ENGLAND expects every man to do their duty, implied the marzipan blonde mugger and his enforcer, Beany de Hat the merciful, who even though apparently half blind from Covid-19, birthday-treated his wife and child to a day out at Barnard Castle.

Subsequently the roses in the Downing Street garden have enjoyed a somewhat excessive level of applied fertiliser, and they do indeed look exceptional, though in part as a result of persistent overfeeding by past UK prime ministers and deputy prime ministers. However, the likelihood of a Section 30 order for indyref2 now looks to be utterly remote.

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A non-binding indyref2 will therefore be required, before or after Holyrood 2021, dependent upon Covid-19 events, though I suspect that Holyrood 2021 will precede, so that the citizens of Scotland can mandate a unilateral non-binding referendum as part of the next five-year programme of government.

A non-binding YES2 would place Scotland’s citizens’ chosen destination as an independent EU nation beyond doubt, and ensure that England’s role as the suppressor of Scottish citizens’ will was internationally noted, allowing other EU nations the political comfort to build diplomatic and trading accords with a future government of Scotland.

In the meantime, the Scottish exceptionalism of mask-wearing and infection control, as opposed to barefaced virus and fertiliser spreading a la Downing St, needs to be enhanced again, and again, so that local areas are first rendered locally usable, then freely accessible to those nearby.

Stephen Tingle
Greater Glasgow

THE letter from Linda Horsburgh (May 27) reminds us that the Westminster Parliament’s view on Scottish independence is full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.

Until we have a Scottish Government that recognises that the English emperor has no clothes and confronts the issue aggressively, there is one way the present “good management” style of government can make clear the differences between their policies and England’s and also show how Scotland would be in the future.

That is to put forward advisory polices with the understanding that these would come into force at independence.

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The first example that comes to mind is that of food standards. As the Tory government starts to lower these, the SNP can issue an advisory policy stating that they would aim at the same or higher standards than the EU and that good companies should adhere to these in the meantime. They would become law as soon as it became possible to enforce them.

In the case of the recent health crisis, the SNP could have issued an advisory policy that the lockdown should precede the English one, though Westminster would not be supporting this. Sensible Scots could have acted on it if they saw fit.

This practice could be to applied to many of the areas that Linda Horsbugh describes. The most useful is the matter of consultative referendums.

If the SNP issued an advisory policy that it would not only use these to measure public opinion on all important matters after independence, but equally before it, it would open a legal and democratic way of making progress.

Iain WD Forde
Scotlandwell

IS anyone else finding disturbing echoes of Orwell in the recent Cummings and goings of this circus masquerading as semi-competent government? The whole farrago begins to remind me of Animal Farm.

Boris believes that his chief adviser acted “responsibly, legally and with integrity”. He may have a point if you accept that the lockdown rules “evolve” in the same way as the animals’ “Seven Commandments”, which also mysteriously and subtly change to accommodate the behaviour of the pigs.

So, here in the real world we have lockdown rules which, according to latest guidance, cannot be broken “without cause”. Little trips to the very scenic Barnard Castle (well worth a drive there if you are concerned about your ability to see safely enough to drive?!) are also perfectly acceptable, as it was not too far, was it(?) and, therefore, not “to excess”.

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I’m therefore wondering whether Mr Cummings’s Rose Garden Audience is more akin to the “strange incident” that occurred one moonlit night when a sudden noise brought the animals rushing outside. “At the foot of the end wall of the big barn, where the Seven Commandments were written, there lay a ladder broken in two pieces. Squealer, temporarily stunned, was sprawling beside it, and near at hand there lay a lantern, a paintbrush, and an overturned pot of white paint.” Like the animals, we have been told there was another commandment that we “had remembered wrong”.

I would say that you couldn’t write this stuff, but Orwell has and others are following the script. And with the chaos of a Brexit trade deal about to resume, we should all remember what happened to the animals at the end of that fable.

Ian McNeil
Melrose

IT is an utter disgrace that during this deadly pandemic the unelected Dominic Cummings remains the story. His arrogant action has betrayed the collective sacrifice of all the people of the UK, with even the Scottish Tories, conscious of next year’s election, eventually condemning it. Surely he who sets the rules that all must obey, then breaks the rules must surely pay!

The authority of this poorly led and increasingly incompetent UK Government decreases by the day as this affair dominates public and political opinion. The Prime Minister’s occasional briefings to the nation, which are vague and short on detail, are in stark contrast to the everyday competent and effective briefings of the First Minister of Scotland.

Grant Frazer
Newtonmore