HERE we are, regardless of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act, facing the third General Election in four years. #GE15 returned a PM who delivered an #EUref he did not believe in. Haphazardly he let it deliver a verdict that forced his resignation. We then got a new PM who could not govern and she asked us again in #GE17, only to lose her majority. And eventually her position. Now a third Tory leader goes back again in a bid to get a majority to deliver his kind of #Brexit.

We may get a Conservative PM returned – with more, or less, power – intent on achieving some kind of Brexit as soon as possible. But in with it they promise all of the spending they have held back for the most of the last decade. Unless of course those policies end in the ditch, so far unused.

We may even get Labour, and Corbyn, delivering progressive policy by spending a very large fortune. And they are set to ask again over their kind of Brexit. That will cause dither and delay, even if it does deliver us from Brexit. But if they do, we know their spend will not reach us. All worthwhile policies they pursue have already been exceeded in Scotland, by the SNP, under current budgets!

The rate of accusations of mendacity, combined with their electoral chances, rule out sensible consideration of the LibDems, who are as convincing as their leader’s accent.

On Friday the First Minister of Scotland launched the SNP manifesto. Nothing surprising or shocking in there. The big question is not if they will seek a Section 30 order, rather why should any politician, anywhere, deny the right of the people of Scotland to decide our future?

Also promised is that the Scottish Government will legislate to deliver protection for all National Health Services in all of these islands.

We’ve not elected a Conservative government in Scotland since 1955.

But we have had them forced upon us by England.

Corbyn promises to reverse years of Tory policy, but won’t meet Scotland’s gains, even with a war chest of riches. If he wins, how long until a Tory victory turns them all back around?

If progressive policy is what you are after then only the SNP have a track record of recent delivery, and only they will give the people of Scotland the power to vote for independence and end the dominance of Tory governments we did not elect.

Vote Tory get ignored. Vote Labour get less, and only until there is a Tory win. If you want continuing progressive policy then #VoteSNP #ItsTime #indy2020

Brian Kelly
Dunfermline

“I’M deeply worried. On the one hand, I’m proud that when Boris began to take the Conservative Party to the right ... we [a number of Tories] rebelled”. Has one read correctly, that Boris Johnson “began to take” the party to the right! This extract from an interview was given by Rory Stewart to an American journal, The Atlantic, on his reasons for standing as a candidate for mayor of London.

What world does he actually live in! We know which political world he was nurtured in. It is outstanding that he does not acknowledge that the party he was a minister in had moved to the right long ago, accentuated by the austerity measures his party took while he was a minister in it, ie hit the disabled, the vulnerable, the unemployed and the sick so that they can “stand on their own feet” and reduce the deficit to enable other “good measures” like Trident development to continue.

The so-called Tory rebels were MPs and ministers such as Hammond, former chancellor, who too were advocates of austerity. The Tories, a party where a current party political candidate has said that people on benefits should be “put down”.

Stewart berates then current functioning Westminster system, yet only advocates palliative measures to counteract it. He does not envisage radical change or fundamental restructuring of its systems and processes, its precedents and idiosyncrasies.

The monarchy, the Palace of Westminster (even the linked term palace in indicative of power and privilege); the unelected House of Lords (full of ex-party hacks, place men and women, hangers-on alongside aristocratic members there by birthright); and the voting system, are all to him sacrosanct and all pre-ordained and interpreted through the Whig interpretation of (English) history.

His leaving the Tory Party after losing the whip is not due to the right-wing leap taken by Johnson. If he were honest, it is an indictment of the whole Tory Party since Thatcher. He is not even advocating a vote against Johnson in this election, as one would expect after his self-proclaimed political damascene conversion.

But then Rory is still deep down a Tory!

John Edgar
Kilmaurs

THE election on December 12 is not merely a matter of political preferences. It has a fundamental moral dimension, which must be given unconditional precedence.

Scotland has suffered immensely from the depredations of the British military. At one end of this land, we have the firing of more than 6000 depleted uranium shells into the sea off Dundrennan, at the other end we have the bombing range at Cape Wrath, the only place in Europe where live shells are fired from the sea onto the land. This also happens to be a nature reserve.

Most of the Highlands is an area of Ultra Low Flying (ULF), where military aircraft can fly at altitudes forbidden in the rest of the UK, with consequential environmental degradation. To crown it all, at Coulport, some 35 miles from our largest city, we house the biggest arsenal of hydrogen bombs in Europe.

