Letter: Hidden agendas

TONGUE-in-cheek it may have been, but Eddie Barnes' article (2 March) had more than a smidgen of truth.

Perhaps starry-eyed, leader-adoring SNP apparatchiks, such as Joan McAlpine (1 March), believe that arch-Unionist Sir David Murray is now a fan of the First Minister. We in the real world instead see his words as more than likely indicating the fact that Alex Salmond is seen by Sir David as being slightly less unwelcome than the other possibilities.

Where Eddie Barnes is right on the button is in suggesting that Sir David, and many others, are reasonably happy in the knowledge that the SNP can chunter along indefinitely in minority power as long as the party's core belief, its very raison d'tre, is almost never mentioned and kept well under wraps. So it seems are a fair chunk of the electorate.

The result is that we now have in Scotland the absurdity of a nationalist administration run by people who are well aware that the one thing they know for sure will cost them the election is pushing their Holy Grail of the break-up of the UK.

Alexander McKay

New Cut Rigg

Edinburgh

I AGREE with John McTernan (2 March) about the SNP government in Edinburgh, in part at least, using it's position to further the aim of Independence - what McTernan calls the "abstract aim of Independence".

One can go further, in that there is a Utopian element to their goal, ie if only we had independence, all our ills would disappear. Wise men know that this will not be the case.

William Ballantine

Dean Road

Bo'ness

West Lothian