Border controls would work both ways

IT WAS good to have SNP activist Alex Orr's assurance that an independent Scotland wouldn't seek to establish Border checkpoints with England (Letters, 6 April). However, he lost the plot when he described Chris Bryant's suggestion of Border controls as "puerile nonsense".

If his party seeks an "independent Scotland" clearly an "independent England", complete with Border controls if it wants them, comes with it too. Or does the SNP think its grandiose plans for Scotland mean the British people don't have equal and opposite rights?

In any case, on its record so far, Scottish devolution has delivered inferior services and it now seeks fiscal autonomy, ie higher taxes. So how independence would improve matters isn't at all clear, with recent events vividly showing how small independent states suffer more than large ones.

Also, as the security of the Scottish people firmly depends on participation in the UK armed services and their well being on their businesses inextricably tied to England, it's talk of independence that's puerile nonsense.

Commercially promoting tartan tat, swirling kilts, droning bagpipes, quaffing whisky and chasing haggis may strike many of my fellow Scots as being the very essence of Scottishness and the very stuff of Scottish Government. But it can only take an economy so far. And there's a great deal more to being a real Scot.

We like our universities packed with students frae a' the airts, our Edinburgh Festival thronged with visitors from the south, our ski slopes alive with English voices intermingling with our own homely accents. And above all we love English gold pouring into our Scottish financial institutions, the very life-blood of our country.

ROBERT VEITCH

Paisley Drive

Edinburgh

The unhealthy obsession with England that the SNP frequently displays is shown by Alex Orr in his claim that the UK will cease to exist if Scotland secedes from the Union (Letters, 6 April) .

Mr Orr should know that the UK is formed by uniting three kingdoms, not two – England, Ireland and Scotland. Therefore, there would be no reason to change its name from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland just to suit a few obsessive Scots.

COLIN WILSON

Maggie Woods Loan

Falkirk

Before James Matthews (Letters, 6 April) indulges himself in any more one-sided analogies from his London home he should note that when lodgers leave they take their rent, the rest of their money, and, probably more importantly with regard to the "local economy", their skills and talents, with them.

STAN GRODYNSKI

Longniddry

East Lothian