THERE is talk of the possibility of the Holyrood parliament closing if there is an outbreak of the coronavirus in Edinburgh. If all it can do is have arguments about whether or not a confected term such as "cisgender" can be used, would anyone really notice if it did close?

Is it time to have a forensic look at what benefit, if any, the Scottish Parliament brings to Scots?

Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh EH14.

TRULY, there’s none so blind as those who won’t see. Allan Thompson (Letters, March 5) claims “the SNP has no credible plan other than nurturing festering resentment like a swollen plook to be burst upon the people of Scotland”. Not a word about the real carbuncle on the landscape of Scotland, Faslane and Coulport, the biggest nuclear arsenal in Europe. As if these were not genuine cause for resentment or justifiable anger, and a legitimate reason for choosing independence.

Myopia seems to be endemic among nucleomaniacs. On the same page, bang on cue, George Herraghty sings the praises of “clean and green” nuclear power. He ignores the fact that Windscale (Sellafield) was built as part of the British atomic bomb project, and for years contributed not one watt of electricity to the national grid. The Irish Sea is heavily polluted with radioactivity, and the Irish government has complained about a leukaemia cluster on their east coast.

Fukushima and Chernobyl never happened and it will only take a few thousand years for the land to recover anyway. In Hunterston power station on the Ayrshire coast, EDF plans to restart the reactor reactor B closed because of multiple cracks on the graphite piles. An accident there will devastate central Scotland. But don’t worry; just keep faith in Great Britain.

Illegal weapons of mass destruction are is something that foreigners have, and accidents happen in other places. Keep your eyes shut tight, stick your fingers in your ears and say “Nyah, nyah na nyah, nyah, before silencing the opposition with a rousing chorus of “Rule, Britannia".

It always works.

Brian Quail, Glasgow G11.

ANOTHER letter today (March 5) from a Remoaner unable to accept the reality that we are leaving the EU to stand on our own two feet.

This latest diatribe from John Milne goes on about blue passports, lunatics, bizarre zealots and pandemic warnings in a wandering letter that ends with him stating that he is considering voting for the SNP, which I suggest is perhaps the best place for him.

It really is time to move on, get the best deal we can and for the whole country to come together to make as big a success as possible and ensure a great future for all.

James Martin, Bearsden.

FOREIGN politicians holding forth about Scotland often do nothing more than expose their own lack of understanding. Struan Stevenson (“Independence campaign could suffer Canadian curse”, The Herald, February 29) reveals an equally profound misunderstanding of my own country. Amongst his many wilful misinterpretations, his reference to “…attempts to break up Canada’s 153-year-old union…” is particularly revealing. The UK is a union; Canada is a Confederation. Canadians routinely refer to their “federal government”. The federal nature of its governance is what has kept this geographically, linguistically and culturally diverse country together.

The two referendums on Quebec independence reinforced this federalism and changed the whole country. And even that may not be enough to save the confederation, whose fate still hangs in the balance. By contrast, there is not, and never has been, anything remotely federal about UK governance. The UK is the most centralised of all the democracies. It is as far from any kind of Canadian federalism as is possible. The idea that it would ever embrace such federalism is disingenuous nonsense. Mr Stevenson’s clumsy attempt to shoehorn Canada’s complex history and problems into his own narrow, partisan perspective of UK-Scottish politics is as ignorant as it is insulting.

Bill Armstrong, Glasgow G12.

Read more: We will put ourselves at greater risk by splitting from Europe