Too young to vote

Published on 16/10/2012 00:00

It causes me great concern that 16 and 17-year-olds will be able to vote in the referendum. I believe at that age they do not have enough life experience to make a decision that could affect the whole of the country and it concerns me that they are likely to be influenced by their parents and teachers.

What concerns me is that an over-zealous teacher in favour of independence may show a DVD of Braveheart the day before the referendum and stir up young people to vote Yes.

I believe it is the wrong decision and it is being used by the SNP to manipulate a result in 
favour of independence.

Gordon Kennedy

Simpson Square

Perth

It seems that you are only as Scottish as your postcode. As the proposed Scottish independence referendum is not based upon a person’s nationality but on their postcode, surely that must go against the aims of all recent EU anti-discrimination legislation, as it excludes all those Scottish people in the UK with a non-Scottish postcode.

Brian Christley

Bryn Gwyn

Abergel, Conwy

Unlike a general or council election, particularly now that teenagers and their dogs are going to be encouraged to vote for the first time, no-one will be surprised if the independence referendum generates a very high turn-out. Indeed, with the future of our country at stake it damned well should.

It’s also likely to be a closer run match than we anticipate, so I do hope that some thought has been given to the possibility of the Ayes over the Naes, or the Naes over the Ayes, winning by margins as small as 51 or 52 per cent to 49 or 48 per cent.

Whichever way the vote goes, I think that means on the morning after the result is announced about a third of the population are going to wake up feeling either robbed or abandoned. Is Holyrood naive enough to think that the losers on either side will take defeat lying down?

It will be interesting to know how Alex Salmond intends to constrain about a million and a half very angry people determined to reverse the result by any means possible.

No police leave for a year, perhaps? He’s going to need every one of those extra 1,000 policemen on the beat.

David Fiddimore

Calton Road

Edinburgh

As the independence debate starts to gear up, following the agreement reached by Messrs Cameron and Salmond, it is instructive to see how the followers of the two sides see things.

On the positive side, the position is one based on historical evidence. The Union has been good for Scotland and it would be hard to see any evidence to contradict that.

On the negative side, the view of those interviewed in Glasgow for Radio 4’s World at One who were in favour of breaking away sounded rather flat and took the view that we might as well have a shot at it, as if there was a fall-back position if we didn’t.

Some of the Nationalists, no doubt, genuinely feel that Scotland will be better off on her own (or is that in the EU? The debate continues) and point to various figures that, they claim, show that Scotland more than pays its way in the UK. Of course, wealth is something that comes and goes. Oil is the thing nowadays. Some years ago coal was king and we still have plenty of that, but someone discovered that it was a pollutant.

It would be too cruel to let on that oil is the biggest pollutant worldwide today, wouldn’t it?

After all, the Nationalists want to use it to fund a Scottish bonanza, which is a very good intention, if you ignore the pollution, of course. However, they should also remember that the road to Hell is paved with good intentions.

Andrew HN Gray

Craiglea Drive

Edinburgh