Here’s why the SNP landslide of 2015 was not repeated in 2017

It is as simple as this: the vote that took 56 SNP MPs into Westminster in 2015 was, if not a protest vote, something very like it. It was certainly a reactive vote, which led people like me – Yessers who up until then had never voted SNP for Westminster because honestly, there’s not a lot of point – to do so to make a point. It was exceptional. It was the first vote after indyref, and it was a reaction to being shafted by the media and by the Unionist parties. The fact that it was a Westminster vote was, for one unique time, irrelevant. It did not and could not set a pattern for any future Scottish Westminster vote.

It was never going to happen again because the circumstances were not the same. The Westminster vote in 2017 was an ordinary Westminster vote. Many people who had never voted SNP for Westminster because there’s no point went back to their previous voting pattern. Some of us didn’t, which meant that the SNP did better than it has ever done except on that unique occasion.

I voted SNP and will continue to vote SNP for Westminster as a protest vote, although given the utter contempt in which Scotland is held in Westminster I am not surprised if you don’t.

You cannot compare the two Westminster votes and say that the SNP’s support has diminished. It shows only that one was a protest vote and the other wasn’t. In a way an SNP MP is as absurd as a Ukip MSP or a DUP MP (did I say that?). That’s what the 2017 vote reflects.

Max Marnau

Selkirk

HAVING watched the news on TV, and read The National yesterday, I was prompted to pen the following poem.

There’s an echo in the House

that doesn’t recede

with each telling –

it’s compelling.

So, the noes have it,

So, the noes have it,

So, the noes have it,

So, the noes have it,

And that’s not the end –

it just continues,

goes on, and on

ad nauseum.

So, the noes have it,

So, the noes have it,

So, the noes have it,

So, the noes have it,

Eight times it sounded –

rebounded, confounded.

Eight times it told us

they haven’t got a clue.

Now it’s Scotland’s turn

to turn the screw

to say the ayes have it

and be free at last.

And Europe’s keeping

a light on for us

so we can easily

find our way home.

Keith John Scammell

Inverness

THE Minimum Wage rises to £8.21 per hour in April. Note I do not use the Tory version “National Living Wage”, as £8.21 comes nowhere near the cost of living. To make matters worse, £8.21 per hour is for over-25s only. 16-17-year-olds will get £4.35, 18-20 year-olds will get £6.15, and 21-24-year-olds will get £7.70. If you’re under 25 you’ll still be working for poverty pay.

According to the latest figures from The Scottish Government, now one million people in Scotland are living below the bread line and most of them are working. It used to be the case that work was the way out of poverty – not any more.

The Chancellor has appointed Arindrajit Dube, Professor of Economics at the University of Massachusetts, to look at the issue. We await the findings with interest. Recent comments have been made that “many minimum-wage workers are not poor” as they may have partners on much higher incomes. This spectacularly misses the point. No-one should have to work for a pittance. Especially those who have to meet ever-increasing housing, heating and power costs.

The Scottish Socialist Party will continue to fight for a £10 an hour minimum wage for everyone aged 16 and above, and an end to zero-hour contracts. We invite you to attend our Glasgow event tomorrow at 11am at St Enoch Square.

Dougie Grant

Scottish Socialist Party, Lothians Branch

THE lunacy of this English Tory government in trying to take Britain out of the EU is witnessed on our TV screens every day. If one didn’t know any better the Brexit debacle could pass as a revival of the Carry On series of films, with a title such as Carry On Counting in The Commons. A principal star would have to be Speaker John Bercow, who shines out of the whole ramshackle affair as somebody who knows what he is doing. How he manages to stay steadfast amid the racket and the pressure is more than commendable. It is incredible.

To say that Scotland needs out of this can only be an understatement.

Ian Johnstone

Peterhead