IN response to David Bone's letter (June 16), I would ask: does he approve or condemn the actions of the Loyalist Defence League in demonstrating in George Square last Sunday? In his letter he attempts to portray and link their actions as a response to the democratic right of the Scottish National Party to propound their views. I would suggest the link is rather tenuous.

In his pejorative letter against Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP Mr Bone claims that "most of us were relatively content and secure" before the existence of the SNP. How can he possibly substantiate such a statement? Has he forgotten the years of rule under Margaret Thatcher and the social division created under her tenure as Prime Minister? He has obviously conveniently overlooked the division in the UK over the Iraq War brought to us by Tony Blair. Democracy is nothing, if it is not about peaceful debate, ideas and dare I say, division.

Alec Oattes, Ayr.

GIRVAN must be a really nice place. David Bone seems to have missed the British and Irish nationalists marching every year in Scotland, throughout my three score years and ten. Orange and green colours to the fore, they claim it “part of their culture”. These marches pre-date any significance the SNP had in Scotland: indeed it was the Unionist Party Scotland) which promoted Orange-ism in the 1930s. We saw these “Loyalists” in all their glory on Sunday.

There have also been literally dozens of riots in England in my lifetime, many of them rooted in identity and race, not one related to the SNP.

Mr Bone also misses the fact that the SNP wishes to normalise Scotland as a self-governing country, while opposition to that seems based on a British nationalist identikit contrivance. Unionist parties have taken turns over the last century and more, of at first supporting Scottish home rule, then deriding it. If at any point, say with the “Scottish Covenant” in 1951 (when the country, monarchy, government were routinely termed “England”), they had attempted to seriously meet Scottish democratic aspirations, then Mr Bone would be sleeping more happily in his bed.

Now it’s probably too late; many Scots no longer trust Unionists; don’t believe in a Prime Minister who has repeatedly made disparaging remarks about Scots and Scotland; find majority Scottish opinions commonly discounted and ignored.

GR Weir, Ochiltree.

NO doubt there will be many comments about David Bone’s letter about the SNP supposedly engineering “divisive identity politics". I would argue that the Establishment in England, especially in Whitehall, has been doing that since the birth of the United Kingdom.

As a schoolboy in 1953 I asked why the new queen was titled Queen Elizabeth the Second of Great Britain. The answer was that she accepted that proposal when made in Whitehall. Thirty-four years later a British team first won the European Cup. Jock Stein was only given a lowly honour because of class (and possibly Scottish) distinction by Whitehall directive.

How often does radio and television media refer to Manchester being in the North although these media supposedly relate to the whole of the British Isles? Even in quizzes, questions such as "how many lions are on the Royal Standard" or "which organisation is responsible for lighthouses and navigation aids" have only the answers referring to England accepted? Newspaper reviews almost never include those of The Herald or other Scottish papers.

The current issue of the History Scotland magazine relates at length the difficulties in forming international rules, for both rugby and football, for the home nations. For several years the English administrators wanted the other nations to accept only those of England. Even the first Scottish rugby team to play against England was picked in England.

The question of more anger in the last decade and months arises from Brexit, Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson. These have virtually ignored the Scottish majority.

Hate is too strong a word, but if it does occur then it should be directed at the arrogance of the English establishment and Whitehall, not at our neighbouring nations as a whole. I am sure that many Scots have English friends and relations with whom we continue to socialise – providing that we get to air our own views.

JB Drummond, Kilmarnock.

THE SNP’s call for more funding from Westminster is baffling.

Coming from the administration whose financial "expertise’’ has led to two rusting hulks on a Scottish shipyard’s stocks, at the cost of hundreds of millions, and, with exquisite timing for a pandemic, a white elephant airport. Vanity projects they most certainly were.

And that is only for starters. I have not even mentioned unfinished hospitals.

Giving the SNP Government more money would be akin to giving Dracula the keys to the blood bank.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh EH6.

Read more: Letters: SNP paved the way for the divisive identity politics we see today