Letters: No fireworks to be seen as our politics is a damp squib

WHAT a hopeless lot we have at Holyrood. The party supposedly in charge and with the great responsibility of shaping our future doesn’t have a clue whether we would be part of the EU after a Yes vote.

And the “Great Statesman” at the helm is made to look like a daft wee boy by Donald Trump, the US tycoon whose golf complex looks about as convincing as his hair.

In opposition, we have Labour, whose brightest idea to win back power under leader Johann Lamont is to come up with statements about benefit culture Margaret Thatcher would have been pleased with. As an own goal, it was an absolute cracker, taking Labour away from its traditions, and perhaps also its voters.

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The Tories themselves have a vote that is in danger of disappearing, and the same goes for the Lib Dems.

On Monday we celebrate the anniversary of the failure of the gunpowder plot.

I wonder, are there any descendants of Guy Fawkes in the Edinburgh area who could do the country a favour?

Ken Welsh, Easter Road, Edinburgh

New approach to politics needed

Alex Orr is just trying to divert attention from Alex Salmond’s no-advice scandal (Letters, November 1). The UK Government’s blocking of a freedom of information request for its advice on the legal status of Scotland in the EU on separation is entirely irrelevant.

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It is shocking enough that the SNP government squandered public money on litigation to hide not legal advice, but the fact the First Minister had received none. In other words, Alex Salmond was simply bluffing, as he couldn’t know the true position.

However, what is truly stunning is the fact the First Minister had not bothered to obtain sound formal legal advice on Scotland’s status on separation. After all, separation is the very purpose of the party.

Nor is this lack of regard for evidence and sound advice unusual for Alex Salmond and the SNP. No competently advised government, even if its members believed in global warming, would have pursued the current renewable energy policy, which will damage the economy, impoverish our people, lead to blackouts and fail to influence the climate.

Scotland needs a different approach to government; one where desire, caprice and marketing are replaced by evidence and reason.

Otto Inglis, Inveralmond Grove, Edinburgh

Rebuttal tried to mislead readers

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I CAN only assume that Michael Upton (Letters, October 30) tried to read something sinister into my thoughts of “ridding Scotland of the Tories for ever”. Of course I meant in the electoral sense, not the literal.

What did strike me, however, was Mr Upton’s unfair analogy citing Tories with homosexuals or Pakistanis.

As a self-confessed right winger, I wonder if Michael Upton just made more of a Freudian slip than a devilish comparison.

Jack Fraser, Clayknowes Drive, Musselburgh