Perhaps I have been living under a stone but I had no idea, nor have my friends and acquaintances, that the symbolic poppy has been commandeered by the far right (Neil Mackay, “The poppy has been hijacked by the far right – this is why I won’t wear it”, November 6).
My recently deceased father survived the Normandy landings. His father was injured at Passchendaele by a shell. He was evacuated to the Netley receiving hospital on Southampton Water, where he refused to let surgeons remove his legs. He went to 12 other hospitals before returning to Passchendaele to fight in all weathers in his kilt.
When he passed, he still had a piece of shrapnel dangerously close to his spine and a hole in his buttock that a fist could easily enter.
Neil Mackay: Why I can't risk wearing a poppy this year
My mother’s boyfriend was lost with all hands when HMS Kite was torpedoed in 1944, something my father had only recently told me. It was something that affected her for her whole life.
Such is the dedication and fortitude of those who went to war to defend our democracy and country.
My father shaped our support of the Earl Haig Fund and the importance of wearing the poppy, “Lest we forget.” I remember him standing to attention, tears in his eyes for that minute’s silence every year on the eleventh day of the eleventh hour of the eleventh month.
Neil Mackay must reconsider his intention not to wear a poppy. By doing so he plays into the very hands of those that he claims would attempt to hijack one of our most iconic symbols. Reducing the numbers on display as an act of remembrance would only serve to make the poppy a far-right symbol instead of encouraging every citizen to wear it and explain why for others to understand.
In advertising this, and in suggesting that, instead, only a donation is made to the Scottish Poppy Appeal, only serves to reduce the income for an organisation that continues to help, support and serve war veterans, even of recent conflicts.
Reducing the visual impact also only serves to diminish the impact and the importance of why we wear the poppy.
Please, Neil, wear your poppy with pride and defeat those that might try to undermine it.
Peter Wright, West Kilbride, Ayrshire.
No more follow-the-leader for the UK
Americans are belatedly coming to their senses, having voted for people who actually care about ordinary folk – Zohran Mamdani, the new Mayor of New York, being the most famous example.
But they first had to see what twice voting for the alternative was like and to experience tech billionaires fawning and now fainting and blubbing on air as their fake AI bubble – evidence of their all-powerful, dehumanising future vision – is shorted by the most famous ‘shorts’ guy of all time, Michael Burry, who has bet $1bn on AI bubble bursting.
My question is, do we – as we usually do – have to follow-my-leader down the sewer here in Britain or is it possible, just this once, to take the hint, wake up and smell the coffee, get real, get a grip, stop living in fantasy land, and take a different direction? We’ll see.
Amanda Baker, Edinburgh.
Scots must leave this toxic union
I see that the Right Honourable Sir Keir Starmer, Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, and his Blairite chum, Ed Miliband, have flown to Brazil to attend COP30.
I am disappointed that they have gone with empty pockets and will not invest in the global fund to provide financial support to countries committing to preserve tropical environments.
It is clear to see that the Westminster government has plenty of spare cash for warfare and the arms industry (including nuclear weapons that we can never safely use) but has nothing to spend to reverse or even control damage being done to the earth and its climate.
I do not even have to ask the PM whether he thinks Russia or global warming is the greater threat to our long-term national security.
Perhaps it is because the Scottish Government has a better grasp of the priorities that his government in London have now taken to to calling the Scottish Government “a threat to our security and future prosperity”.
We must get our country out of this toxic union and stop Scottish resources being spent on warfare, diverting them to a place that will bring long-term benefit to our people.
Ni Holmes, St Andrews.
Scotland ‘brought into disrepute’
In the House of Commons on Wednesday at PMQ’s the Justice Secretary David Lammy was heard to say “the SNP are a threat to national security” – an outrageous allegation and an insult to Scotland’s devolved government.
But this was not the only occasion when this was suggested in the Commons this week; the Defence Secretary, John Healey, and the Scottish Secretary, Douglas Alexander, were heard to make similar allegations.
Perhaps those politicians making those assertions should pause and reflect.
Scotland is building the next generation of warships and the UK’s nuclear deterrent is based in Scotland.
And what about the Scottish regiments, who are always the troops to be deployed first?
It is breathtaking to hear UK government ministers bringing Scotland into disrepute.
Catriona C Clark, Banknock, Falkirk.
Four more years of hard Labour
How can our Labour government continue in office?
Governments are elected to serve the population such as keeping us safe and economically sound.
The current Westminster government has not only abandoned much of its election manifesto promises but appears utterly incapable of running the country.
The latest sorry episodes from David Lammy and Rachel Reeves only underscore this.
In Scotland we have “double trouble” as our current SNP government do not seem any more capable than Westminster.
Our latest home-grown disaster is the meltdown in the Scottish NHS presided over, with an alarming lack of concern, by our SNP health minister.
At least in Scotland the population will have its say in a few months’ time. As far as Westminster goes, surely we cannot put up with nearly four more years of this?
Dr Gerald Edwards, Glasgow.
Will Sturgeon contribute?
As we learn that Alex Salmond’s widow could be forced to sell her family home to pay his debts, I wonder if Nicola Sturgeon will help by chipping in with a share of the royalties from her memoir?
After all, as First Minister, she was responsible for the botched SNP case against Salmond that is covered in her book, and which very much contributed to his financial difficulties.
No? Really?
Martin Redfern, Melrose, Roxburghshire.
Saloon-bar musings on the King
Willie McLean (letters, November 5) should restrain his impulse to pass constitutional decisions from the saloon bar to the letters page.
King Charles III is King in Scotland as result of processes more complex than proclamation by Maister McLean.
The Parliament of Scotland in treating the Act of Union 1707 endorsed the Act of Settlement 1701.
If William and Mary should have no issue, and to their great sorrow they had none, and Mary’s sister Anne none either, then monarchs of Britain should be the heirs of Electress Sophia of Hannover, who was the very last thread of Stuart legitimacy.
The Act of Settlement also recognised rational ideas like transaction and consent as important elements in the legitimacy of monarchs.
The Parliament of Scotland enacted in 1689 the Claim of Right made by the Convention of Estates.
The line of James VII is forfeit, except for the issue of his daughters Mary and Anne, which was none.
There is not currently a job called King of Scots and no King anywhere is called Lord of Ireland.
But the King of the UK is very clearly King in Scotland as descendant, designated in 1707 by Scotland’s Parliament, of the lines of Stuart and of Hannover. Pragmatically seen, that is a current fact.
For example, the Nationalist advocate Roseanna Cunningham took an oath to Queen Elizabeth because she was head of state, not because Ms Cunningham chose that to be a fact.
Tim Cox, Bern 6, Switzerland.
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