Latest news with #SusanDalgety
Scotsman
a day ago
- Politics
- Scotsman
Ministers have a duty to protect freedom of speech and end this insanity
The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht is a collection of essays edited by Susan Dalgety and Lucy Hunter Blackburn. Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... As is often the case during the Edinburgh Fringe, the material was weak and the delivery unconvincing. While authoritarian bullies rampaged across Scotland's cultural landscape last week, the response from senior politicians was predictably - depressingly - poor. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad In saner times, an apology from a publicly-funded venue for allowing the Deputy First Minister to enter the premises would have provoked justifiable outrage from the very top of Government. Likewise, the decision to ban a book from an exhibition at the National Library of Scotland would, surely, have seen the personal intervention of the First Minister. Instead, last week we witnessed yet more of the lack of leadership which has allowed trans activists to wreak havoc across the public sector. First, and I cringe for those involved as I type these words, we learned that management at the Summerhall venue in Edinburgh set up a 'safe space' for staff and performers while Deputy FM Kate Forbes was in the building. The presence of Forbes, a devout Christian who previously revealed that, had she been an elected member at the time the law was changed, she would have voted against gay marriage, was dangerous. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes (Picture: Andrew Milligan/PA Wire) Management at the venue later apologised for letting her in. 'Summerhall Arts' primary concern,' said a spokesperson, 'is the safety and wellbeing of the artists and performers we work with, and going forward we will be developing robust, proactive inclusion and wellbeing policies that would prevent this oversight in our bookings process happening again.' This is insanity. Kate Forbes is a democratically elected politician whose faith-born opposition to gay marriage, while controversial, is perfectly legal. Her presence in Summerhall created no danger for anyone, LGBTQ+ or otherwise, and those claiming otherwise should be embarrassed. The only danger, here, is in Summerhall management's attack on free speech. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Another enthusiast for undermining this fundamental freedom is National Librarian, Amina Shah. It emerged last week that the excellent book 'The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht' had been withdrawn by Shah from an exhibition highlighting the importance of libraries and the ways in which they can 'empower individuals and the communities they belong to'. The editors of the book, a collection of essays by women involved in the ultimately successful campaign to defeat the SNP's plan to allow anyone to self-identify into the legally-recognised sex of their choosing, discovered through a freedom of information request that it had received more public nominations for inclusion that any other. They learned that the book had, initially, been selected for inclusion in the 'Dear Library' exhibition but that, after protests from members of staff, Shah - with the backing of the board, chaired by Sir Drummond Bone - withdrew it. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Shah's actions are indefensible and stand fully in contradiction to the responsibilities that come with the position she is unfit to hold. I suspect the National Librarian's decision is one that will whisper in her ear for years to come. Faced with threats of disruption from staff if 'The Women Who Wouldn't Wheest' had been included in the exhibition, Shah should have turned to the National Library's disciplinary code. Rather than capitulating to authoritarian bullies, she should have reminded them that gross misconduct is a real thing with real consequences. As these twin scandals unfolded, finance secretary Shona Robison spoke of the need for 'tolerance'. In her reaction to the Summerhall scandal, Robison revealed at least some of the reason that we find ourselves where we do. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'I don't think,' said Robison, 'it sends out the right signal over freedom of speech.' Any weaker and the pulse would be undetectable. Something that sends out entirely the wrong signal over freedom of speech is members of the Government sitting back while others deny the free speech of others. When culture secretary Angus Robertson eventually spoke up, he served a weak cocktail of bromides. While he was a 'strong supporter' of free speech, there would always be 'tensions' between that right and views that some people might find 'unpopular or unjustifiable'. It would not, he added, 'be easy all of the time to please everybody'. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad On Robertson waffled: he was a strong supporter of freedom of speech and expression; there was an important distance between government and cultural organisations; there were issues of 'public concern' and 'public debate'. Over the two decades that I've known former journalist Robertson, I've always considered him - in common with most in our trade - a fundamentalist on freedom of speech. His unwillingness to take a stronger stance, here, does not chime with the values I've long understood him to hold. Robertson spoke about the important distance between government and cultural organisations and it is, of course, correct that ministers should have no say in the decision making of bodies such as Creative Scotland but that does not mean he should not intervene when things are going catastrophically wrong. Robertson is entitled to demand the presence in his ministerial office of Summerhall chief executive Sam Gough. The culture secretary is perfectly within his rights to point out to Gough that Summerhall - a venue recently propped up with more than £600,000 of public money - must operate within the law and that failure to do so will mean the tap's turned off. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The National Library of Scotland is funded by the Scottish Government and answerable to the Scottish Parliament. Robertson has the right - the duty - to act here, too. Amina Shah, cowed by activists, removed a book from an exhibition that includes, satire fans, George Orwell's '1984'. She's a censor and Angus Robertson should sack her and remove Sir Drummond Bone from the library's board. Freedom of speech is under attack as never before in living memory. The culture secretary's presence on the frontline of this battle would be very much appreciated.
