Open government

Alan Meiklejohn (Letters, 2 May) attended the Scotland’s
Future meeting at Kirkcaldy and complains that “SNP politicians are being aided and abetted by senior civil servants”.

I was also at that meeting and in fairness to the civil servants there I must strongly refute
allegations of bias. The civil servant chairing the meeting did so fairly and, I might add also, with great skill.

The present Scottish Government was voted with an overall majority into power in 2011 by an electorate aware of the SNP’s manifesto commitment to
independence.

It is not unreasonable that the Scottish Government should go ahead and promote that
commitment.

By publishing its Scotland’s Future document and by holding meetings where the electorate can question ministers, it is surely behaving in an open and democratic fashion and is to be congratulated rather than scourged.

The Kirkcaldy meeting took the form of a short presentation by Fiona Hyslop MSP, followed by questions from the floor
answered by her and her
colleague Aileen Campbell MSP.

I was pleased there was no political “argy-bargy” – just a straightforward discussion of Scotland’s future.

This meeting was indeed a model of how we as a nation should explore the options for our future.

Richard
Hollingworth

Balwearie Road

Kirkcaldy