There is a danger that the voices of the smaller parties could be drowned out or even ignored in this General Election campaign, a point made to great effect on Saturday by Writer at Large Neil Mackay.

Sign up for the Letter of the Day


Read his article here 👈

In that piece, though, he had some harsh words for prominent representatives of the Alba Party, which prompted an angry response from one of our readers.

Marjorie Thompson of Edinburgh writes:

"Neil Mackay says that "no doubt Kenny MacAskill and Neale Hanvey will most likely to be turfed out on their ear to the joy of many constituents" and that Ash Regan "snuck across the floor" at Holyrood.

These claims are outrageous. Kenny MacAskill has single-handedly held the Government to account over Grangemouth as well as raising the issue of energy-rich Scotland subsidising England at a higher cost to Scotland and has repeatedly reflected the views of Scottish people over the Israeli genocide and the complicity of the British state.

Neale Hanvey has obtained hundreds of thousands of pounds for his constituents who have had benefits and compensation held up for at best bureaucratic and occasionally irresponsible and cavalier reasons as well as being a beacon of light for biological women and those parts of the LGBT community who have been sidelined by the gender self-ID fanatics.

At Holyrood Ash Regan has similarly risen above the nodding lapdogs of convention to defend pre-pubescent children, women and others subject to the steamroller of fashionable gender ideology, and been a lone voice questioning the Scottish Government's extraordinary passivity as the UK Government prepares to use taxpayers' money to establish a refinery in Antwerp.

The mind boggles at the cavalier insouciance of politicians and columnists like Mr Mackay.

Independence can't come soon enough."