Spectator
4 days ago
- Politics
- Spectator
The National's latest journalistic mishap
Well, well, well. Back to Scotland's self-identifying 'newspaper', which has planted itself at the centre of a row over the delisting of a gender critical book from a national library exhibition. Women's rights campaigners flagged concerns after The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht – a selection of gender critical essays – was removed from the National Library of Scotland's Dear Library exhibition, after having been previously selected. The Times ran the initial story, titled 'censorship row as library bans gender-critical book'. The National then took it upon themselves to claim this wasn't true – insisting the National Library had 'debunked' accusations of censorship. But Scotland's only pro-independence newspaper doesn't appear to have examined the facts all that thoroughly – and has even been accused of defamation over its piece. Crikey! For the institution's Dear Library display, the public had been asked to nominate books that had helped shape their lives. A selection of these would then be included in a ten-month exhibition celebrating the library's centenary. The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht received twice as many nominations required to guarantee inclusion in the display, and its selection was assessed using equality, diversity and inclusion criteria, according to emails seen via Freedom of Information requests. Internal memos outline why the book was to be included in the display: multiple people put it forward, it was to be one of 200 books 'not being platformed or elevated above others' and that the removal of the book from the exhibition list would prompt 'an accusation of censorship'. Consequently an email was circulated that confirmed The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht was to be included in the exhibition. But not everyone was willing to accept this reasoning. The library's internal staff LGBT network mounted a campaign to remove the gender-critical tome from the selection. In one email, a staff member queried whether 'a non-fiction work advocating for racist, homophobic or other discriminatory and exclusionary viewpoints' would have passed vetting and been selected for the curated display. Some even claimed that the book 'essentially promotes hate speech to a particular'. Pressure piled on Amina Shah, the national librarian, who eventually caved in to the outrage. For its part, the National Library of Scotland said in a statement that while 523 books had been nominated, only 200 could be displayed, adding: 'Anyone can visit our reading rooms and access this book as well as the 200 other titles that were not selected for display.' The National was quick to jump on accusations of censorship by the book's authors, Susan Dalgety and Lucy Hunter Blackburn – and even released a video in which one of their reporters attempted a fact check: You may have heard that a gender critical book has been banned from an exhibition by the National Library of Scotland. Well, it hasn't. It's not true… Editors have claimed their book is being excluded after pressure from staff. They've called it censorship… They said the book was singled out by staff, who they say had threatened to disrupt the exhibition if it was included. But here's the truth. Their book is one of 200 others not to have been selected for the exhibition. The book is in the National Library. Anyone can read it. It's just not in a showcase celebrating Scotland's literary milestones, which is a curated selection, not an open mic. It seems to have escaped the attention of the paper's sharpest minds that the book, er, was initially included before being subsequently removed due to pressure – with there being email evidence to back the development up. Hunter Blackburn has claimed the journal's video is defamatory – effectively accused the book's authors of lying – while Dalgety has urged the newspaper to apologise. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story, eh?
