BILL Brown, a regular contributor to the Letters Pages, has normally shared his opinions with the rest of us without overtly revealing his own political allegiance and without recourse to intemperate or disrespectful language.

His outburst today (December 14) in reaction to Jo Swinson's defeat on Thursday departs starkly from his usual style and falls well short of Kipling's exhortation to treat "triumph and disaster just the same". He brands me and another 19,671 SNP voters in East Dunbartonshire as "foolish, self-indulgent, gullible, undisciplined, mad, irrational and parochial". He depicts an independent Scotland as a one-party state; who has ever suggested such a thing? If he believes that many of his neighbours deserve his disapproval, how would he feel if one of them were to be in control of his home as well as their own? That is exactly the position Scotland finds itself in today.

My working life has taken me to three continents, always by invitation from the host country, and my good Glasgow education has given me the ability to communicate in four European languages. Many more of my 19,671 fellow SNP voters will be able to cite similar life experiences which will have given them the ability to look at the world from a well-informed internationalist perspective.

If Santa is a Herald reader, I hope he will find time as he passes over Milngavie to replenish the depleted stocks of toys in Bill Brown's pram and even to add a bottle of red mist remover.

Willie Maclean, Milngavie.

I DON’T think l have read a more bitter letter than that from Bill Brown.

Of course people have an interest in NHS waiting lists, higher income tax rates and education but Scots in general see the wood long before the trees and to suggest that voting for the nationalists somehow threatens the stability of the UK due to parochial short-sightedness is such utter bunk it’s difficult to take it seriously.

The thing that threatens the stability of the UK is the avalanche of mendacity emanating from Westminster (and which continues). There is a deep and visceral distrust of Boris Johnson and unfortunately an even bigger distrust of Labour under Jeremy Corbyn which is matter of great regret for me and unless there is a genuine attempt to reconnect with the Scottish electorate by the national parties then independence will inevitably follow as the alienation continues to breaking point.

I would have thought that the ejection of Jo Swinson was a huge plus point for a Labour Party supporter – her voting record in government was simply appalling and her campaign in this election even worse and I would suggest her ejection was for the electorate a pretty hard-headed decision based on her political realities having more points than the compass.

We have seen things pretty clearly and we simply don’t care for either the direction of travel or the crew involved in getting there.

Kenneth Macaulay, Neilston.

THE result of Thursday’s election seems straightforward. The Conservatives have a substantial majority in the UK, owing little to Scotland, where the SNP won a large majority of seats. However, it is still contested by some of your correspondents.

The fact that the currency for power in the UK is and always has been the number of seats won, rather undermines Louise Shields’s argument that “the SNP has not won a landslide” (Letters, December 14). While the SNP might “only” have taken 45 per cent of the vote in Scotland, Boris Johnson “only” took 43.6 per cent of the vote for an 80-seat majority, and on that basis will sign the withdrawal agreement with the EU. David Cameron “won” the 2015 election with “only” 36.9 per cent of the vote, going on to organise the 2016 EU referendum. I trust Ms Shields will understand that it is rather suspicious when the existing, and long-established method of political decision-making is cast aside because it has ceased to be expedient.

Bill Brown ventures the opinion that “Scottish voters seemingly have not the self-discipline to see beyond their own transient self-indulgence”, or put another way, it is “self-indulgent” to vote in what you see as your own interests. While there are laudable philosophies emphasising the wider interest, perhaps Mr Brown could advise us of voters anywhere else who act otherwise? I suspect, for instance, many voters in England see Brexit as being in their interests and voted accordingly.

For Mr Brown, the perceived interests of the Scottish electorate should have been subordinated to preventing “the opportunity to stop the UK continuing as a two-party state [being] lost yet again”, or so that the Union can continue to effectively operate as he sees it. In any event, Mr Brown need not be concerned about a “two-party” state, when for the next five years, with a majority of 80, a one-party government, owing little to Scotland, should be able operate quite successfully, in its own interests.

The reality of last Thursday was that the SNP succeeded in motivating its supporters to turn out at a time of year when they might well have done otherwise. Mr Brown and Ms Shields, and those of like opinion, might do well to consider the implications of this for the future.

Alasdair Galloway, Dumbarton.

