I can remember when Muriel was advocating 'torching' The Sun newspaper in the name of Scottish nationalism. Obviously she saw a better future for herself with Labour. A horrrible wee woman.

Oh dear, Oh dear, Oh dear. Muriel's on her Unionist horse again.

The usual suspects:

• We're too small: “who cares anyway about the foreign policy of a country of less than six million?”


• We're too poor: “no-one can seriously imagine that our economy, in this depopulating, non-manufacturing, post-industrial country would flourish by being cut off on its own.”


• Stick in a whiff of racism: “And surely with the acceptance that globalisation and multi-culturalism are here to stay, the “wha’s like us” brand of kilted nationalism and swagger that pervades the SNP must seem dated and ridiculous to even the most die hard patriot.”

Yup heard it all before. Norway and Ireland are both going down the tubes, and being proud of your culture's a crime.

And then she blathers on about the religious right.

Open your blinkers Muriel, who's the party pushing “faith” schools the hardest in Westminster? It surely couldn't be the sainted labour party could it?

Before the killer line from the subservient labour numpty she is:

"...devolution delivered a level of representation we only ever dreamt of, with an executive now currently creating and passing bills that would previously have gone straight into the Westminster pedal bin...Having been granted what I desired..."

Jes*s! What a poverty of ambition. Local Government's good enough for me. That's a true Labour voice.

Being run by a glorified local authority is better than running your own country?

Not for me and all the other Scots who vote SNP to get our country back.

Oh dear, Oh dear, Oh dear. Muriel's on her Unionist horse again.

The usual suspects:

• We're too small: “who cares anyway about the foreign policy of a country of less than six million?”


• We're too poor: “no-one can seriously imagine that our economy, in this depopulating, non-manufacturing, post-industrial country would flourish by being cut off on its own.”


• Stick in a whiff of racism: “And surely with the acceptance that globalisation and multi-culturalism are here to stay, the “wha’s like us” brand of kilted nationalism and swagger that pervades the SNP must seem dated and ridiculous to even the most die hard patriot.”

Yup heard it all before. Norway and Ireland are both going down the tubes, and being proud of your culture's a crime.

And then she blathers on about the religious right.

Open your blinkers Muriel, who's the party pushing “faith” schools the hardest in Westminster? It surely couldn't be the sainted labour party could it?

Before the killer line from the subservient labour numpty she is:

"...devolution delivered a level of representation we only ever dreamt of, with an executive now currently creating and passing bills that would previously have gone straight into the Westminster pedal bin...Having been granted what I desired..."

Jes*s! What a poverty of ambition. Local Government's good enough for me. That's a true Labour voice.

Being run by a glorified local authority is better than running your own country?

Not for me and all the other Scots who vote SNP to get our country back.

Oh dear, Oh dear, Oh dear. Muriel's on her Unionist horse again.

The usual suspects:

• We're too small: “who cares anyway about the foreign policy of a country of less than six million?”


• We're too poor: “no-one can seriously imagine that our economy, in this depopulating, non-manufacturing, post-industrial country would flourish by being cut off on its own.”


• Stick in a whiff of racism: “And surely with the acceptance that globalisation and multi-culturalism are here to stay, the “wha’s like us” brand of kilted nationalism and swagger that pervades the SNP must seem dated and ridiculous to even the most die hard patriot.”

Sorry for the 3 repeat comments but each time I sent it the server came back with an error. I didn't think any had gone in at all till I logged out and back in again. Brilliant system.

What pathetic myopic drivel. The reasons for being independent were all to clear during 'Thatcher's reign', and nothing has changed.

Ms Gray states that the English 'came to their senses and voted Labour', but how does this glib statement square with the fact that at the last Westminster Election, more people in England voted Tory than Labour? The Tories WILL return to government, again without a mandate in Scotland.

Does Ms Gray think the English have now lost their senses again? Or could it be that our neighbours simply have different political values than we in Scotland? I for one think that England should always get the govenment it votes for. And Scotland should too.

Muriel Gray's article was an absolute joke! Unfortunately she is part of the "Brit-Nat establishment" who out of self-interest try and brainwash their fellow citizens into believing the status quo is fine and we should just accept it.

Well I'm sorry Muriel but your argument is as daft as your wee peroxide barnet!

If Scotland remains part of the UK, we will: still have nuclear submarines parked in our lochs, nuclear power imposed on us by London, Corporation tax levels which inhibit growth, our young men and women dying for an imperial war for Messrs Blair and Bush, our natural resources such as oil, gas, seabed (wind farms) pillaged by the Treasury, our brightest and brainiest people moving on to higher growth areas and becoming absorbed into a country rather than our ridiculous stateless best quasi-country in the world (I for one will certainly move to somewhere like Ireland or Norway if Jack and his numpties are re-elected! Anyway I'd be writing forever if I continued writing how Scotland is suffocated by the union...

I have yet to hear any valid arguments for the Union. Brown has come out with some pathetic arguments: "em we all have family in England" so..there isn't going to be a border. "We share the same currency" and..I'm sure Scottish exporters would much rather have the Euro. "We share the same military" I think Scots would rather not fight illegal wars. Oh and "Scotland would lose it's international clout from being part of the UK" em..no Scotland would gain international status, recognition, have it's own voice heard rather than be muffled in the "UK" which everyone around the world thinks is another name for England. I have travelled extensively and UK or Britain = England.

