Letters: Panic spreads at the advance of the SNP

These letters appear in the April 23 edition of The Independent

The foaming at the mouth by various commentators at the prospect of SNP MPs holding the balance of power at Westminster after the election has been more than a little amusing.

In the run up to the independence referendum those same commentators were telling us how we were all “better together” and that Scotland “should not leave, but lead the UK”. Now it seems that while MPs are all equal, some, in their eyes, are more equal than others.

Alex Orr
Edinburgh

Your newspaper like every other branch of the British media, with the honourable exception of the Sunday Herald, has consistently rubbished and demonised the advance of the SNP in Scotland. So today (21 April) readers were treated, in your editorial, to a portrait of the First Minister of Scotland who was dedicated “to a single destructive aim”, the end of the Union. On the facing page we were presented with a cartoon of Nicola Sturgeon as the Loch Ness Monster. This is not what journalism should be about.

When will you guys in London realise that the major Westminster parties are loathed in Scotland, as are their acolytes, the media?

Dr M J Morris
Hamilton, Lanarkshire

The hills are alive with the sound of alarm bells. Back in the Tory, Labour and Lib Dem bunkers there is fast, furious and desperate digging. In the past seven days it has been grave-digging, as we have been subjected to yesterday’s men, William Hague, Alistair Darling, Sir John Major, and now Sir Malcolm Rifkind.

Sir Malcolm is urging his fellow Tories to vote Labour and asks: “Is there an alternative approach to try and stop the Nationalists?”. Well, Sir Malcolm, can I respectfully suggest a trip to Lourdes for the lot of you?

Doug Clark
Currie, Midlothian

The population of the UK was estimated to be 63.7 million in mid-2012 and of the four constituent countries 53.5 million people in England, 5.3 million in Scotland, 3.1 million in Wales and 1.8 million in Northern Ireland (Office of National Statistics).

If the Scottish National Party, joined doubtless by Plaid Cymru, holds the balance of power after the election, they have made clear that for their support they will demand a high price for their respective countries. And it will be impossible to govern without their support. So the representatives of 8.4 million people will more or less determine government policy, not just for Scotland and Wales but for the remaining 55.3 million in England and Northern Ireland.

Does the combined electorate of Northern Ireland and England realise this? Do they want it?

Anthony Barnes
Keston, Kent

The biggest risk in forming a government at Westminster by doing deals with the SNP is that another dreaded referendum on the separation issue will be the price to pay, as separation will never be far away from the political agenda.

This is why a growing number of Scottish voters see that the way forward is to vote tactically and block the SNP out in order to maintain the majority stated wish of the people in what was agreed by the SNP to be a once-in-a-lifetime referendum.

Dennis Forbes Grattan
Aberdeen

Sir John Major and David Cameron warn voters about the SNP and its goal of independence for Scotland. To my mind a much greater danger to the Union would be an EU referendum in which Scotland, probably Wales, and certainly London, all vote for continued membership while a majority across the UK votes for withdrawal.

I have yet to hear Cameron or any of his team tell us what would happen if this were the outcome of their promised referendum.

John Boaler
Calne, Wiltshire

Naval answer to migrant crisis

We are led to believe that the EU cut down on search and rescue in the Mediterranean in order to deter illegal migrants by making it more likely that they would die before reaching Europe, which, to say the least, is a hard-hearted approach.

There is a more effective way to stop unwanted migrants drowning and that is to land all those rescued back in the country they had just left. If the chances of being left penniless in Africa were high enough few would spend the last of their savings and risk dying at sea in order to arrive penniless in Europe.

Roger Chapman
Keighley, West Yorkshire

Perhaps the risk of drowning would be alleviated by running a straightforward naval patrol by European nations in the waters off North Africa. Any boat spotted would be escorted safely back to Libyan or other territorial waters. Modern satellite and drone surveillance must make it easy enough to locate these boats at sea.

Hopefully the prospect of getting sent back to port would filter back to the countries of origin, and deter would-be migrants from starting the dangerous journey.

Martin Kay
Nottingham

The Lib Dems’ broken pledge not forgotten

For how much longer can commentators like Keith Farman (letter, 17 April) continue to miss the point? The reason Nick Clegg is so excoriated for his broken promise over tuition fees is that it serves as a convenient – if rough and ready – symbolic peg on which to hang anger at his ceaselessly proclaimed self-delusion that in allying himself and his party with the Tories he was nobly reflecting the electorate’s wishes.

A chief part of this is anger at his refusal to admit the obvious fact that since he didn’t advertise before the last general election that it was his, economically right-wing, element of his party that would be given its head, hundreds of thousands of people, especially young people, were betrayed.

Mr Clegg will surely learn soon enough that we want political coalitions to be formed as natural alliances of parties manifesting pre-articulated ideological positions, as they are in other European countries, not by improperly representative rumps posing as empty slates on which our wishes might supposedly be written.

After his political exit (stage right), it is to be hoped the Lib Dems will get their party back.

Michael Ayton
Durham

Oliver Wates (letter, 21 April) like others before him, misses entirely the point about some Lib Dems voting to increase tuition fees early in the last parliament. It wasn’t whether they were “right” or “wrong” to do so after seeing the arguments in favour, it was the fact that they had promised not to do so before joining the Coalition and then immediately reneged on that promise.

It wouldn’t have mattered if it had been housing policy, foreign policy or promising not to tax children’s’ sweets. It was because they broke a promise to their voters almost as soon as they gained power. This is why so many people think voting and politics are a pointless exercise. I will be spoiling my paper this time around.

Michael O’Hare
Northwood, Middlesex

It’s about Israel, not about Jews

It is not true that Jewish shops are boycotted in this country (letter, 21 April). There is a boycott of shops selling Israeli produce. That is directed solely at the Israeli government, in particular its treatment of the Palestinian people.

Brendan O’Brien
Secretary, Enfield Palestine Solidarity Campaign
London N21

King Roger back in London

In Jessica Duchen’s article (22 April) about Szymanowski’s opera King Roger, there is no mention of what I think must have been its last production in London. Although I recall the Rattle concert performance and recording in 2000, I’m sure many of my generation were made aware of the work by the stagings at English National Opera in the mid-Seventies. I also recall that the staging originated with another company.

Paul Dormer
Guildford