THE SNP and the independence movement in general is under constant attack, much of it by fellow Scotsmen and women who profess to be patriotic and who seem to take pleasure from constantly denigrating our hard-working NHS workers, teachers and police officers. We are constantly told that they are bursting at the seams and not performing.

The root cause of all of this is of course a lack of adequate funding from Westminster and instead of denigrating, we should be applauding the work that they do on limited resources.

We are also led to believe that we can justifiably take action which could lead to us starving children or freezing pensioners because of a so-called £22 billion black hole. Yet we have multi-trillion-pound debt and are about to spend exactly the same amount - £22 billion - on a carbon capture scheme.

The effects of abolishing the winter fuel allowance - and the number of pensioners who will die as a result - have apparently been well researched but are being kept from us.

It seems the magic money tree is there for expensive vanity projects but not to help those who need it most.

Recent events have shown that it is not just the Tories who have the monopoly on Westminster sleaze. This unacceptable situation will continue until Scotland takes control of its own finances and indeed its own destiny.

There will be no land of milk and honey but getting rid of Trident, food banks and child poverty would be a good start.

Now, more than ever, is the time that all right-minded independence supporters must carry on the work started by the late Alex Salmond.

Two phrases by the great man should be constantly at the forefront of our minds, namely "the dream shall never die”, and his very last message on social media: “Scotland is a country, not a county”.

There can be no finer tribute than to continue on the trajectory towards independence.

Stewart Falconer, Alyth.

Journey must be completed

THERE is a dreadful sadness as I write on the death of Alex Salmond while he was on active political service.

Although the Scottish and UK establishments have tried to besmirch his name, he rose above it all and was acquitted by the highest court in the land on all 13 charges of sexual misconduct. I believe the two nameless civil servants along with the Scottish Parliament and, I stress, the SNP, should all be forever ashamed.

When I once met him, shook his hand and shared a bacon roll with him at Newtonmore golf club, he engendered a warm and friendly atmosphere, where fun and laughter were the keynotes.

No matter what, here was a passionate and inspirational leader, whose intellect and integrity was “abin them a’”. He galvanised the people of Scotland and led the independence campaign from a tiny tartan Tory minority into a social democratic majority, only to be beaten by the false and insidious UK “vow”.

Respected at home and abroad as a timeless Scottish and world leader, to ensure his lasting legacy Scotland must complete its journey to independence.

Grant Frazer, Newtonmore.

Giant amongst the pygmies

THE sad and untimely death of Alex Salmond removes one of the key actors from the play that is Scottish Independence. Whilst one could be at the opposite end of the spectrum from his desire for independence, it would be churlish and small-minded not to acknowledge his enormous contribution, not just to Scottish politics but to UK politics too.

When he became leader of the SNP, support for independence stood at 14%. After he persuaded the incumbent UK Prime Minister David Cameron to hold a referendum, that support climbed to 45%. It should be noted that there was no obligation on a UK Prime Minister to hold such a referendum and indeed the past and present leadership of the SNP have singularly failed to repeat that feat.

It is without question that he had some serious flaws if one is to believe all that has been and will be written about him in the coming days. However what is clear is that he was a giant in Scottish politics and the independence movement and had he been able to fulfil his desire to return to the Holyrood Parliament, he would have been a giant amongst the pygmies that currently occupy that place. Scottish politics and the cut and thrust of political debate, whether you agreed with him or not, will be considerably poorer now that he has departed the stage.

Richard Allison, Edinburgh.

Read more letters

• THOUGH I utterly opposed Alex Salmond's divisive nationalist dogma, I am not going to use his death to launch an ad hominem attack on him in these pages: I fully recognise that his, like every death, will be a personal tragedy for his family and friends, and a loss to many of his fellow separatists.

It's understood he had aspirations to rejoin Holyrood in 2026 as an Alba MSP, and indeed, I would have thoroughly enjoyed watching his finely tuned debating skills reduce to rubble those ineffectual and frankly incompetent individuals who lead the SNP these days.

Martin Redfern, Melrose.

His big mistake after 2011

EVEN for those who didn't support or know him, the suddenness of Alex Salmond's death was as big a shock as Diana's, or the great Jim Clark. And after Mary Queen of Scots he’ll be the most feted and debated "Black Bitch" son or daughter of my home town, Linlithgow, The cosy Labour/LibDem Holyrood coalition that sat admiring the view for eight years instead of renovating Scotland had it coming when he won in 2007 and shook things up, even with a minority. At the time I was persuadable on an independence project whose proposers showed an ability, vision and tested plan to change things for the better.

Instead, after 2011 he used nationalism, populism and grievance to inflate independence support and poisoned the campaign by turning a blind eye to the anti-English rancour.

Without all that he might have won, or honourably lost, but been able to stay on, committing to govern well for another term, build a track record of competence and delivery and show how things would be even better, independence in the EU, and with a mutually beneficial, co-operative treaty with the UK.

We might still have the Baby Box, but the ferries would have been orthodox and delivered, there'd be no camper vans, bottle bank fiascos, gender missteps, or weird school sex education lessons, Grangemouth might not only be saved, it might now be the hub of a booming shale industry, part of a pragmatic, far-sighted just transition.

And he could have handed over to able successors like Geoff Aberdein and Joanna Cherry who gave such genuine, reasoned tributes on the BBC Sunday Show (October 13).

Allan Sutherland, Stonehaven.

Now stop the indy papers

I REJOICED in 2014 when the people of Scotland chose to remain in the UK. But there can be no denying the nationalists ran a close race and that was due almost entirely to the work of their now-deceased leader. The SNP has retained a steadily downward trend since.

The SNP's latest independence paper was produced at great cost to us all, like those that came before it. Yet the document on Justice had fewer than 320 downloads. The population of Scotland is around 5.5 million.

When Nicola Sturgeon was in charge, the number of visitors to the site was 78,571.

These papers are produced at horrendous cost from a budget under great pressure. To say interest is clearly waning would be the understatement of the millennium. So, could this administration not, at last, do something worthwhile? Something that will cause them not to be remembered for all the wrong things?

It could scrap this nonsensical ''breaking up the UK'' paper production that demonstrably almost no-one reads; it could stop immediately Angus Robertson and his cronies' cash-devouring jaunts overseas; it could shut down overnight Mr Robertson's fake embassies, which are now merely an embarrassment. That would be a good start. Part of the huge amount of money saved could be ploughed into dragging us out of the worst drug and alcohol deaths record in Europe.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh.

A protest in Edinburgh against the crackdown on short-term letsA protest in Edinburgh against the crackdown on short-term lets (Image: Getty)

Infrastructure is fading away

VICKI Miller, head of VisitScotland, has done a good job ("Tourism boss hails strategy that led to spending boost", The Herald, October 11). Tourists are flocking here. The problem is that our infrastructure is fading away at the same time.

Seventeen years of SNP power has seen small local businesses and leisure facilities hammered, short-term lets stymied, city centres in decay, travel by car frowned upon, ferry services poor to non-existent, train services less than optimal and a tourist tax in the making.

For how long will tourists put up with the problems that are piling up, especially as the Greens want yet more impediments to airlines and cruise ships to be imposed as the price for keeping the current SNP government afloat?

Dr Gerald Edwards, Glasgow.