The Better Together empty promises robbed us of hope

“No” would mean we would have a more equal society.

“Yes” would mean a falling currency and a mountain of debt.

Were it not so tragic, it would be comical that we were promised Boris Johnson, far less Liz Truss, would never move into Number 10.

Amongst others of course and the subject of current debate, our pensioners were cowed by Project Fear into believing an independent Scotland could not afford to pay them.

Ms Stephenson understandably prefers to dwell upon the framing of the question and timing of the next referendum in a faraway future rather than address the broken promises and that we face yet more austerity brought about not by Alex Salmond but by those she voted for.

“Empty promises are worse than lies. They not only deceive but also rob the hope of those who hear them.”

Alan Carmichael, Glasgow.

Next time we must get it right

I SPENT part of September 18, 2014, on polling agent duty in Grangemouth, in support of a Yes vote. On my arrival at the polling station, I was greeted by a smiling gentleman wearing a Better Together badge who enthusiastically shook my hand, and informed me he was a member of the Labour Party. After chatting for an hour or two, he said: "I have something to tell you. I've voted Yes". I scoffed: "Nonsense. Why are you here for Better Together if you voted Yes?" He explained that he'd been a member of the Labour Party for years and felt duty bound to publicly support its stance but "they are wrong about independence, and in the privacy of the polling booth, I voted Yes".

Later that day, I visited a polling station in Falkirk, and again was greeted very pleasantly by a Better Together/Labour Party member who didn't admit to voting Yes, but who told me he was very unhappy to be there. I've been thinking about both gentlemen as we approach the 10th anniversary of the independence referendum, wondering how they felt when Scotland was dragged out of the EU against our will (after being assured that only a No vote could guarantee our place in Europe) and how they feel about having a Labour government at Westminster, and a Prime Minister who talked a lot about change, but who failed to tell the electorate it meant changing into a party which bears a frightening resemblance to the Tories; and a Chancellor whose upcoming Budget is going to be full of bleak winter chill, delivered by Rachel Reeves who increasingly sounds like a cold-hearted Mary Poppins, without a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down.

Tory austerity, Labour austerity, out of the EU; Scotland made the wrong choice in 2014. Next time, we need to get it right and take Scotland's future out of Westminster's hands, and put it firmly into Scotland's hands, for good.

Ruth Marr, Stirling.

Read more letters

• David Cameron's stupidity nearly cost us the Union
• Things might've been very different if we'd known more in 2014

Just look at what's happened

TEN years since the independence referendum it is worth a look at what has transpired. Scotland has been "governed" since then by an SNP/Green combination and look where we are. Oil and gas industry destroyed, Grangemouth about to close with colossal job losses, politicians who cannot see that there are only two sexes, legislation to curb "hate crimes" that seem to let some hatred through, and so it goes on with huge problems in health, education and transport.

If Scotland had been independent "in 18 months" as Alex Salmond promised, would we be any better off considering that those in power now are the same as then? Since there is no desire on the part of the Scottish people to re-run the independence referendum then there is the answer. When will our politicians realise that?

Dr Gerald Edwards, Glasgow.

Scotland stuck in a vacuum

THE political scene in Scotland is in a vacuum. Little or anything positive is occurring.

We Scots have been for some time been subjected to the whims of a variety of SNP first ministers, and an ever-weakening administration and economy.

It is obvious that there are serious problems in almost all key areas: education, health, transport (both on land and at sea), welfare. Do we really have to wait until the spring of 2026 to see off this totally inadequate administration?

The sooner the Scottish Parliament - if it continues to exist - comes under the control of a Labour/Liberal administration again, as it did at its inception in 1999, the better.

Robert IG Scott, Ceres, Fife.

How can we pay net zero debts?

IT was disappointing that independence supporters such as James Foley always refuse to debate the £130 billion debt accruing from the SNP plan to decarbonise Scottish homes ("Why Yes can't party like it's 2014", The Herald, September 13).

Surely, if saving the planet trumps Indyref2, the first priority should be to explain how net zero debts can be repaid before devoting time to anniversary plans?

Ian Moir, Castle Douglas.

Business can frame the EU debate

IN her interview with Ian McConnell ("‘Scottish businesses aren’t talking about more referendums’", The Herald, September 13), CBI chief Rain Newton-Smith says: “Business knows a return to the single market, customs union, freedom of movement, isn’t on the table.”

Business also surely knows that our departure from the EU, the single market and the customs union costs the UK in the region of £100 billion a year and delivers an economy annually 4% smaller than it would be had Brexit not happened.

All governments, even those with large majorities, can be persuaded to change policy direction if the evidence for so doing is credible, demonstrable and for the greater public good. Some voices are more persuasive and influential than others, among them being business. It is in the self-interest of perhaps every business in the UK to tell the Government that tinkering at the edges of Brexit will not deliver the growth the country needs.

Business can make it clear to the public and the Government exactly what it wants from the improved relations with the EU. Business has a central part to play in framing the national debate, giving it coherence and structure and taking policy towards the EU out of the shadows and into the light.

David Martin, President, European Movement in Scotland, Bearsden.

Charge home extenders more

COUNCIL tax bands have been frozen since the early 1990s. The SNP Government has effectively frozen council tax rates for 17 years. The SNP promised to reform council tax but, as with so many other promises, it has reneged.

The effects are ever more visible daily from the crumbling of roads, to the closing of swimming pools and libraries, the restriction of social services, and to the collapse of teacher numbers and of education resources generally.

There are those who decry this freeze as an overt subsidy to the rich. That is deliberately misleading. It’s a subsidy to all council tax payers, irrespective of the council tax band of their house.

So short of funds are local authorities in England that the Chancellor intends, from what I read, to withdraw the single person’s discount. How long with it take the SNP to latch on to that too?

Should people who have extended their homes pay more council tax? (Image: PA)

But all that will do is penalise young people trying to make it on their own, and the elderly on their own already facing the loss of the essential winter fuel allowance, all people whose use of local authority services is far less if not half of the demands of a family home.

If the SNP’s principle is to “ask” those with the broadest shoulders to pay more, then forcing those who have less and who use less is a gey strange way to go about it.

But equally unfair to those who pay their full whack, is that the freeze has been a huge covert subsidy to all those tens of thousands of people who over the last 30 years have been and are wealthy enough to afford hugely increasing the size and value of their lower tax band houses by garage or loft conversions and extensions to the size and value of higher tax bands.

A search of planning permission and building warrant records would readily identify those houses which should be revalued to a higher tax band because of extensions.

If their owners have pockets deep enough to afford extending the size and value of their houses, their shoulders are broad enough to bear the increased tax burden.

Alasdair Sampson, Stewarton.