ALEXANDRA MacRae’s obvious irritation at seeing Scotland portrayed by its own press as, “too wee, too poor and too stupid” (Letters, November 8) is perfectly understandable. There are much more progressive ways to argue against independence than by denigrating an entire people. The Scots are certainly not “wee”, “poor” or “stupid” but, if the Letters Pages of The Herald are anything to go by, they are a wee bit parochial.

With all that is going on in the world correspondent after correspondent keeps banging on about Scotland retreating into independence so that they can better engage with an international community whose travails they largely ignore in favour of their own domestic concerns. Though Nicola Sturgeon would be appalled by the comparison, she is – to some extent – a mirror image of that loathsome creature Nigel Farage and it surprises me that so few of your letter writers seem to have noticed the similarity. Mr Farage’s call for “independence” from a European trading bloc that we joined voluntarily to cash in on its huge market is not so different from Ms Sturgeon’s call for “independence” from a United Kingdom that Scottish lairds eagerly joined to cover their colonial gambling debts centuries ago. Furthermore, any attempt to present Scotland as a colony pressganged into Britain’s imperial project is just a bare-faced lie. The recent controversy over Scottish involvement in the slave trade proves that this country’s ruling class were willing accomplices in England’s imperial protection racket and not one of its victims (like Ireland and India, for example).

If you ignore the self-serving humbug and use emotional reductionism to discern what really drives these two national causes you will find something downright unedifying behind both of them. Brexit is driven by embittered Tories who regard our membership of the European Union as a humiliating reminder of Britain’s imperial eclipse (a come-down akin to Sean Connery getting a bit-part in River City) and Scottish independence is driven by demoralised social democrats who have given up on solidarity and just want to run away from the Tories. As a life-long anti-imperialist I have nothing but contempt for Mr Farage’s cause and, as a life-long socialist I can tell Ms Sturgeon et al that I hate the Tories so much I would rather lose a thousand elections to the enemies of the working class than run away from them with my tail between my legs.

Sean Pigott,

Flat 2/L, 13 Wilson Street, Largs.

THE SNP’s obsession with equality of outcome is resulting in declining academic standards, its hyper-liberal push to eliminate punishments in schools is fuelling chaos in the classroom, and its unbalanced fixation on well-being and children’s rights is tending to make kids delicate, self-centred and demanding.

But, at least we are now “world leaders” in putting up posters in classrooms to indoctrinate children into a radical ideology of sexuality and gender (“From Turing to Wilde: the new LGBT lessons”, The Herald, November 10).

This is not about tackling bullying and promoting inclusion, it’s about indoctrination, plain and simple. Civility and tolerance can be promoted without preaching that the teachings of the Catholic Church, for example, are outdated bigotry. Wait, you might say, hasn’t the Catholic Church backed the proposals? Did it have any choice? The tacit offer is “do it or we shut down your schools”.

The insanity of teaching kids that they can choose whether they are a boy or a girl is already claiming casualties as young people are induced to develop gender identity disorders. The insistence that all expressions of sexuality are equal has no grounding in evidence. Monogamous heterosexual marriage as the context for sex correlates with the best outcomes for adults and kids. Relational, emotional and physical health problems tend to proliferate the further one moves away from this ideal.

LGBT campaigners want a world where dissent is eliminated, but, more than that, where all must endorse their philosophy. Many teachers will be under huge pressure to promote views at odds with their own. Every curriculum area is to be used a vehicle for this indoctrination and that will put many people off from entering teaching.

The TIE (Tome for Inclusive Education Campaign founders are feted like royalty in the Scottish Parliament, while not a single MSP, let alone party, dissents.

John Swinney has bowed to every demand of the LGBTI+ campaigners, but what does he expect in five years time? Will the problem be solved, or will there still be “a long way to go” in the fight? Will the taxpayer-funded campaigning groups be saying that they are no longer necessary, or will they be demanding yet more intrusion of their ideology into our schools?

Richard Lucas,

Leader of the Scottish Family Party, 272 Bath Street, Glasgow.

WILLIE Towers (Letters, November 7) expressed his concerns at the lack of correspondence on the points raised by your Business Editor on “the impact of Brexit”.

However, what should be of greater concern is the £39 billion annual cost of the Holyrood zero emission policy arising from an £18bn cost to eliminate the use of gas, £14bn debt for additional wind farms and £7bn for constraint payments. Such costs could bankrupt the Scottish economy.

Note that energy demand is split one-third domestic, one-third public sector and one-third private sector. Why do our MSPs not indicate whether the NHS, schools and emergency services can afford a £13bn increase in costs or whether the 35 per cent of Scots living in fuel poverty can afford an annual £6,000 increase in energy bills?

Ian Moir,

79 Queen Street, Castle Douglas.

IT'S a funny old world, as someone once said in the good old days before a cabal of wealthy malcontents came up with the idea of Brexit.

In the lead-up to this perverse idea that we would be better "taking back control" of our economy, money and whom we let into our country by leaving the EU, those who advocated such a move and persuaded the gullible and anti-immigrant lobby seem to have had forgotten that all kinds of disasters would come as its result.

There are too many of your previous articles to quote them all, but a flavour would include the space programme funding, universities, food shortages, inadequate medical supplies, gridlock at our ports, security, extradition of criminals and the latest howler today that Brexit threatens to wipe out our rarest creatures ("Brexit threatens to wipe out Scotland's rarest creatures", The Herald, November 10); that should exercise the mind of our vegan and animal action cousins.

Enough!

James Martin,

43 Thomson Drive, Bearsden.