ONE of the most revealing parts of Nicola Sturgeon's speech regarding an independence referendum was the obvious exasperation felt by the First Minister at the lack of co-operation she has received from the Prime Minister in respect of her proposals for a bespoke deal for Scotland. Indeed, there has been very little respect at all shown by Downing Street towards Scotland's elected First Minister. Ms Sturgeon throughout these negotiations has time and time again demonstrated her willingness to compromise, but it is now clear that Theresa May has thrown every proposal back in her face. It is Mrs May's intransigence which has left Ms Sturgeon with no other option but to call a referendum which will give the people of Scotland the power to decide their own future.

Like Marianne Taylor (“Rennie’s pro-Union rhetoric is fantasy”, The Herald, March 13), I too listened to Willie Rennie's conference speech with incredulity. Apparently the Liberal Democrats consider a second referendum on independence to be all wrong, but a second referendum on Brexit to be all right. Meanwhile, there has been the usual muddle between Labour in London and Labour in Scotland regarding their position on an independence referendum, while undoubtedly Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson will echo every word said on the subject by Theresa May. Perhaps if Ms Davidson and her Unionist colleagues, Kezia Dugdale and Willie Rennie, had got behind the First Minister and applied some pressure to Mrs May, a second referendum on independence, to which they are all opposed, might have been avoided. But of course that would have meant those so-called Scottish party leaders standing up for Scotland's interests in Europe against an unelected Brexit Prime Minister at Westminster, and that would take a commitment to Scotland that none of them have ever displayed.

Ruth Marr,

99 Grampian Road,

Stirling.

I WATCHED Nicola Sturgeon's press conference with great interest this morning. I was impressed with the clear case that the First Minister put for Scotland making its own democratic choice on its future. At a time when we are being dragged out of Europe against our will, and being governed at Westminster by a party that only has one MP in Scotland, independence is the only way Scotland can decide its own future.

What is also clear is that with Labour in disarray the alternative to independence is another 10 or more years of Tory rule over Scotland. Faced with those choices I think that many people who voted No in 2014 will change their mind and vote Yes this time.

Indeed the latest STV poll reflects this with a 50/50 split in voting intentions. I recall that two years before the last referendum the support for independence was running at 28 per cent. Beginning with a base of 50 per cent today before any campaigning has begun, I am confident a clear majority can be won for independence.

I am not uncritical of the SNP; indeed, I resigned from the party over Nicola Sturgeon endorsing the Sun newspaper. However, the Yes campaign is much bigger than the SNP and today I'm getting in touch with my local Yes campaign to offer my support. In the words of Alex Salmond, it's "game on".

Hugh Kerr,

Wharton Square, Edinburgh.

I DON'T hold with increased thresholds for particular votes; it has to be 50 per cent plus one of votes cast.

Nevertheless, how can any responsible leader contemplate a situation where an irreversible constitutional change can be brought about with nigh-on half the population opposing it, as the opinion polls suggest?

Waiting until the polls indicated 70 per cent for separation would result in a more stable country, as well as giving us the chance to see how the Calman and Smith transfers of power work in practice before taking an irrevocable step.

A supporter of secession once chillingly said: “We only have to be lucky once.”

Fatally dividing the country as the next referendum could do, with half its population for ever bereft of their preferred nationality, is not a legacy which any leader should desire.

I had expected better of Nicola Sturgeon.

Jane Ann Liston,

5 Whitehill Terrace, Largo Road, St Andrews.

SCOTLAND had a referendum for independence and we chose No. We had a referendum as a United Kingdom to leave the EU and we chose Leave. That’s called democracy.

Will someone kindly tell Nicola Sturgeon that we are too small an island to separate, yet we don’t want to be ruled from Brussels.

Get on with Brexit.

T Sayer,

5/33 Elder Street, Glasgow.

DAVID Stubley (Letters, March 13) is absolutely correct when he writes that “economics is not a science. It is in fact no better than a sequence of guesses of varying levels of reliability based on data which is only relevant in a historical perspective”, and is biased by the political point of view of the economist in question.

