Blind hypocrisy

Published on 27/12/2012 00:00

If IT were not for the Letters column in The Scotsman, I think that most of the people of Scotland would have no real insight into the strange machinations that occur in the minds of the likes of David Roche and Hugh Kerr, who gave us the benefit of their profound thoughts on these pages (21 December).

Mr Kerr thinks that Scotland was “conquered and repressed by England”. I assume he is referring to events in the dim and distant past, which is the present of course to members of the SNP. Equally, Mr Roche’s response to the anger caused by Alasdair Gray’s outrageous spite expressed at “English colonists” is that it is “po-faced sanctimony”.

It seems that there are no bounds to the hypocrisy of those who espouse nationalism.

Drawn, as many of them are, from the ranks of those who feel uncomfortable because they are not “sufficiently Scottish” because of non-Scots surnames, or English/other non-Scots ancestry, they compensate by attacking decent people who are doing jobs in Scotland that Scots do in their country, but without the same bile being 
levelled at them.

I have not heard Mr Gray describe Scots who run things in England as “colonists”. Why might that be? The term “double standards” comes to mind.

Mr Roche cannot recognise the difference between “pro-Scots” and “anti-English”. That is blindness of the worst kind.

Andrew H N Gray

Craiglea Drive

Edinburgh