Bye bye to the Herald

I'm cancelling the Herald this week and switching to the National, taking the Herald only on Sundays. I like getting a paper delivered. Apart from anything, it supports a local business. And since we've gone from 4 newsagents to 1 here in recent years, that's important. It's not that the National is a great newspaper, although it may become one if enough of us start reading it and writing letters to influence what appears in its pages. But I can't take the way the Herald twists every issue to suit the owners' right-wing, Unionist stance. The paper comes over as pretty anti-Scottish. I particularly can't stand the way the Herald (like the Scotsman) keeps raising the Gaelic issue as a stick to beat the Scots with.

Last week, the Herald changed the appearance of its centre pages, with more space given over to readers' opinions and 'outside views.' As far as I can see, that doesn't mean there will be more space for a variety of opinions. Today most of the two pages are given over to the usual stuff, mostly anti-Scottish and pro-Unionist. I recognise most of the letter-writers as people who have been writing to the Herald for years. They have nothing new to say and quite a lot of nasty things to say too. Someone needs to tell these folk that Alex Salmond is no longer leader of the SNP. Also, that Nicola Sturgeon is not spending her time swanning around Europe but is in fact getting on with day job at Holyrood. As is my party, the Greens.

The Herald is fine if what the newspaper owners want is a Unionist front, but I'm not paying for it any more. I'm part of the 45% of people who voted in Scotland to leave the UK in 2014 and I will vote the same way in the next referendum. And it does alarm me to keep being told the SNP are flagging up a referendum when (1) the SNP is not the only political party in favour of independence; and (2) as far as I can see from the pages of the Herald and the rest of the UK press, the people most excited about a referendum are those in favour of the Union. I judge that from the fact that they've been going on about it non-stop since 2014. Maybe people like Ruth Davidson, Kezia Dugdale and Willie Rennie are the ones who should try getting on with their day job: representing the electorate in their constituencies.

I'm told the circulation of the Scotsman and the Herald are in decline and have been for quite some time. There was an era when newspapers published their circulation figures. Now I imagine they don't dare.

I'm not hypocritical enough to wish the Herald good luck. I think they're probably past that now. But I will miss the word games.