The issue of Scottish independence is still a major factor in this election, even if the pollsters say it is not the driving force it was last time around.
There has been concern in some quarters that even the SNP has not been pushing it wholeheartedly – a view encapsulated by the actor Brian Cox.
However, his intervention raised the hackles of one of our readers.
Jill Stephenson of Edinburgh writes:
"Hold the front page! Brian Cox – the actor one – is fearful the SNP is backing away from independence; so writes Kathleen Nutt. Can anyone explain why this is news and/or why we should care about it? Scarcely can Cox land in the UK but he is invited by the BBC, or the Edinburgh Festival, to make political pronouncements, often on Question Time or, this time, on the Laura Kuenssberg programme.
Brian Cox is an expat. He doesn’t live here or pay taxes here, yet he is wheeled out as a political pundit whose prejudice against the UK, which nurtured his career, is already legendary. Most of the time, he can sit in the luxury of his New York home and 'worry' about the SNP retreating from its obsession without having to concern himself with trivia such as how Scotland could afford to leave the UK, or how it would sustain its public services without the annual support it receives from HM Treasury.
Please spare us the agonising of luvvies such as Cox, as well as Alan Cummings and Martin Compston, about an issue that has the potential to damage critically those of us who actually live here and have to suffer the constant agitation of the less well-informed for a utopia that will never exist."
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