So Muriel and her Daily Record, Sun etc overtly unionist press will continue trying to quash self-determination and keep us a sub-nation but eventually independence will happen. I just hope it's sooner rather than later.

Muriel Gray's article was an absolute joke! Unfortunately she is part of the "Brit-Nat establishment" who out of self-interest try and brainwash their fellow citizens into believing the status quo is fine and we should just accept it.

Well I'm sorry Muriel but your argument is as daft as your wee peroxide barnet!

If Scotland remains part of the UK, we will: still have nuclear submarines parked in our lochs, nuclear power imposed on us by London, Corporation tax levels which inhibit growth, our young men and women dying for an imperial war for Messrs Blair and Bush, our natural resources such as oil, gas, seabed (wind farms) pillaged by the Treasury, our brightest and brainiest people moving on to higher growth areas and becoming absorbed into a country rather than our ridiculous stateless best quasi-country in the world (I for one will certainly move to somewhere like Ireland or Norway if Jack and his numpties are re-elected! Anyway I'd be writing forever if I continued writing how Scotland is suffocated by the union...

I have yet to hear any valid arguments for the Union. Brown has come out with some pathetic arguments: "em we all have family in England" so..there isn't going to be a border. "We share the same currency" and..I'm sure Scottish exporters would much rather have the Euro. "We share the same military" I think Scots would rather not fight illegal wars. Oh and "Scotland would lose it's international clout from being part of the UK" em..no Scotland would gain international status, recognition, have it's own voice heard rather than be muffled in the "UK" which everyone around the world thinks is another name for England. I have travelled extensively and UK or Britain = England.

So Muriel and her Daily Record, Sun etc overtly unionist press will continue trying to quash self-determination and keep us a sub-nation but eventually independence will happen. I just hope it's sooner rather than later.

The Muriel Gray’s first paragraph demonstrate her mind set. She is trying to be ever so clever – and fails. It is a pathetic opening paragraph but nonetheless the remainder of her article goes downhill from there.

As someone who fought in Korea and Suez let me deal with the important matter of the return of the Scottish service people from Iraq. NO there isn’t anything complicated that won’t become even more complicated the longer we stay. Yes why didn’t your political masters think of that before? Before sending our countrymen and women into an un-winnable war in a country that was not and never has been a threat to us. Like Vietnam before, the US will be forced to withdraw with their tails between their legs and we will be forced to share their shame.

Madam I don’t suppose you’ve ever had the ‘pleasure’ of living in a country where every time you walk outside of your secure area every one in the country wants to shoot you or blow you up. That’s when you find the adrenaline is brown lumpy and runs down both legs. The Iraqis don’t want us there; we don’t want to be there; what is the problem?

Yes Alex Salmond has identified a number of areas that require urgent attention from a real government in the interest of its people. But we are not the people of a Westminster, or Westminster controlled government, so don’t look to them for a solution. We need a Scottish government to provide a solution to Scottish problems. That certainly won’t be a Labour government that has to look to its masters in London for permission to break wind. I note that that McConnell has today admitted that relations between him and Brown were so bad that they had a period of eighteen months where they did not speak to each other. Even today Brown treats him with contempt.

England is beginning to realise that without Scotland there will never be a Labour controlled government in England. Come the next Westminster election there will be a Tory government with or without the Scottish vote. If come the May election Scotland loses its courage and again votes in a Labour government the Scotland will once again be ruled by an English Tory Government. Once again we will suffer the insult of being called subsidy junkies whilst our resources are raped for England’s benefit.

I’ve have had the good fortune to own a property in Portugal for over twenty years and been a visitor for many years before that and now spend my winters there. Portugal is a smaller country than Scotland and doesn’t have its resources but, since it threw off the dictator Salazar in 1975, it has grown at an astonishing pace and is a free nation within the EU. From what was an ill educated peasant economy we now have a country that is rightly proud of its independence, improved education and hard working population. Scotland can and will do even better when it is free of the union yoke.

Madam your entire article is a disgrace but if it is truly your opinion then I suggest you move south where your loyalty lies. Scotland has no time or place for lickspittles such as you.

Oh dear - when did better schools, hospitals and pensions become ‘childish nonsense’? And is it really OK for us to be accomplices to a genocide because we’re so small it doesn't matter?

Muriel is such a bonnie fechter when she attacks the empty-headed claptrap of religion that it is the more saddening to see her using empty-headed claptrap when she attacks the SNP. What happens to the ruthless objectivity, the indignant rejection of baloney when she turns to politics? Can’t she see that support for the Union is just another establishment superstition?

The median Scottish political view, as Muriel says, is to the left of centre – when Mrs Thatcher was at the zenith of her power there were no Conservative MPs in Scotland. Quite clearly Mrs Thatcher’s view was that if she had sufficient support in England, zero representation in Scotland didn’t matter – she therefore aligned her policies to the preferences of Middle England, knowing that victory there would produce enough seats for the Scottish results to be irrelevant. ‘The only vote that matters in Scotland,’ she said, ‘is the SNP vote.’ In other words, if she lost Scotland to the NLP she need fear nothing from the faux-leftism of a brother conservative and unionist party.

The English did not ‘come to their senses’ as Muriel patronisingly suggests. The NLP got elected because they out–Toried the Tories: stay in the Union now and you go to the polling booth only to choose between different flavours of conservatism. So if Muriel is sincere that the prospect of indefinite conservative government worried her into separatism in Thatcher’s time, then I fully expect to see her handing out SNP leaflets at the next campaign.