Yes camp fails to follow its own line

So, THE much-heralded great launch of the SNP’s Break-Up-the-UK campaign was by all accounts an amateurish flop. That appears to the verdict of your commentators, your cartoonist (26 May) and most other media comments.

My own opinion was that it was close to idiotic to have a campaign telling Scots how it is “self-evidently’’ better for Scots to make decisions on Scotland and yet the SNP plans for the Bank of England and the EU and so on are diametrically opposite to what they claim is best practice. They must believe Scots to be foolish in the extreme to be taken in by that line.

Even more telling, was the sight of former shop stewards, a retired MSP, a former singer, “celebrities” and jobbing actors pleading for the break-up of the UK when for so many of them their love for Scotland extends to everything but living in the country.

Alexander McKay

New Cut Rigg

Edinburgh

You quote Mr Salmond as saying that “the people who live in Scotland are the best people to make decisions that affect Scotland” (Your report, 26 May). Why then had he asked Sean Connery, Brian Cox and Alan Cumming, who it is alleged do not live in Scotland, to be part of the “Yes” campaign? Surely some mistake?

Alan Black

Camus Avenue

Edinburgh

The UK faces possibly one of the most dangerous set of economic conditions in a generation and at this time the SNP decides to concentrate resources on launching the “Yes Scotland” campaign two years before a likely referendum and when it is patently obvious the UK must remain “together” and act as one to face this economic crisis that may well erupt as and when Greece exits the euro and the investment markets turn their attention to Spain.

Our First Minister should forget about the “four Cs” – Celebrity, Connery, Cumming and Cox – and concentrate on the economic conditions.

Clearly Scotland does not have the fire power to act alone or protect alone. We will face this crisis stronger as one and not apart.

RICHARD ALLISON

Braehead Loan

Edinburgh

Amidst all the gloom and doom that is the euro crisis, it was rather refreshing to hear the optimism at the launch of the Independence for Scotland “Yes” campaign.

Politicians joining with notable individuals and organisations with a clear vision and enthusiasm for Scotland’s future – a future without walls, with seats at the top table in international negotiations that will affect Scotland, and equal partnerships with other nations.

This enthusiasm was emphasised when Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond called for one million signatures to sign the pledge, a pledge committing Scotland to an independent future.

Is this achievable? On examination of previous elections in Scotland during my life time, including referendums, it may well be.

Consider the unionist parties’ message over the last four decades – “Scotland will never get her own parliament”; we have. Then to the parliament – “the electoral system, a system which would never result in any one party having a clear majority”; well, 2011 put paid to that theory.

Those in the “No” camp, whoever they may be, are at it again, suggesting that the “Yes” campaign is launching too early, and suggesting no- one really knows what independence means.

Well to the “No” campaign I ask, can you rise to the challenge so clearly laid out at the Yes launch?

Catriona C Clark

Hawthorn Dr

Banknock, Falkirk