KEVIN McKenna, somewhat facilely, refers to the "philosophy" of the Conservative Party in the recent General Election as having "repelled and disgusted Scotland" ("It seems that an ocean now divides Scotland and England", The Herald, December 14). Seven hundred thousand of the Scottish electorate showed their repulsion and disgust in an idiosyncratic way by voting for Conservative candidates and thereby returning six MPs. Mr McKenna also seems to forget that the SNP, albeit with an improved showing , only obtained 45 per cent of the Scottish vote. The First Minister, when she often professes to speak for Scotland, deliberately overlooks the fact that there are many of us who do not wish her to be our mouthpiece.

Ian W Thomson, Lenzie.

SO, in her blinkered arrogance, the First Minister has warned Boris Johnson that he cannot “bludgeon Scotland into accepting his view” (that there shouldn’t be a second Scottish independence referendum at this time) while she seems quite prepared to bludgeon the large percentage of Scots whom the SNP certainly does not speak for, into separating from the UK.

Nicola Sturgeon’s delusion apparently has no bounds.

The SNP had its independence referendum not long ago – and lost.

Time – for at least a generation – to fully focus on the day job of running Scotland as a contributing part of the UK; leave the childish tantrums (over indyref2) behind and show us an adult administration at work.

Philip Adams, Crosslee.

IT is a tad ungracious of some of your correspondents to suggest that winning 45 per cent of the vote and 80 per cent of the seats in Scotland is not a landslide. I would remind them that the day the General Election was called, Nicola Sturgeon announced that she was putting a second independence referendum, the right to put Scotland's future in Scotland's hands, at the heart of the SNP's General Election campaign.

Sheila Fell (Letters, December 14) claims that "the majority vote in Scotland supported Unionist parties" and Nicola Sturgeon herself has said that she accepts that "not absolutely everyone" who voted SNP necessarily supports independence. However, I know several people who are supporters of the Labour, Liberal Democrat and Conservative parties, but they are something else as well; they are Yes voters.

Ruth Marr, Stirling.

I AM speechless with dismay. The Brexit process has been an act of collective, national suicide. We have fallen prey to a mass deception, that in an increasingly interdependent world, we are better off going it alone, that despite the lessons of history, we have nothing to learn from it, that all we have to do is pull up the drawbridge and all will be well.

We have embraced this dystopian vision of our future with a degree of casual complacency and cavalier indifference to the consequences which are of seismic national importance.

Brexit is not done. This is not the end, not even the beginning of the end, but only the end of the beginning of a tortuous path. Maybe this is a national trauma we have to go through to come to a proper understanding of our real place in the world. But this will come at huge cost to our national life, a coarsening of public debate and a polarisation of views. Brexit has blinded us to the real underlying problems of our country and the logic of Brexit is the dissolution of the UK.

The EU is the only vehicle for stability, cohesion and peace that we have ever known after centuries of conflict and war and we are about to throw it away. I fear for the future of not only our country but Europe, too. History is unravelling itself.

Shame on those who led us down this path.

Trevor Rigg, Edinburgh.

LOVE him or loathe him, Boris Johnson is a winner – whether it was as Mayor of London (twice), getting a workable Withdrawal Agreement with the EU and now the UK-wide General Election.

What is clear is that Scotland will now be out of the EU and if it subsequently votes for independence will be also out of the UK internal market (80 per cent of the combined exports), no currency and with a huge fiscal deficit – talk about a cliff edge.

Interestingly, the six Conservatives elected will have substantial influence with Boris Johnson to ensure his vision of “One Nation” extends throughout Scotland in the future with business-friendly policies like freeports, infrastructure projects and so on.

On the way other hand, the SNP will prove powerless at Westminster as Nicola Sturgeon has repeatedly declared that she has no interest in working with the Tories, period. She may have won more seats in Scotland due to the split Union vote but has failed once again with her boast to hold the balance of power at Westminster and will get short shrift from the PM with any demands for Indyref2.

Ian Lakin, Aberdeen AB13.

PRIME Minister Johnson's victory equals that of Margaret Thatcher in 1987. That is impressive but also a warning.

After 1987 an over-confident PM introduced the poll tax. Within three years she was deposed by her own cabinet.

Boris Johnson's adviser, Dominic Cummings, has promised “many ideas about long-term productivity, science, technology, and how to help regions outside the south-east”. If they embrace this agenda it could consolidate their new support.

But Brexit won’t be done by January 31 2020 and this will surprise many of the Conservatives, new voters. If they need to extend negotiations beyond the end of 2020 he would be well advised to have plenty of loyal lieutenants in his Cabinet.

Foster Evans, Renfrew.

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