IN bidding for the SNP leadership Dr Bill Wilson has shown that the SNP is the only major political party in the UK where democracy is alive and kicking. It is fantastic that an ordinary member can challenge the leadership and voice the concerns of the grassroots. All democrats should rejoice that Dr Wilson, a distinguished academic and hard-working SNP activist, has the courage and the ability to do this.
Both Dr Wilson and John Swinney are the proverbial nice guys. We can be sure of a campaign about the fundamentals and future direction of the SNP and not about personalities.
John Swinney is not to blame for the SNP's failure in May. He fought a brilliant campaign with great personal effort and his commitment to independence is unquestionable. If he had got the same effort and commitment from others the result might have been very different. Dr Wilson's challenge has given the SNP an opportunity to renew its baptismal vows by renouncing the devolution devil and all its pomps and vanities. In all future elections the leader of the SNP must go before the electorate and say ''A vote for the SNP is a vote for independence''.
Tom Brady,
35 Fishescoates Gardens, Burnside, Rutherglen.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article