Scotsman
5 days ago
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Book of gender critical essays pulled from National Library display after staff complaints
The book was not included in the Dear Library exhibition Sign up to our Arts and Culture newsletter, get the latest news and reviews from our specialist arts writers Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... A book of gender critical essays has been pulled from a display of literature selected by the public to mark the National Library of Scotland's centenary following complaints from library staff. The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht, which opposes former first minister Nicola Sturgeon's gender self-ID law, is understood to have received a high level of nominations in a public vote, but was not put on show as part of the venue's Dear Library exhibition. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The book, co-edited by Scotsman columnist Susan Dalgety, includes more than 30 essays from authors including JK Rowling, former MP Joanna Cherry, MSP Ash Regan, and former prison governor Rhona Hotchkiss and charts a five-year campaign to protect the "sex-based rights" of women in Scotland. The library marked its centenary year this summer with a new exhibition launching next week dedicated to the importance of libraries. Billed as a 'love letter to libraries', Dear Library features the favourite books of celebrities, including Ian Rankin, Pat Nevin, Val McDermid and Alan Cumming, as well as books nominated by the public that had 'shaped their lives'. The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht is a collection of essays edited by Susan Dalgety and Lucy Hunter Blackburn. Ms Dalgety and co-author Lucy Hunter Blackburn said in a letter to national librarian Amina Shah that they understood their book was one of the 'most nominated', yet had not been selected for display following an "equality impact assessment'. They said they had obtained this information through a Freedom of Information request. They warned the decision not to include the book was 'a betrayal of the principles which are core to your role and the place of the Library in our nation's cultural and intellectual life'. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The editors wrote in the letter to Ms Shah: 'The material disclosed makes clear that you, and some of your senior colleagues, allowed activists on your staff to characterise the very existence of the book as harmful, hateful and akin to racism and homophobia. By conceding to this internal lobbying, not only have you allowed this defamatory misrepresentation to go unchallenged, but you have in effect endorsed it. 'Surely, the role of the National Librarian is to ensure the Library is a place where ideas, debate and discussion take place. Yet rather than treat this book as a book, you have allowed it to be treated as a dangerous object, not safe for public display in Scotland's national library.' They added: 'It is clear from the papers released that the library has discriminated against this book purely for the position it takes on questions of sex and gender identity, a position now confirmed to be in line with the Equality Act 2010.' Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad In April, a UK Supreme court ruling stated 'woman' and 'sex' in the Equality Act 2010 refers to biological sex. Ms Dalgety and Ms Hunter Blackburn called for Ms Shah and chair of the Library, Sir Drummond Bone, to meet them and explain 'why our book was deemed too harmful to the Library to be treated like any other'. The editors also referred to an 'internal minute from the LGBT staff network' which talks about "the group behind" the book being "explicitly exclusionary", but claimed books offering the opposing viewpoint were allowed to be part of the exhibition. They wrote: 'You felt unable to stand up to these threats from some of your staff, who also invoked the risk of further disruption from external activists, other parts of the local literary establishment and possibly your funders. In response, you sacrificed our book, and your principles. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad 'This act of cowardice removed from your exhibition the voice of one of the first two women of colour to be elected to the Scottish Parliament since 1999. It has treated the voices of women victims of male violence, already frozen out by the political process, as too shameful to share. 'These are women who have changed the course of politics not just in Scotland but in the UK, and who spoke up for many who felt less able to do so. All these women have been smeared and their words excluded from the exhibition by your decision.' A spokeswoman for the National Library of Scotland said: "Anyone can visit our reading rooms and access this book as well as the 200 other titles that were not selected for display."
