Brian Fitzpatrick misunderstands my point about the relative "clear-mindedness" of the SNP as compared with Unionists on the independence question (Letters, August 18).

Brian Fitzpatrick misunderstands my point about the relative "clear-mindedness" of the SNP as compared with Unionists on the independence question (Letters, August 18).

The SNP's case is self-evidently based on an acceptance of the viability of the independence option, whereas too many Unionists of various party political persuasions proceed on the contrary assumption that independence is simply not a viable option. Clearly, even if they were prepared to concede this point, there would still be plenty of scope for the kind of proper debate the First Minister is seeking to encourage on the desirability of independence.

In this context I am reminded of a study of The Economics of Independence written almost 40 year ago by Dr Gavin McCrone, the future Scottish Office economist. One sentence in that book has stuck firmly in my mind. While making it absolutely clear that he personally did not favour independence, Dr McCrone nevertheless opined that Scotland was "a thousand times more capable of independence than Basutoland", the recently independent African state redesignated as Lesotho.

It is doubly significant that Dr McCrone was expressing this view some years before the confirmed discovery of Scotland's vast North Sea oil resources. Yet in the intervening decades I have come across precious few Unionists with the intellectual integrity to make the same admission.

Ian O Bayne, 8 Clarence Drive, Glasgow.