I MUST say I was not surprised to see an attack by Robin McAlpine on Nicola Sturgeon in The National of July 18 (SNP defend FM after Common Weal chiefs blast). Mr McAlpine accuses Nicola of ignoring independence and just chuntering away to keep power. It perhaps has not dawned on him that the pandemic has not disappeared and is lurking in the wings to come back.

It might behove him also to think that what the people want is to know how an independent Scotland would behave, and thus the popularity of the SNP is evidence that Nicola is doing a decent job in difficult circumstances. I might add that I do not recall a worse time for health and the economy in my lifetime a mere 85 years (so far!).

READ MORE:SNP insists FM has priorities straight after fierce attack

I joined the SNP 54 years ago and have seen rises and falls in its popularity, various upsets in its members, but we are now in a far better position than I have ever known. Internal strife is never a unifying medium.

The lack of any movement in Westminsters attitude to a referendum is predictable, the Tory statement of now is not the time is shared by Labour and Liberal alike. After the Treaty of Union was signed in 1707 it was stated We have cotched Scotland and we will not let her go.

Democracy played no part in that Union. There were riots in the streets and the Treaty was signed in a cellar in Edinburgh away from the peoples eyes.

Jim LynchEdinburgh

IF Robin McAlpine is so sure of his rent-a-quote pronouncements, he can prove his rectitude by the simple process of standing for election. That would be a cold, draughty place compared to hiding in the safety of a think tank bunker sniping from cover, and I predict that he would lose his deposit.

Les HunterLanark

OUR First Minister entreats us daily to keep to the rules, and for the most part it seems as though the people of Scotland have done just that. So now Nicola Sturgeon has to keep her part of the bargain. If she really, really is working to eliminate the virus, rather than just suppress it, then she must massively ramp up testing capacity and increase the number of tracers in all our communities. She also needs to empower our local councils and public health officials so that they have the resources to pursue the virus effectively in every town or village where it appears. Once I see this happening then Ill certainly Clap for Nicola.

Jean KempSt Andrews

GORDON Brewer has risen immeasurably in my estimation by cutting off Alister Union Jack in full flow on Politics Scotland yesterday. Jack spent most of the interview not answering questions and instead parroting prepared statements until Brewer had had enough.

While saying that Jack could not be allowed to overrun the programme, he abruptly thanked the Cabinet minister then cut him off. For a UK Government minister to be perfunctorily dismissed on the BBC must have been humiliating. Coming after an articulate and well-thought-out performance from Mike Russell, Jacks car-crash interview was a classic example of supreme arrogance from a so-called Secretary of State for Scotland who will never comprehend the groundswell of opposition in Scotland to him and his government.

Mike HerdHighland

A MUST-READ by any standard, I feel compelled to extend the greatest respect to Margaret Little from Rhu for her long letter in yesterdays Seven Days supplement. Her calm and collected summary of our passage to this political crossroads is most informative, and the route we must follow from it in particular concurs exactly with my own eighth decade thinking. I urge all readers to seek it out, absorb and embrace. Healed wounds yield progress, unhealed, we are damned!

Tom GrayBraco

YET another accurate portrayal of events by David Pratt (Trump said jump over the Huawei deal ... Johnson asked how high, July 17). If anyone imagines that a Brexit future doesnt mean being a puppet state of USA then they are truly deluded! This will be hotly denied by the current chancers running Westminster, but as their track record of porkies clearly demonstrates, truth is an alien concept for them.

If we have to be a state of a larger bloc (not a given) then Id much rather be in a European one (with all its flaws and there are many) than a North American one.

Fortunately war and occupation by another country is a fairly fresh memory in Europe, which hopefully will help to avoid a recurrence. For the citizens of USA, wars have largely been something thats happened in a land far far away, which seems to have created a gung-ho attitude to military conflict. When (if) they finally wake up to the fact that most of their wars have had very little to do with anyones freedom and more to do with grabbing control of oil supplies, maybe attitudes will change. The biggest threats to modern societies arent fascism or communism, they are apathy, gullibility and ignorance!

Barry StewartBlantyre

THE Institute for Fiscal Studies confirms that very little new money has been allocated to Scotland out of the 30 billion UK new money to deal with the Covid-19 pandemic. By my simple arithmetic I make that 1p in the 1 from scrooge chancellor Rishi Sunak is coming Scotlands way! Well after all the Cummings and goings and now a clear demonstration of the so-called broad shoulders of the UK Treasury, what more do the doubting Thomases need to vote Yes to independence? Well done Kate Forbes.

David Lowdenvia email

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Does Robin McAlpine think the pandemic has now disappeared? - The National