A FORMER editor of The Herald newspaper has joined a campaign calling for a referendum on Scottish independence.
Harry Reid, author of a recently-published history of the Scottish press, Deadline, has signed up with the Scottish Independence Convention, saying: “I’ve been a ‘fellow traveller’ for a year or so now, yet somehow I’ve never quite faced up to what both my heart and my head have been telling me: that an independent Scotland could – and almost certainly would – be a better Scotland.”
An author also of books about the Church of Scotland and Scottish football, Mr Reid was editor of The Herald when it was urging a yes-yes vote during the 1997 devolution referendum.
He continued: “I further believe that the Union is finished, and that England could benefit greatly from rediscovering itself by going through the potentially positive process of becoming English rather than British.
“And then my old friend and colleague, [The Herald’s former political editor] Murray Ritchie, bludgeoned me into writing this short piece [for the Convention’s website]. So, let me come out and scream it: I believe in, and now I earnestly desire, an independent Scotland.”
Continues Reid: “And what has this to do with an independent Scotland? It is quite simple. An independent Scotland would never ever misuse its power in this manner. I could never imagine, in a thousand years, an independent Scotland sending its army to invade a far-off country on such phoney pretexts.”
