SIR - Like most others in the farming community, I am fed up

to the back teeth of elections and referendums!

Normally, I wouldn’t consider not voting, but this time a low

turnout would surely send a message to all our politicians.

However, a more important reason for me avoiding the

polling station next week is that none of the mainstream

parties have given me any confidence that they are worthy of

my vote. Their leadership has been poor!

Theresa May: She might not have to worry about her

pension and health care in her dotage, but most of us do. She

might have backtracked a bit, but we all know now what her

thinking is.

It was all so unnecessary and highlighted a lack of political

nous, which is worrying for the crucial negotiations which lie

ahead.

If she fails to significantly enhance her majority, she will

indeed have snatched defeat from the jaws of victory!

Jeremy Corbyn: Hapless! We don’t know his real thoughts

on Brexit; we don’t know his real thoughts on Trident, in

particular, and defence, in general.

But we do know his real thoughts on terrorism and his

shameful lack of condemnation of atrocities committed in the

not too distant past is as politically naïve as it is reprehensible.

Nicola Sturgeon: A first class deputy First Minister who

has been unable to step up to the plate in the top job. Her

obsession with another quick independence vote has meant

her government has taken their eyes off the ball for the many

important decisions that have to be made. Alex Salmond

would surely have been cannier!

If she loses the next referendum, she will be remembered

as the SNP leader who killed off independence. Not a great

epitaph for a Nats leader!

And as for the others:

Lib Dems: I couldn’t possibly vote for them. In the past they

have prostituted themselves by going in to bed with Labour

(in Scotland), the Tories (at UK level), yet despite the Liberals

being the original party of home rule, they refuse to do a deal

with the SNP. A party of political opportunists.

UKIP: A party which has achieved what it set out to do and,

for better or worse, we now have Brexit. There is now no

longer any need for its existence!

The Greens: No doubt well meaning, if a bit misguided!

What will the sea eagles, bears, wolves, lynx etc eat when all

the farmed livestock is gone?

So, I think I will spend next Thursday in the pub and the

bookies, squandering some of my pension pot, before Theresa

May steals it all off me!

Alasdair Fletcher

Laigh Hatton, Bishopton,

Renfrewshire.