Letter: Language lobby

I CAN speak broad Scots, if I choose, with my 100-year-old father. It pleases both of us.

I don't, however, expect the government to pay me to speak broad Scots, I don't conduct everyday business in it, I don't expect the road signs or proceedings of parliament to be written in it. I do not yearn for a "broad Scots plan" to be enforced on local councils by act of parliament, or to have a quango decide how it will spend 4.5 million of taxpayers' money on broad-Scots-related cultural ventures, at a time of cutbacks.

The Gaelic lobby, however, achieves all of the above, the expenditure ring-fenced, apparently effortlessly. You have to hand it to them.

CRAWFORD MACKIE

Loughborough Road

Kirkcaldy, Fife