IT was interesting and helpful to read many questions posed by redoubtable Lesley Riddoch to First Minister John Swinney and recorded in the Sunday National. Answers were interesting in that they seemed to suggest a considerable distance exists between the pace of movement of government toward independence and needs and ambitions of supporters and potential supporters.

READ MORE: Lesley Riddoch interviews John Swinney ahead of indyref anniversary

Clearly the 600,000 new entrants into the voting fraternity over the past ten years are of the age of “need it now” regarding housing, further education and employment opportunities, indeed fulfilment of any ambition. Our younger generations are also of an age of quick response to what they are looking for. Consider the speed and enthusiasm thrown toward recent concerts by Taylor Swift and then the mad rush to lay hands on tickets for the reappearance of Oasis.

Everything youngsters want and can afford can be readily got by simply pressing keys on a mobile phone, and by the same means reduce their availability of funds with delivery next day or soon after. This is far from the circumstances Lesley, John Swinney, myself or many other readers and supporters experienced in our first three decades of life.

READ MORE: John Swinney hails 'indy generation' as young Scots back Yes in poll

Patience can be fickle as minds move toward other realities, ideas, wants and needs, and within the interview report there seemed to be a gap between Mr Swinney’s build-up toward independence and public patience. Just as young people come on board, some older ones lose patience or simply move on toward life’s end. In today’s fast-changing commercial, world support for independence shall continually rise and fall influenced by events beyond our control, most likely created by staunch Unionists elsewhere.

However, political events elsewhere are the very creators of our need for independence, and our politicians must learn to earnestly harvest their creation. Brexit for starters was a gift somehow never unwrapped. The closing of Grangemouth refinery is another gross injustice toward Scotland. In fact it seems much of the handling of our energy resources seem to have been cack-handed. That strewn throughout our renowned bonnie countryside we have more wind turbines than meet our need while surplus product is wired down south where turbines on land have thus far been disallowed is surely an extraordinary misfit. Yet electricity is more expensive to consumers in our colder climate north of the Border than south!

READ MORE: Last chance to get tickets for our indyref anniversary event

Meanwhile a swipe is taken at the winter fuel payment, adding to the extra hardship on our elderly.

These are gifts, like many others giving good reason for independence, and we must strike at every turn while each iron is hot, and relay the message with unequivocal enthusiasm toward our goal of independence for the comfort and wellbeing of us all.

I do not doubt Mr Swinney manages our cash-starved government as best he can against the strictures implied by an overpowering Westminster determined to maintain the status quo with Scotland.

However, there are various factions of the independence movement more readily available to carry forward a campaign for independence and it would be extreme folly within current fast-moving change not to fully harness all available intelligence, intuition and energy toward a major step forward by May 2026.

Tom Gray
Braco

“DEEPLY sinister vultures will feast from the carcass of a festering Labour administration” – a dark prediction by Owen Jones in Saturday’s National. But, if you read his column, he was referring to the decline in popularity of Labour and its leader Keir Starmer and Chancellor Rachel Reeves. And least of all, Nigel Farage’s Reform UK here in Scotland.

Before the election it was suggested that, because there was so much support in England for Starmer and his party, Scottish votes were not actually necessary to give Starmer his overwhelming majority.

READ MORE: Owen Jones: Dire polling exposes the emptiness of Labour’s mythic plan

Given what we in Scotland now know of what “change” actually means, I would hope that those unsuspecting voters, particularly any previous SNP supporters, will acknowledge the error of their ways and secure a majority SNP government in Holyrood in 2026 if only to prevent Anas Sarwar becoming First Minister, as predicted by some polling experts.

Independence is still in the forefront of the minds of a near majority of Scottish people. However that vote is achievable, we still need an SNP government to effect that independence vote. Business for Scotland is looking at ways of achieving this aim, as is Salvo from the historical perspective.

So there are ways and means of gaining Scotland’s independence. But that now is in the hands of us, the sovereign people, with a little help from our independence-minded friends in business and those who are exploring the constitutional aspect that has survived intact, over the centuries, since Bannockburn.

Alan Magnus-Bennett
Fife

HOW refreshing to see Seamus Logan’s article “Labour have tough calls to make over Trident” in The National. His mixture of history and home truths showed what a nonsense talk of austerity is from Tory and Labour governments when they choose to lavish billions on nuclear weapons.

We have a clear divide: the Unionist parties want this pointless spending to continue; independence-seeking parties don’t. Let’s make more of this, pointing out, for example, that everything on our wish lists is affordable if we get rid of the nukes.

READ MORE: Seamus Logan: Labour have tough calls to make over Trident

Ending child poverty, fully funding the NHS and a national care service, transitioning to a low-carbon economy – all of these could be done with the enormous sums currently wasted on weapons that, if used, could end human life on this planet.

I’m glad Seamus Logan was elected as an MP and wish him well in his parliamentary career.

Malcolm Bruce
via email