SNP should elaborate before polling day IT HAS been noticeable these past few months how reluctant Alex Salmond is actually to give any detail on his policies for separation, and when anyone asks questions to which the voters might reasonably want answers, they are accused of scaremongering and get petty insults thrown at them.

Now we learn that all will be revealed when, if he gets to be First Minister after the May elections, he will publish a White Paper. The White Paper "will set out how independence could work, and relations with the rest of the UK and with Europe". Any chance of the voters being told, before they go to the polling stations?

Notice the difference between now and the run-up to the Scottish Parliament being created: the widely representative Constitutional Convention (from which the Nationalists excluded themselves) debated all the relevant issues and answered the public's questions before asking them to support devolution.

For a party that claims to speak for Scotland, it seems a bit odd, to say the least, that the Nationalists can neither listen to their fellow citizens' genuine concerns, nor answer their questions.

Maria Fyfe, 10 Ascot Avenue, Glasgow

DOUGLAS Fraser's report, SNP referendum pledge in doubt (January 15), makes it clear that if the Scottish electorate want to have a say in their future, whether or not they believe in independence or the Union, they have little option but to vote SNP. A vote for any of the other main parties means that they, the people of Scotland, will not be given the democratic right to register their views in a referendum.

The forthcoming election in May is not about independence, but it is about the freedom of the people of Scotland to make a decision on their own destiny and this would be the first time in the past 300 years.

Thomas L Inglis, 7 Menzies Avenue, Fintry

CONTRARY to your editorial (January 15), the SNP has never proposed holding an independence referendum within 100 days of taking office, only to publish a bill. The latest suggestion by Alex Salmond to issue a consultation document is sensible as it would put the meat on to the bones of such a historic plebiscite.

The Nationalists in power should choose the right moment to hold a referendum and have nothing to fear. Scarcely a day now goes by without another respected business figure such as Crawford Beveridge dismissing the fears and smears of the Gordon Browns of this world, whose arguments against a free-standing Scotland increasingly come from another decade. Moreover, the clever David Cameron eyeing the possibility of more than 40 fewer Labourites propping up a Westminster government, is happy to disassociate himself from the "you're too poor and too stupid" Unionist brigade. It increasingly looks as if, yes, it really is time.

Gavin Fleming, 517 Webster's Land, Grassmarket, Edinburgh

Switzerland is a fiercely independent country with its own currency, the Swiss franc, and is completely surrounded by member countries of the European Union whose currency is the euro. Despite this, the Swiss financial services sector, which relies heavily on foreign investment, provided about 14% of that country's gross domestic product in 2004 as well as employment for about 220,000 of its citizens.

Why, then, do Gordon Brown and Douglas Alexander think that if the same independence and separate currency conditions were applied to Scotland, it would be a complete disaster for the Scottish financial services sector? Do they think that the Scots are that much more stupid than the Swiss or do they think that they are just stupid enough to believe this kind of spin?

R Fairnie, 27 Stoneyhill Avenue, Musselburgh