Step to the left

While Scottish nationalists have always been good for a laugh, kilties and ski-ing doos and all that, I actually laughed outright at the suggestion that the SNP claimed to be a "left of centre" political party (Letters, 3 August).

It all depends on what the SNP means by the term "left wing", of course. In Western Europe we have parliamentary democracies and consider left wingers as radical, reforming and largely progressive. But communist countries always regarded their left wings as anti-government and thus anti-socialist.

The expression comes from the 1789 French Revolution when the seating of the National Assembly placed the wilder revolutionaries on the left with the reactionaries on the right.

In short, a party whose first thought is for the people is a party of the left, but a party whose chief concern is the nation and is always talking about sovereignty - as with Maggie of the Falklands or "It's Scotland's Oil" - is a party of the right.

Further, if the party of the right is in power as a national party and presumes to place "the good of the nation" above what is best for the people, then it is no longer just a nationalist party. It has become a fascist party.

Luckily for us, Alex Salmond has always assured us the SNP is a fully inclusive democratic party and so we needn't worry when his supporters call for non-Scots to be sacked from jobs which they deem to be particularly Scots.

But "left of centre"? Don't make me laugh.

ROBERT VEITCH

Paisley Drive

Edinburgh