Mixed message

Brian Wilson’s commentary on “Scots’ misplaced moral superiority” left me confused. “On the one hand,” he writes, “we would be creating a permanently more right-wing rUK”, while at the same time our “collective opinion on matters which are supposed to distinguish us from the rUK are actually very much the same”. You can’t have it both ways: either we are the same or we are different.

The most arresting element of the article, however, came in the last few paragraphs. Like Brian, it also horrifies me that questions should be asked about how English people living in Scotland are going to vote. For the purpose of the referendum, we are all citizens and it really doesn’t matter where we were born or who our parents were. This is the overwhelming view within the Yes campaign.

Quite rightly, Brian condemns the “ethnic” question posed in a recent ICM poll. He then goes on to sneer: “How does that accord with the ‘civic nationalism’ of which we hear so much?” Well, of course, it doesn’t. It took me only a few minutes to discover that the poll was commissioned from ICM by the Sunday Times – not known for its support of the Yes campaign, and based in London, if I’m allowed to mention that. Are we now to be responsible for the views and activities of our opponents, too? Brian Wilson if I do not question your intelligence, then I must question your motive. You dismiss your fellow Scots very lightly.

Susan Knox

Strathwhillan Road

Brodick, Isle of Arran