Festival agenda will be political

SIR Jonathan Mills, in planning next year’s Edinburgh Festival, has been described as timid for airbrushing out the biggest political event in Scottish history, and naive for theming the festival on the outbreak of the First World War and on the Commonwealth Games and describing these themes as non-political.

However the UK establishment has always defined nationalism solely in terms of the satellite countries which seek to gain self-government, while whitewashing British nationalism: the most aggressive nationalism of all.

As an upholder of the UK establishment, Mills, on the eve of Scotland’s referendum, predictably takes the chance to remind us of the legacy of the British Empire and to wave a lot of Union flags about. Call it timidity or naivety if you like. I call it propaganda.

Mary McCabe, Glasgow