ANOTHER week, another undisguised attack on the SNP Government and the Yes campaign from Catherine MacLeod ("Ukip voter is insecure, ignored and frustrated", The Herald, May 8).
Her conflation of Ukip and the SNP as parties of protest misses the mark; protest parties invariably attract votes at the expense of the Government, but in Scotland the SNP is the Government. So Scottish voters are protesting against the SNP Government by, er, voting for the SNP? Then she makes the usual lazy assumption that Scotland will be ejected from the EU because some "experts", with whom Ms MacLeod concurs, say so. She must be aware that this is as likely as Jeremy Clarkson being voted multi-culturalist of the year .
In support of the rise of Ukip (presumably in England), Ms MacLeod introduces a rather surreal image of queues of (mostly) men lining the streets of "any major city hanging around waiting for work"; this allows her to introduce her Dutch neighbour (with a Polish in-law) who cites this image as a reason to vote Ukip.
So this straw poll of one (who is not anti-European, we are told; well, being Dutch, he wouldn't be, would he?) makes the case for voting Ukip. Ipsos-MORI, eat your heart out.
James Mills,
29 Armour Square, Johnstone.
AS a Yes voter in the forthcoming referendum, I am heartened by your editorial stance to remain neutral in your reporting of the Scottish independence referendum and I look forward to balanced and informative scrutiny of all sides in the debate.
I am trying to formulate how this squares with your editorial in which you say that Ukip ("Farage puts a kilt on Ukip for Union", The Herald, May 9) attracted less than 1% of the vote in the Holyrood election of 2010, yet you accord Nigel Farage the lead headlines and more than half of your front page ("Farage wars over repeat of 'racist' protest on Scots visit", The Herald, May 9).
It could be argued that Ukip and Nigel Farage are newsworthy in terms of the UK political scene. It is questionable if such great exposure is deserved when applied to Scottish politics, yet the article by Michael Settle clearly dwells on the Scottish perspective when reporting on Nigel Farage's visit to Edinburgh "suggesting a repeat of anti-English treatment would expose a streak of racist hatred in Scotland". Further, he quotes Ruth Davidson as saying the Ukip leader was trying to be "a bellicose nationalist voice", and Willie Rennie saying "Salmond should call off the dogs". I do not find this quoting of third parties for articles is good for balanced reporting.
I do not support any extremes in this debate no matter what side they are on, but it is far from clear who was giving Mr Farage verbal abuse on his last visit to Edinburgh and a largely-Unionist press was happy to say it was anti-English nationalists and SNP supporters. This has been challenged and it would be easy to prove or disprove given the plethora of pictures and videos of the event.
Alan M Morris,
20 Kirkhouse Road,
Blanefield.
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