The epitome of this abuse is the imposition on us of Trident, the world’s most powerful machine for the mass killing of human beings.

For me it is a source of anguish to live in a society that cravenly accepts its servile status. We stand by impotently while convoys carrying hydrogen bombs trundle along our roads, hoping there won’t be a catastrophic accident. Today the Doomsday Clock is closer to midnight than it has ever been at anytime in the past, even at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, which has been described as the most dangerous moment in history.

But nobody seems to worry about it any more. Trident has become normalised and we have become habituated to planning the unthinkable. But it is only by stifling that spark of basic decency that lies in the heart of every human being that we can plan mass killing. The terrible truth is that we are our first nuclear victims, not our human targets. We have murdered our conscience.

Trident degrades and corrupts us so insidiously that we do not even notice it is doing so. Everyday people drive past Faslane as if it were a yacht club or marina, and do not see what it is – extermination, the ultimate blasphemy, the reversal of genesis.

This election gives us the chance to make the crucial moral decision. Either we elect an MP who is firmly opposed to nuclear omnicide, or we elect someone who supports it. All parties supporting independence take a position of principled rejection of nuclear weapons, while Unionists all support so-called “deterrence”. An independent nuclear-free Scotland can join the other 122 states that voted for a treaty banning nuclear weapon worldwide in 2017, and we might have a future after all.

The real problem is, do we have the integrity and the courage to make the right choice?

Brian Quail
Glasgow

YOU published my letter about Jo Swinson’s glossy leaflet, setting out her case for being elected prime minister (Letters, October 30). Just yesterday I received a glossy leaflet for the candidate for Edinburgh West. Out of curiosity I looked at where that was printed: this was “Printed by Park Communications, Alpine Way, London E6 6LA”. So I looked back at the Jo Swinson one, using a magnifying glass to read the very small print. It was “Printed by Paragon Customer Communications, 41-44 Stapleton Road, Orton Southgate, Peterborough, PE2 6TH”.

As the first glossy was for all of the UK I do not think the location of the printer is an issue; however the Edinburgh West one could surely have been printed in Edinburgh, or even just in Scotland? Says something about their attitude to Scottish jobs.

To put this into perspective, in 1983 I was the SNP Candidate in Dundee West, and we won a competition in the Sunday Standard for the best election address in Scotland. It was printed in Dundee. The prize was £500, which helped to defray the election expenses. The sad fact was that on the day I went through to Glasgow to collect the cheque, they had decided to close down the newspaper, and I attended a wake with bottles of spirits on every desk.

It was a great pity. The Sunday Standard was a good paper.

Jim Lynch
Edinburgh

AS a political refugee from Brexitland who has been a Green Party activist for almost 20 years, I feel I must speak out about the Scottish Greens’ intention to stand candidates in marginal seats in the forthcoming General Election. Back in the 1980s and 90s, I supported Plaid Cymru, but was influenced by their very progressive decision to enable Cynog Dafis to stand as a successful joint Green/Plaid candidate in Ceredigion. I’ve also been impressed by the way in which Plaid, the SNP and other parties calling for the independence of smaller nations have worked in unison with the Greens in the European Parliament.

I joined the Green Party feeling that, although Plaid Cymru were far more environmentally committed than the old UK parties, they weren’t quite green enough. I stood as a candidate for the Green Party for the Gower constituency in 2005 and for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich in 2015 – almost doubling the Green vote in Suffolk.

Having retreated from the sickening baying of Ukip and relocated to Ayrshire, I have decided to put my energy into supporting the SNP. This is not to say that I will not return to the Green fold once independence has been won. I would urge Green sympathisers and supporters to think very carefully before casting their vote – particularly those living in marginal seats. The election on December 12 is a unique, perhaps once in a lifetime, opportunity to break free from the oppressive stranglehold of Westminster. The best way to ensure the planet is protected from the threat of climate change is to put Scottish independence first and foremost.

Rhodri Griffiths
Stewarton

I FOUND Anne Hughes in “10 things that changed my life” (November 3) truly inspirational. She wrote about her own mum and sisters, of the challenges she faces as a mother, and her roots in Govan. She spoke about dealing with others with empathy and not just sympathy. She reaffirmed for me what it is to be a woman. This so often is lost in the modern rush to be like men! We complement them – we don’t need to be them!

Thank you, Anne Hughes – your positive outlook is what is needed in Scotland as we go forward to independence.

Elizabeth McDermott
Bothwell