Daily Mail
05-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Daily Mail
EUAN McCOLM: Book festival is doomed thanks to the cowardice of its chief...but women still won't wheesht
"The Women Who Wouldn't Wheesht" is the smash hit the literary establishment would rather not talk about. The book, published last May, collects essays by some of those involved in the campaign to protect women's rights against the demands of trans activists. The stories within are moving, inspiring, and - all too often - infuriating. The book's three separate appearances in the top 10 best sellers list show there's real interest in the issues it explores. It deserves its success. The editors of "TWWWW' - Susan Dalgety and Lucy Hunter Blackburn - gathered an impressive roster of contributors, including novelist JK Rowling, to tell the story of how Scottish feminists fought back against the SNP 's plan to reform the Gender Recognition Act to allow anyone to self-identify into the legally-recognised sex of their choosing. The stories contained within are gripping. Yet, despite the book's best-seller status, there is no place for it at this year's Edinburgh International Book Festival. To have included it would have been to risk conversation, you see. In an email to a customer, festival director Jenny Niven said discussion of the issues raised in the book 'feels extremely divisive'. How weird that the director of a literary festival should feel the divisiveness of an issue to be a negative. Aren't literary festivals, done properly, places where conflicting ideas do battle? While there's no place for a Scottish best-seller on one of the great controversies of our times at the festival, there is a slot - of course - for former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to promote her memoir, 'Frankly'. If Jenny Niven is using divisiveness as a measure for exclusion from the book festival then Ms Sturgeon should be nowhere near the event. It was the former First Minister, after all, who denounced feminists opposed to her self-ID plans as bigots. It was Ms Sturgeon who remained silent while trans activists hurled abuse and threats at nationalist politicians (and anyone else, for that matter) who dared dissent from the 'transwomen are women' orthodoxy. Of course, a proper literary festival would find spaces for both the former First Minister and the women whose campaign against her crank plan to let men self-identify as women hastened her political demise. Another writer conspicuous by her absence from this year's festival line-up is Jenny Lindsay, whose book 'Hounded - Women, Harms, and the Gender Wars' tells the shocking stories of women whose lives were torn apart by trans activists after they dared assert their sex-based rights. Ms Lindsay was, until six years ago, a leading figure on the small but vibrant live poetry scene. An award-winning writer, she mentored young poets and staged regular events in Edinburgh before her life was turned upside down for condemning a trans activist's demand for violence against lesbians at a Pride march. For speaking up, Ms Lindsay lost her livelihood and the majority of her friendships. While there is no place for Ms Lindsay at the book festival, some of those who participated in her hounding have been welcomed by Jenny Niven. (You know the 'let's not be divisive' Jenny Niven? That one.) The capture of the publishing industry by gender ideologues was swift and devastating. In recent years, we've seen numerous writers cancelled for their perfectly reasonable expressions of concern about the impact of the demands of trans activists on the rights of women. From children's authors such as Gillian Philip and Rachel Rooney to Father Ted creator Graham Linehan, writers with 'gender critical'views have seen work dry up. Showing that, if nothing else, she retains her sense of humour, Ms Niven claims the book festival programme shows 'we don't shy away from difficult conversation'. Yes, from the greatness of Nicola Sturgeon to the bravery of men in women's changing rooms, we can expect all the biggest issues of the day to be discussed at the festival. The book festival is doomed under its current leadership. Ms Niven's cowardice (for what other explanation can there be for her refusal to invite the women behind one of the most controversial and successful Scottish books of the year to appear at the festival?) is balanced by the stupidity of her senior colleagues. And if you think I'm being unnecessarily mean, consider this: one member of the festival board recently complained that charity Sex Matters had breached data protection law by emailing her only for it to be pointed out to her that her email address appears on her company's website. This is proper 'is-there-anybody-in-there?' stupidity. The success of books by writers such as Jenny Lindsay, Susan Dalgety and Lucy Hunter Blackburn is a standing reproach to literary establishment tastemakers drunk on a cocktail of mixed pronouns and furious self-righteousness. Jenny Niven's book festival is as difficult and edgy as an Ocado delivery. Its hand-wringing theme of 'repair' studiously ignores the damage wrought on the literary world by the activist views and behaviour of many of those booked to participate. Just as perplexing as the decision of Ms Niven exclude hugely successful gender critical feminist writers from this year's book festival is the absence of Orwell Prize-winning author, Darren McGarvey from the line-up. Mr McGarvey's third book - 'Trauma Industrial Complex: How Oversharing Became a Product in a Digital World' - is published next week, slap bang in the middle of the festival. Of course, nobody is entitled to a booking at the book festival but it seems strange that there is no space for Mr McGarvey, a relentless pain in the establishment backside, while there is room for a trans identifying male 'poet' whose most recent performance was a topless protest during which he demanded 'give us wombs and give us t*****s'. In common with Jenny Lindsay, Susan Dalgety and Lucy Hunter Blackburn, Darren McGarvey has no interest in rubbing along nicely with the charlatans currently dominating the Scottish cultural world. His recent album, released under the name of his rapper alter-ego Loki, 'Not Funded by Creative Scotland' is a brutal and often hilarious critique of the cosy arts scene, where individuality of thought is treated with the greatest suspicion. The Edinburgh International Book Festival has a long and illustrious history as an event at which great, provocative thinkers presented - and defended - controversial ideas. Under the cowardly leadership of director Jenny Niven, those days are over.
