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Answers to citizenship questions:
Like Kenneth Roy (4 December) I too enjoy the columns of Kevin Myers. I use the present tense because even after his official retirement he continues to write regularly for the Irish Independent. Scotland sorely needs someone of his calibre to counterbalance the cosy consensus of what Kenneth calls our Scottish liberal-left commentariat, as Kevin Myers has done in Ireland. Allow politicians or lawyers to regulate the press? God forbid!
William McMeechan
How is state regulation inherently worse than ‘regulation’ by media moguls who are after the biggest buck, regardless of the consequences? How will our freedom of speech be curtailed in comparison to the limits already imposed on it by multi-national, multi-media corporations and staggering giants like Johnston Press? What did Scottish newspapers contribute to coverage of Donald Trump and his luxury golf course, for example? To what extent have the legal constraints which have always curtailed UK-based broadcasters led to the control of free speech?
Given that the Leveson report effectively united the whole of Fleet Street in condemnation, don’t you think that Mark Twain had a point? (‘Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.’)
Paul F Cockburn
I know that I should get agitated about freedom of the press and all the rest of it, but I find it difficult to show any enthusiasm. Is it not the case that there are already laws on the statute book that would have allowed prosecution over the more outrageous violations of recent years, especially phone-hacking?
Hamish Kirk
What are we doing? We need not fear death so much that it should drive our lives and beliefs. We need to live better, in all aspects, including our institutions of law, church and parliament. Driving sectarianism out of such institutions is an ambitious goal.
Angus Skinner
All Scots are close to failure in the ‘Becoming British Stakes’ [see UK citizenship in this week’s side column] as we will have answered 1573 to the first question and fallen at the first hurdle. I do hope all your readers got all the other three questions right or they will have to classify themselves as Scottish not British. A terrible fate!
Randall Foggie
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