggery â that to vote Yes was to vote to leave the EU on the same day we would leave the UKâ, is quite wrong.
In fact, the European Commission itself said nothing of the kind because David Cameron as the member stateâs Prime Minister never asked it the question of what Scotlandâs position would be. There were certainly plenty of former and serving senior EU officials who would put forward a view like Mr Russellâs, and indeed even the President of the Commission at the time, Jose Manuel Barrosso did so, but there was never an official Commission pronouncement. There was though a good deal of debate among European law experts around what could happen. For instance, after a Yes vote, when it was clear Scotland would become independent, but before independence was declared, there could have been negotiations for Scotland to continue to have access to the Single Market and the Customs Union, or achieve the same by joining EFTA/EEA and entering the EUâs Customs Union. Mr Russellâs view is therefore much less certain than he implies.
Perhaps though the greatest irony of all is that the quote from Scotlandâs Future with which Mr Russell begins his letter that âa new threat is now emerging: the growing possibility that, if we remain part of the UK, a referendum on future British membership of the EU could see Scotland taken out of the EU against the wishes of the people of Scotland", accurately describes what has happened in the five years since then. Mr Russell may try to misrepresent the level of certainty about an EU referendum and our position with respect to the EU post-independence, but the accuracy of that quote is unassailable.
Alasdair Galloway, Dumbarton.
WHAT a disgraceful letter from Willie MacLean (August 14) in which he compares the "tyranny of our Southern neighbours" to that of "the tyranny of Hitler's Germany".
I'm afraid this kind of insulting hyperbole is not some one-off but alas is present all too often when reading or listening to fundamental nationalists expound their deeply flawed mantra.
As I have written before, history shows that nationalism is a nasty, divisive creed and the Scottish version is no different.
James Martin, Bearsden.
WHEN little (and not so little) children donât get what they want, their reflex is to cry âitâs not fairâ. One grown-up version of this is âitâs not democraticâ â or, in Caroline Lucasâs words about Boris Johnsonâs Cabinet, âa coup led by a small group of right-wing libertariansâ.
The âdemocraticâ alternative proposed by Ms Lucas, the lone Green MP, is her pick of nine white, female Remainer MPs plus Nicola Sturgeon. All these individuals oppose the result of the biggest ever popular vote in UK history, and the manifesto promise on which both the current Government and Opposition, ie, the vast majority of MPs, were elected.
What does ramping up the rhetoric to ever more childish extremes achieve? Yet more entrenched division, stand-offs which hurt everybody and an elevated risk of political violence.
Linda Holt (Conservative councillor, East Neuk & Landward), Anstruther.
Read more: Letters: EU must be key part of the case for independence
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