Dear Editor I would like to reply to your article in the Advertiser of the 21 May where people were reluctant to vote Yes in the upcoming referendum because of Alex Salmond. First of all I would like to point out the Yes campaign leader is Blair Jenkins not Alex Salmond. But that apart I find it astonishing, this is bigger than any person its about our destiny where we can throw off the Westminster shackles.

When have you ever seen as many cabinet ministers up here telling us how poor we would be and better to stay with the union, is that so? We have 25% child poverty, food banks, the poorest state pensions in the western world, I don’t hear that mentioned in project fear, in actual fact its: they who are afraid, afraid of losing all the taxes, vat, revenue from whisky, oil, crown estates etc. it all goes to Westminster to try to keep the Great in Great Britain and pretend that we are still an imperial nation and help finance illegal wars where hundreds of our service men and women are killed.

Then there is the House of Lords, all 700 of them, unelected and totally undemocratic, collecting £300 a day appearance money, compare that with the savings credit of £18 per week paid to low income pensioners.

However, we can change all that in September’s referendum and become a nation again and quite a wealthy one, go for it.

Yours sincerely Bob Murray Forth Street Cambus