Letters: Why the Yes movement must continue to hold its large-scale rallies

Recent rallies have featured banners from the Western Isles and Shetland. In many cases participation involves considerable disruption: a very early departure, journeying by car, bus and even ferry, and an overnight stay. And many of the marchers are past the first flush of youth.

The main aim of the rallies is to be seen. The Unionist parties assert on a daily basis – presenting no evidence – that there's no appetite for another independence referendum. Even in the face of the recent rise in support for independence they continue to claim that everybody is happy with the status quo.

There are few opportunities to counteract this widely reported assertion. Political blogs are mostly read by those already committed to one or other camp. By door-knocking (and many participants at rallies including myself also do regular door-knocking) you reach perhaps 50 people in an evening (fewer in tenements) and engage half of these in conversation.

However when 50,000 march through a town cheerfully displaying their hope and optimism about an independent Scotland, many hundreds witness this and realise that the cause of self-government is gathering strength year on year. And when the rally goes unreported on the evening news, they maybe start wondering what else the BBC is hiding from us.

Mary McCabe,

25 Circus Drive, Glasgow.

FOR those of your readers who are Labour Party members, I urge them to use their vote in the forthcoming NEC elections to elect those in favour of electoral reform. If Labour puts PR in its manifesto, we will have a chance to change how this country is governed for ever.

I am sick of seeing our nation being conned on Brexit by Tory extremists and I believe they would never have gained the power they presently hold if we had PR. Labourites worry that a fairer voting system will deny radical proposals being implemented once in office, but in the UK that means extreme right-wing ideas can get through as well. Look at hard Brexit, the poll tax, council house sales, privatisation of public services, and so on.

Labour has spent two-thirds of the past 100 years at Westminster in opposition – electoral reform will remedy that. And we needn’t worry about coalitions – the Liberal Democrats didn’t influence Tory policy in the last Government one jot, as far as I can see. If Labour readers want PR, I advise them to go to tinyurl.com/labourpr to see a list of NEC candidates who support it.

Pete Gregson,

27 Riversdale Grove, Edinburgh.

AS a newly-arrived Corbynista in your fair land I'm a wee bit disheartened to read so many Daily Mail-atyle anti-Corbyn views being expressed by supposedly left-wing SNP supporters on your Letters Page. Let me remind them that on the day of Jeremy Corbyn's election to the Labour leadership, Nicola Sturgeon declared: "That man can't win an election. The only way to get rid of the Tories is through independence." Well, Mr Corbyn has proved his voter appeal and it would be a reckless man who would bet against him doing what Ms Sturgeon declared was beyond him. In light of this I don't think it's unreasonable for a life-long Leftie like me to ask my Scottish comrades to stop slagging off Mr Corbyn and just get on the team.

Sean Pigott,

Flat 2/L,

13 Wilson Street, Largs.

BY favouring children from designated "deprived" areas the SNP prevents the best qualified studying at a Scottish university. Worse, 65 per cent of applicants from poor families live outwith these areas and don't qualify. In 1973 I went to Edinburgh University from a Linlithgow council house, a joiner's son, on a grant.

Linlithgow Academy isn't, and never was, a deprived area so under this policy I would have missed out, as would my fellow alumni Alex Salmond (middle class, council house) and Kenny MacAskill (private house) who wouldn't have gained the degrees that launched them to the dizzy heights of nationalist politics.

Come to think of it, maybe it's not such a bad policy after all...

Allan Sutherland,

1 Willow Row, Stonehaven.

THE news that Edinburgh Conservative Councillor Ashley Graczyk may join the SNP is frankly astonishing ("Former Tory councillor says that she now believes in independence", The Herald, August 10).

Regrettable though it is, in Scotland in any election, often the principal determining factor in who we vote for is whether your preferred candidate supports or opposes nationalism. Had Ms Graczyk planned to defect to Labour or the Liberal Democrats, that would have been more understandable than joining the party whose overarching objective is to break up the UK.

If Ms Graczyk is so disenchanted with certain Tory UK policies that she cannot remain in the party and will not join another pro-UK party, it is imperative she resigns her seat. Her constituents voted for a Unionist candidate – any move to the SNP would be an utter betrayal.

Martin Redfern,

Woodcroft Road, Edinburgh.

I NOTICED with some interest Dr Liam Fox, the pro-Brexit UK Government International Trade Secretary, take credit for Taiwan opening its market to British pork for the first time, an agreement expected to be worth more than £50m to UK farmers over the next five years

I found this news rather intriguing, as at no point did Dr Fox mention the European Union, which in fact brokered the agreement, an agreement which could be at risk when the UK leaves the EU.

So, we have the hypocrisy of a minister taking credit for an agreement that was in fact negotiated by the EU, a body that the UK is set to leave.

Alex Orr,

Flat 2, 77 Leamington Terrace, Edinburgh.

GEORGE Kay (Letters, August 10) comments on Boris Johnson's "inability to keep his shirt tail tucked into his trousers", referring to his latest gaffe. Amongst many other gaffes in the past has been his inability to keep something else tucked into his trousers.

Ninian Fergus,

2 Lennox Gardens, Linlithgow.