I HAVE just come in from the driving rain after attending to the needs of my sheep, who like me have had to cope with the effects of a couple of days of driving snow blizzards and up to three feet deep drifts. I had my Covid sharp-pointy over-80 addition to my left arm over a week ago and, as an independence supporter of many years, all should be well with the world.

I have collected my copy of today’s National from my red box at the road junction three miles away, where it is left every day by my excellent local newsagent, only to find that it is the latest issue to contain, in all the articles by your regular columnists, views that concur with my own. All is not well with my world – my INDEPENDENCE world.

I am old-fashioned – I do not partake of social media, but I do hear what is going on and it is not a pretty situation. We are only just over three months away from an election, and at this rate where is the leadership and campaigning output which is so vital to get success at the final count? INDEPENDENCE is the only thing that matters. What do we have right now? Arguments, bickering and disputes between factions.

What is important is getting the real result for independence at the ballot box. Like it or not, the government which we have is SNP; that is the one which has to put up the strong case for the vote. We need to do much better than we have at the last few elections. In recent votes we have had an almost complete lack of visible forward planning before the events. We should by now be having clear indications of the route which the SNP is going to pursue in the campaign.

A lot of things need to be done better. About a year ago my SNP membership was due for renewal. I rang the listed number but no-one answered. I left a message suggesting that someone get back to me. No-one did. After a number of days I tried again. This time my call was answered by a somewhat grumpy-sounding gent who advised me that the young lady who dealt with such things was off sick. This, for an organisation with well over a hundred thousand members, is frankly not good enough.

This brings me to another elephant in the room. The chief executive, Mr Murrell. What does he actually do? Others have mentioned this in conversation but no-one cares to raise it. The point I would like to make is that I don’t think it is a good situation to have the country’s First Minister’s husband as the party’s top man.

I do not know Mr Murrell, and I do not suppose I ever shall, but I cannot help feel that a change of hierarchy would look better. I must emphasise that I have absolutely no doubt at all about his honesty and integrity.

Then there was the question of selecting our candidate at the most recent election. We, the members, were invited to attend a hustings to hear those aspiring to be the favoured candidate put forward their case. Some days later we were told that a mistake had been made and one of the hopefuls we had heard had not been vetted as required and was therefore ruled out. The remaining one was therefore appointed without any further ado. This was a serious lack of proper management by the party which should not happen and indicated a falling short of proper control which should not happen. Or was it a case of parachuting in a candidate from outwith the locality?

So, here we are just three months away from this, possibly the most important any of us have known, election and we have virtual silence from the SNP. We have in place a First Minister who has the highest approval rating going, and who has done a first class job of leading through the pandemic emergency. Can I suggest that it is perhaps time for her to delegate some of the virus pressures to some of her well qualified colleagues and get herself out there on a regular basis to lead the fight for the independence vote, become highly visible for the independence cause and give the unionist side of the opposition a really high profile hard time.

George M Mitchell
Sheriffmuir