It’s our choice

If Alexander McKay (Letters, 20 June) is going to respond to my letters, he could at least attempt to approach his response from a position of honesty. He says I “claim” that the Pope, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and the Chinese Prime Minister (I think he means Premier), have all been “suckered” into making pronouncements against Scottish independence.

He then goes on to air his own peculiar obsession with “the dark forces of nationalism”, when in fact my letter merely pointed out that Li Keqiang and Barack Obama had been tricked into supplying an opinion on independence (which was not in their script).

That is a matter of fact. My letter made no mention of the Pope (who has since sought to distance himself from the interpretation put on his remarks by the British media) or of Hillary Clinton.

However, as irksome as Mr McKay can be, as a supporter of independence I take considerable comfort from the fact that he has shown his desperation 
by choosing to distort the truth of what I said.

Douglas Turner

Derby Street

Edinburgh

I fully agree (for once) with Mr Alexander Mackay: it is neither accurate nor fitting to use words like “duped” and “suckered” of Pope Francis, President Obama, Prime Minister Li Keqiang or Hillary Clinton.

But seriously, have any of these four sufficient knowledge or understanding of Scottish history, culture, economy, politics or society for their opinions on the independence issue to carry any weight?

Of the four, I would be most inclined to give the benefit of the doubt to the Pope; and he merely remarked that Scottish independence should be approached with caution.

I would be surprised to learn that Mr Obama or Mrs Clinton is at all well-informed on Scottish affairs; and as to Mr Li, I would risk a bet that he knows roughly as much about Scotland as David Cameron does about Heilongjiang.

And Mr Douglas Turner’s
original point remains unanswered: one important figure who certainly does know Scotland well, namely the Queen, has pointedly refused to make any public comment whatever on the independence debate.

In any case, they are all welcome to say what they like.

The decision is ours, not theirs; and their opinions are not likely to sway the Scottish electorate.

Derrick McClure

Rosehill Terrace

Aberdeen