Scotsman
05-08-2025
- Entertainment
- Scotsman
Readers' letters: We must not return to the days of Mary Whitehouse
A reader says freedom of expression should be defended, even if it might offend some people Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Speaking as someone who is usually in agreement with Susan Dalgety, it's also necessary to agree with her when she admits to being at risk of 'sounding like Mary Whitehouse' (Scotsman, 2 August) when criticising Channel 4's recent documentary on Tia Billinger – aka 'Bonnie Blue'. Such a broadcast might well make Ms Dalgety's 'skin crawl', but in a liberal democracy freedom of expression (within reason) must be respected even if it might offend some of us. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Those taking part in the event Ms Dalgety describes were all consenting adults participating in an entirely legal activity. Thankfully, we are not living in Franco's Spain or the repressive Roman Catholic Ireland of the 1930s-1980s as portrayed in Edna O'Brian's novels, once banned by Irish censors. Mary Whitehouse, as president of the National Viewers' and Listeners' Association, was a vigorous campaigner against what she perceived to be excessive sex, violence and bad language on screen and stage (Picture: Les Lee/Daily Express/) Radical feminists might wish to reflect on the irony that those countries which prohibit pornography (such as Iran and Afghanistan) are the very same states where women are most oppressed and are denied human rights. By objecting to this Bonnie Blue documentary, Susan Dalgety unwittingly aligns herself not only with Mrs Whitehouse's campaign to 'clean up' television, but also President Ronald Reagan's failed attempt to close down America's adult entertainment industry back in the 1980s. Martin O'Gorman, Edinburgh Spanish Inquisition Jenny Lindsay (Scotsman, 2 August) quite correctly criticises John Swinney's reference to Scotland as 'the birthplace of the Enlightenment" when he and his government and his acolytes, have spent years introducing and enacting laws to strangle freedom of thought and expression in Scotland. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad I'd add to Ms Lindsay's list ot taboo subjects any hint of challenge to the current diktats on measures to live with climate change, as Christine Jardine points out in her article, 'Milliband's moving to end North Sea oil too quickly' (Scotsman, 4 August). Also that successive governments' policies on housing the increasing number of asylum seekers entering the country illegally have driven so many people to protest in public, often for the first time in their lives, and are dismissed as being members of 'the far right'. As Ms Lindsay notes, in the context of gender issues and Israel/Palestine, 'perfectly ordinary viewpoints are twisted erroneously by people seeming incapable of critically analysing anything other than cereal packets'. The 1998 romcom Sliding Doors had a running trope: 'No-one expects the Spanish Inquisition.' Little did we think when we laughed then that we'd be living through a modern version of the Inquisition in 2025. Lovina Roe, Perth, Perth & Kinross Bank balance I agree with the granting of consent to Berwick Bank wind farm. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Two correspondents to your letters page (2 August) mention an estimate of 31,000 bird deaths over the wind farm's 30-year life span. This is about 1,033 a year, averaging 2.83 bird deaths a day. For perspective, estimates of the number of garden birds killed by domestic cats in the UK each year are in a range of 40 to 70 million. The Mammal Society's study in 2003 estimated UK cats kill 55 million birds annually. That's an average of 150,684 bird deaths a day. The Civil Aviation Authority's 2017 report on 'Wildlife hazard management at aerodromes' shows that where deterrence fails to reduce the risk of birds to aircraft, birds will be shot. So human desires to have cats and to fly in aircraft have priority over the lives of birds. SSE Renewables said on 31 July that Berwick Bank has secured two connection points, at Dunbar and Blyth in Northumberland, to the UK electricity grid, and the trade association Renewable UK said on 31 July 'the approval of Berwick Bank Offshore Wind Farm is a pivotal milestone for Britain's energy transition'. Berwick Bank wind farm will benefit people in Scotland and England, and I think many of your correspondents and readers will agree with that. E Campbell, Newton Mearns, East Renfrewshire Sheer madness I recently read in horror that the Berwick Bank wind farm array had been provisionally approved despite the number of complaints and the fact that it will kill thousands of seabirds, (some breeds of which are in decline), due to the relative proximity of the array to their breeding sites. I can also only assume that the decision-maker have not seen, or totally ignored the figures being produced on the Octopus Energy 'UK's Wasted Windpower tracker' site which not only shows that as I write, to date this year more than £716m in wind power has been wasted but also that the nearby Seagreen array (also owned by SSE) has been closed down 71 per cent of the time because the grid cannot handle the amount of energy generated in higher wind situations. Although producing nothing, SSE is paid millions of pounds in 'constraints payments' which are added to every electrical bill. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad It is widely accepted that Scotland has a major issue with the amount of energy it can handle from its wind farms and that this issue will take years to resolve. In the interim adding another extremely large array. which will only increase energy bills and kill thousands of seabirds when it is operating, is sheer madness. Ralph Bebbington, Crediton, Devon Not so green In an open letter to John Swinney, signed by 18 environmental and civic groups including Friends of the Earth and Stop Climate Chaos Scotland, he was asked to stop the increasing level of plastic pollution in Scotland (Scotsman, 4 August). It is quite ironic that just days before, permission was given for the world's largest wind farm consisting of 307 turbines at Berwick Bank. These turbines will have plastic components: plastic coating on the copper wires and the turbine blades are made of polymer composite materials – plastics within which fibres or particles are embedded as reinforcement. These blades cannot be recycled but end up in landfill. With 100,000 tons of turbine blades disposed of annually in the UK and 329,000 wind turbines globally there is a huge environmental problem that Friends of the Earth etc dare not mention. Clark Cross, Linlithgow, West Lothian Pope for peace Pope Leo XVI celebrated his three months in office with a youth mass on the theme of peace (Scotsman, 4 August). He's fast making a reputation of being a peacemaking Pope. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad Quietly, he's negotiating an end to the war in Ukraine, having twice met with Vlodomir Zelensky and phoned Vladimir Putin. As a long-serving member of the Augustinian fraternity, his watch words are unity and peace. One of his first acts as Pope, was to visit the fraternity, which he had led prior to becoming Pope, assuring his former colleagues that 'they were still his brothers'. In contrast to his predecessor, the charismatic Pope Francis, Pope Leo has been described as an introvert, who is very much a team player. Much of his papacy is spent listening and, as he said to the young people, patiently and tirelessly, trying to resolve conflict by, not fearsome weapons, but long-term negotiation, a quality, much needed in our war-torn world. We are blessed to have such a Pope. Ian Petrie, Edinburgh Dual purpose Rachel Amery (Scotsman, 4 August) writes about the dualling of the A1. Yes, a need not just for those that use the A1 from Alnwick to Dunbar which is the only part not a dual carriageway at present, but for the whole transport industry which over uses the M74 and A66. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad What she fails to highlight is that it was Conservative Ian Lang. as Scottish Secretary, who stopped the programme to dual the A1 between Newcastle and Edinburgh in the early 1990s. Robert Anderson, Dunning, Perth & Kinross Don't be fooled The latest misguided ruse of Robert IG Scott (Letters, 2 August), with the aim of having Holyrood abolished in favour of direct rule from Westminster, is to promote a unionist cabal offering 'radical changes' in order to defeat the SNP. While recent polling has shown consistent support for independence at around 50 per cent or greater, one suspects that the polling levels of support would be significantly higher if the BBC and much of the media in Scotland were not seemingly preoccupied with seeking stories to denigrate the Scottish Government and the SNP. What is certain is that a clear majority, possibly approaching the 75 per cent of the devolution referendum, think that the people of Scotland should be able to determine their own future (even if individually some might not yet be ready to vote for independence in a referendum). Those who still think that Scotland should remain in a dysfunctional Union and believe that they represent the majority view of the people of Scotland should be prepared to back that belief in a democratic manner and support calls for a constitutional referendum should Scotland, in 2026, again elect a majority of MSPs supporting independence. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad With Brexit, Covid, Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing slaughter in Gaza there have been significant changes in the UK and around the world. Those who would deny the people of Scotland from having a second constitutional referendum at the earliest realistic date of 2028 (14 years after 2014 and double the period available to the UK citizens of Northern Ireland) seek not only to deny democracy but to deny human evolution. Stan Grodynski, Longniddry, East Lothian Write to The Scotsman