This is particularly obvious regarding forecasting, where historical data is put to the purpose of assuring us what will happen over the next few years, on the assumption that the number of influences and their balance will be the same as in past. However, as the well-known anagement author, Peter Drucker, wrote many years ago, the only thing we know about the future is that it will be different from the present. But even yet we fixate on economic forecasts as if they provide us with an absolutely, precisely correct view of how the future will turn out.

On the other hand, it is certainly true that it is better to be even five per cent informed than 100 per cent ignorant. However, the preoccupation with forecasts sometimes leads us to treat forecasts as absolutely correct. An example we have all experienced is the regularly repeated nostrum that an independent Scotland would have a deficit of £15 billion (or whatever it is today), irrespective of the fact that the constitutional position of an independent Scotland would be quite different from now; that the revenue side of that claim is admitted (in GERS) to be substantially based on assumptions and estimates, and that the expenditure side assumes we would continue with the same spending patterns and priorities of the UK. But most of all, this is simply one year’s data, which is being extrapolated into the future as if it were sufficiently representative for that purpose, which it is not. Jim and Margaret Cuthbert have shown that even bearing our share of debt and with the same tax and spend decisions, if Scotland had had its geographic share of oil since 1980, we would have an accumulated surplus of more than £100 billion and no debt. So, that is how representative the last few years have been. Yet still we are told in an utterly assured, no questions possible manner, that any other interpretation is quite unrealistic.

Perhaps the definitive view on this matter, and to be borne in mind at all times during the coming referendum, is that of the late John Kenneth Galbraith, the renowned Professor of Economics at Harvard, Princeton and Berkley, who wrote: “The only function of economic forecasting is to make astrology look respectable”.

Alasdair Galloway,

14 Silverton Avenue, Dumbarton.

I RESPECT David Stubley's passion for an independent Scotland. However, I must point out to him that the content of his letter can be completely turned against the independence camp, not least because this camp has long put forward a delusional facsimile of “a cast-iron, 100 per cent guaranteed plan for a Scottish Utopia”; and I remark on this as a long-time SNP voter (always hoping that it'll get better – sadly, not likely at this juncture).

It is not, I believe, that many Scots who wish to remain in the Union are “feart” of going it alone; but rather that we recognise that staying part of the UK is the best “business case”, a case which the SNP has actually done nothing to undermine. The Scottish Government which would apparently be happy to have trade with its largest market - the rest of the UK - possibly hampered by tariffs, in order for an independent Scotland to broker some kind of preferential deal with one of its quite smaller markets, the EU.

One can therefore argue that it might rather be the case that the independence camp is "hiding under the skirts" of the SNP Grand Independence Magic Show, and feart to fight – within the Union – for Scotland's equitable share of the UK cake. There is no contradiction in the SNP fighting Scotland's corner within the UK; to do this, it just needs to concentrate all their energies on getting on with the day job rather than depleting them in pursuing naive teenage dreams.

Philip Adams,

7 Whirlie Road, Crosslee, Renfrewshire.

MANY figures and statistics have been quoted over the last six months on Scotland’s economic standing and will no doubt will continue to be used as we move forward to another referendum.

Figures reported include: a £15billion deficit, nine per cent GDP shortfall; three per cent EU GDP target; oil price drop $100 to $50 a barrel, and more. One statistic not quoted as much though, and the starkest, is from the much respected and scrupulously independent Institute of Fiscal Studies (2016). It is that Scotland’s economy would have to grow at an annual rate of 6.2 per cent compound over the next six years to bring its deficit into what the EU considers as an acceptable membership criteria. Given that Scotland regularly struggles to achieve 1.5 per cent, I hope the SNP is able to explain to the electorate how it proposes to square this circle, either massive tax rises or massive cuts in public expenditure.

We wait with interest as to what this is to be.

Robert T Paton,

43 Ballantrae Drive, Newton Mearns.

CAN we have a referendum on banning referendums?

Michael Watson,

74 Wardlaw Avenue, Rutherglen.