It is gratifying to see that Nicola Sturgeon and some of her ministers have condemned the nationalist demonstrators in Perth who abused the BBC journalist James Cook, who was covering the Conservative leadership hustings in Perth on Tuesday (“Nicola Sturgeon condemns abuse hurled at BBC reporter over independence”, Herald Scotland, August 17). Shouting “lying scum” and “traitor”, as the mob did, is not a good look when captured on national TV. Ms Sturgeon needs to realise, however, that this is what happens when visceral hatred is stirred up by politicians, and in Scotland no one stirs up hatred better than the SNP.The long blue banner tastefully proclaiming “Tory Scum Out”, held by the agitators in Perth, has a pedigree: it has appeared at nationalist events in recent years. In its far right-hand corner, it bears a runic symbol associated with Siol nan Gaidheal (Seed of the Gael), a splinter group of nationalists shunned by the SNP but nevertheless an active campaigner on the Yes side in 2014. At an All Under One Banner event in 2020, at least one SNP parliamentarian processed behind that same banner. Scotland’s problem is that it has suited first the Labour Party and now, in much more virulent form, the SNP to demonise “Tories”. In the 2019 election campaign in Glasgow, Ms Sturgeon made a speech as follows: “The Scotland we seek is open, welcoming, diverse and inclusive, and no Tory is ever going to be allowed to change that. And down that Boris Johnson path lies a future where Boris Johnson has his strings pulled by Donald Trump. Make no mistake, if we accept for our country that future, our National Health Service, workers’ rights, environmental standards – all of that is on the line. That is not the Scotland that we want” Election rhetoric, some might say, but it is part of a concerted campaign by the SNP to delegitimise a legal political party (of which I am not a member). The demonstrators in Perth may or may not be SNP members, but they are activists in Ms Sturgeon’s cause. It is long past time that she toned down the rhetoric of hatred – of the UK, England, Westminster, Tories -and tried to return Scotland to civilisation. Jill Stephenson. Edinburgh.
