AN interesting aspect of election campaigning is that you are in the community and get to talk about politics with strangers – scary but very interesting! My experience has been that the electorate are not so hostile to the Alba Party as the mainstream media would like to suggest. In diverse communities the voters are enthusiastic about Alex Salmond, who is still much loved in Scotland despite the narrative of the SNP leadership. Long-standing SNP supporters who have been closely following the debate about the Gender Recognition Act have expressed their horror at the direction of the party on issues such as safe spaces for women. For others it has not been an issue because they, like me, were ignorant about it and have never been invited to join the debate. I was finally invited to join the debate by the Alba Party, who have listened carefully to what women want and based their policy around it.
I WAS concerned by your editorial decision to devote half of your front page on Saturday to Alex Salmond criticising the BBC. The National seems to be the only thing keeping his party from vanishing from our consciousness (along with 100 journalists in London apparently). I am surprised that Mr Salmond has not taken the time to listen to the BBC Scotland Podlitical podcast over the last two weeks, where Westminster correspondent Nick Eardley has gone out of his way to talk up Mr Salmond’s party while talking down the election. The Green and SNP manifestos were covered without any discussion whatsoever of their policy proposals.
I AM writing to question the rationale provided by Richard Walker in Thursday’s National (Both Votes SNP is best way to ensure independence, April 8). While it is very amiable in tone, I don’t detect much urgency about the road to independence. Indeed this is what has mystified me about SNP pronouncements in the election campaign so far.
Alex Salmond, leader of the Alba Party, has highlighted that achieving a strong position for independence in the election allows a variety of possible routes to independence. This sounds eminently sensible to me. There are a number of reasons why we should be getting on with this urgently. As other National readers have highlighted, the Internal Market Act immediately threatens the Scottish economy and Scottish institutions. Boris Johnson and his colleagues have repeatedly shown their disdain for the law, for parliamentary traditions and for the powers of the devolved parliaments. They have already begun to reverse decades of campaigning on