Listing the reasons to vote for Alba Party 2 - your views

" In order to elect a ‘super majority’ for independence, it is vital to vote SNP 1 and Alba Party 2”

Listing the reasons to vote for Alba Party 2

If, as all opinion polls are predicting, the SNP are set to win a majority of "first-past-the-post" constituency seats in May's Holyrood elections, then the D'Hondt system used will not entitle the SNP to a single "top-up" seat from the regional lists - that's how the system works!

Thus "both votes SNP" will be counter-productive, and will involve wasting the list vote since it will play no part in electing a pro-indy MSP. In order to elect a "super majority" for independence, it is vital to vote SNP1 and Alba Party 2

Peter Swain, Innerwick, Dunbar.

Alex’s party will add bite to indy chances

The only predictable event with the Alba party launch is the total negativity of the SNP’s response.

I have just resigned my 47-year membership of the SNP and joined the Alba party for a simple reason. I actually support independence!

The SNP under negative leadership have lost their way on that matter. If they now endorse SNP 1 and Alba 2 it does guarantee a huge Holyrood pro-indy majority and importantly as an example in Edinburgh, we will not have a Glasgow councillor foisted upon us to represent the Lothians.

If the other indy parties agree a joined up team approach to the list vote, then the party can begin. We can tell the Greens, the SNP careerists and all their daft policies to go and ram it!

David M Coutts, Pilton Crescent, Edinburgh.

The gambler on our future is you, Nicola!

An amazing attack on Alex Salmond by Nicola over the weekend, accusing him of “gambling with the future of the country.”

If Nicola's own party ever gained independence, they would take us out of our largest trading block (the UK), there is no guarantee of quick entry to the EU (if they ever let us in), there could be a hard border at Berwick (like Ulster), there is no answer as to which currency we would use, there would be a big government spending deficit, causing hardship.

Yet she has the temerity to accuse someone else of gambling with our future. The sad bit is that so many actually trust her!

William Ballantine, Dean Road, Bo'ness.

Hold SNP to account on National Care Service

Among the SNP's panicked election bribes made in 2021 is the pledge to build a National Care Service.

Cabinet minister Jean Freeman has made clear that their vision amounts to a few highly paid bureaucrats and a continuation of the failed private model responsible for over 2000 Covid deaths in residential care homes, the extortionate cost of such care and the precarious contracts and poverty pay care workers suffer.

Just like the SNP's pledges to establish a publicly owned energy company and bank, and to nationalise ScotRail, this is a poor imitation of the multi-stakeholder democratic public ownership owner that the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) is calling for.

We have brought together academics, campaigners and workers to discuss this issue and crucially the charge put to us by Derek Feeley in his Review of Adult Social Care to explain how a universal and publicly owned National Care Service will be paid for.

In our fifth livestreamed forum on this topic, Róisín McLaren and former SNP cabinet minister Kenny MacAskill will debate the shape a National Care Service should take.

Join the discussion live on Tuesday at 7pm across the SSP's Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. #NationalCareService

Hugh Cullen, SSP National Secretary, Edinburgh.