Don’t call SNP prudent and principled

Might I ask Stan Grodynski (Letters, 2 May) what colour the sky is on the planet he inhabits? In his parallel universe he claims the SNP have had success at Holyrood , that they are prudent and principled and their supporters are composed of thoughtful individuals who apply sound common sense in determining Scotland’s best interests.

The SNP’s record at Holyrood is dire. Over the past eight years in the devolved matters of health, education and the police and fire services they have presided over catastrophic decline. U-turns on legal issues demonstrated total incompetency.

The “prudent and principled” claim would be laughable but the fact Mr Grodynski and others believe it, makes it frightening.

The classic example of snake oil selling was the so-called white paper on independence. This was a white paper, funded by taxpayers and written by supposedly neutral civil servants, rather than a party tract.

Yet it has been clear from the day it was published, and it is even clearer now, that this crucial statement on which so much depended – jobs, schools, hospitals – was a complete and utter fabrication, concocted for purely political purposes. If the Scottish Parliament had a committee system worthy of its name, it would now be instigating an enquiry into how forecasts which were so plainly untrue (as recent events have confirmed) could have found their way into a white paper intended to direct the nation’s constitutional future.

This is not past history from which the SNP should be allowed to sail merrily on. It was a pack of publicly funded fictions for which the authors should be held accountable. Unfortunately, the Scottish Government is geared towards shutting down any such exercise.

It is sad, but true, that the followers of the cult that is the SNP will believe anything the party says without question and would possibly think it was all right if the slaughter of the firstborn of their opponents was called for.

Donald Lewis

Beech Hill, Gifford

East Lothian

It is refreshing to see the SNP party standing by the pledge they made to have an independence referendum as a once in a lifetime vote.

Some doubting Thomases may think the Scots’ ­overwhelming vote to stay in the UK would create a “sour grape” reaction and the SNP would renage on their ­promises by surreptitiously planning to use whatever means they can to have yet another pointless referendum…

Dennis Grattan

Mugiemoss Road 
Bucksburn, Aberdeen