IT was disheartening to listen to the commentary about Alba’s failure to win any seats, led by First Minister Sturgeon. The vindictive remarks say far more about her and the journalists making the comments than they do about Alba leader Alex Salmond and the fine cohort of hard-working people who stood for Alba.
To have provided a bank of 111 candidates a year after setting up is no mean feat, and a more generous public narrative would have acknowledged this.
For the First Minister to speak so dismissively about former close colleagues speaks volumes about the value set on loyalty and past contributions. I know many wonderful SNP members who do not subscribe to such mean-spirited behaviour but it is difficult to see how such a commentary can contribute to the preparation for future action for independence.
READ MORE: George Kerevan: Big changes are the only hope of survival for Alex Salmond's Alba party
In contrast, Michelle O’Neill and Mary Lou McDonald made positive public expressions of joint working to political opponents who have treated them disdainfully in the past as longstanding Sinn Feiners.
The issue about public behaviour and those with a public image is often that things can come back to haunt you, as Prime Minister Johnson has found to his cost.
The political discussion of late has become very toxic, influenced by Westminster, and the media has also become infected and highly selective in its coverage. Of course political narratives can be challenging and robust, but when people begin to sneer and become arrogant they lay themselves open to questions about personal integrity. As a lifelong communist, this is not my idea of leadership and comradeship.
In years past I would have been celebrating about the SNP majority in local authorities, but not this year. I believe it signals continuity more than action on independence.
Do I think that Michelle and Mary Lou will be coming to Edinburgh to discuss strategies for achieving indy? Not a chance!
Maggie Chetty
Glasgow
HECK, I truly have annoyed the fringe of Scottish politics, and my basis for saying that is there have been three printed letters in The National naming me!
So, what to do? Well I would like to take this opportunity to apologise for absolutely nothing that has been printed in The National nor anything that has been posted on social media by me or with my name attached to it. That statement has one caveat, and that is the apology I made to anyone who in the past trusted Salmond as a result of anything I said or wrote.
READ MORE: My post-election appeal to the Yes family: put any differences aside
The rather low-brow comments about me being unelected or having hatred only go to highlight in a very public way just how desperate the fringe of Scottish politics have become. Oh, they will apply maximum spin to the rejection they were handed, and in truth it has already started on social media with them trying to equate themselves
to the SNP of the 1960s and 70s. Truly they are a wretched gathering of has-beens, wannabes and never-have-beens.
The people of Scotland have voted and they have found that party called Alba to be lacking in everything required for a bond to form. So my message to them is very simple: it is not me that requires to get over myself, instead it is high time that Salmond and his mob slunk off into the sunset, and that is not just a lone thought of mine but rather the decision of the Scottish electorate.
Cliff Purvis
Admin on Veterans for Scottish Independence 2.0 and SNP Armed Forces and Veterans
IT’S truly remarkable that despite being in government for 15 years, the SNP has secured its best ever Scottish council election result and remains firmly in first place. Furthermore, with Wales utterly rejecting Conservative Unionism and the astounding result in Northern Ireland, radical constitutional changes are required.
Since Labour and the LibDems have now accepted Brexit, all Unionist parties have joined the break with Europe, choosing to ignore the economic consequences. In every lorry queue trading has never been more difficult, with higher prices and labour shortages, enhanced by the infamous Nationality and Borders Bill.
The fact is that throughout the UK, constitutional change is now inevitable. The London establishment and its compliant media have never accepted Scotland’s choice of an SNP government and its consistent call for independence.
READ MORE: Scottish Tory MSPs kick off as Nicola Sturgeon set to visit America
The first principle of democracy is that any sovereign nation must be governed by the people who live there – Scotland governed by the people of Scotland, not by London which consistently reaps the benefit of Scotland’s resources!
Boris Johnson’s Brexit disaster has meant that the wishes of all the UK Celtic peoples have been ignored, as a declining and increasingly insular post-imperial Great Britain tries to retain its world status.
The answer is for the four independent nations of the British Isles to work together within Europe and around the world for the benefit of all.
Grant Frazer
Newtonmore
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