Normally the onus is on those who advocate change to prove its benefits.

In this the Yes campaign is continuing to fail, as policy after policy unravels under the weight of rational examination. The latest instance is the promise of jobs for life for armed services personnel, which presumes an unending period of financial comfort, with no need to take difficult choices with the nation's finances ("SNP promises recruits a job for life in new Scottish army", The Herald, July 3).

It is also worth pondering what sort of people would want to join the forces to sit around and get old comfortably in a pacifist Scotland, and whether they would make effective soldiers, sailors and air personnel.

It is surely much better to have a defence force representing a major player in world affairs, which can play a strong role in tackling security issues at home and abroad, drawing its strength from all parts of the UK, which also guarantees an adequate turnover of staff to preserve the essential age profile required. Above all the influence of the UK is much greater in bodies such as the UN, Nato and the EU than that of an independent Scotland could ever be.

In terms of the national economy, the combined industrial and commercial structure of the UK is far more varied and sophisticated, and more resilient, than that of Scotland alone, which would depend overwhelmingly on North Sea oil and gas. Nationalists are always keen to point to Scandinavia as an example but very rarely admit that Norway is desperate to diversify its industrial base and struggles to develop onshore industries. In contrast, the UK economy is already diversified with strengths in financial services and manufacturing.

Scotland has shared in the benefits of social progress within the UK through the introduction of old age pensions, the NHS and equal opportunities laws and, more recently, through the policies of the last Labour Government which lifted one million children out of poverty and tripled spending on the NHS.

The UK is not perfect, although measures such as Professor Michael Porter's Social Progress Index lists us as number two in the world for health and happiness.

Peter A Russell,

87 Munro Road, Glasgow.

"There can be no compromise, however, on national security" ended your editorial on the matter ("Opening salvoes on defence policies", July 3). Yet for an issue over which there can be no compromise there has been precious little public discourse, in Scotland or the UK, on what national security means.

The United Nations has tried to widen the definition of national security to make it more relevant to the daily security concerns of ordinary people. However, military industrial complexes the world over have succeeded so far in ensuring that issues of national security remain within a framework which suits the commercial needs of the arms industry, hence the development of the term "human security" which is more usually associated with development and some resource issues.

This compartmentalisation of what is in effect two ends of the same bit of string leaves in place a hierarchy where, as your editorial confirmed, there can be no compromise over issues of national security. This inevitably means issues of human security are, in some undefined way, less important.

Yet who would really challenge the proposition that proper building regulations in earthquake-prone Chile is an issue of national security or that dealing with the effect of flood should be a core national security issue for Bangladesh? Who would challenge the proposition that thousands of deaths annually in domestic gun battles is an issue of national security in the US?

The answer is those institutions that, as Noam Chomsky would say, "manufacture" public opinion, the skill sets of which our political mainstream have been forced to learn if their narratives are to be accepted as in any way credible by much of the mainstream media.

One is to hope that over the next year the public discourse around Scotland's future can be, in at least some of Scotland's media outlets, a bit more wide-ranging and move away from the No campaign's relentless and, so far, effective campaign portraying an independent Scotland, literally and metaphorically, as a state of insecurity.

Bill Ramsay,

84 Albert Avenue, Glasgow.

I was struck by the strange familiarity of your headline: "SNP promises recruits a job for life in new Scottish army". The bit about promising recruits a job for life in a new Scottish army seemed new and fresh, but the bit about SNP promises rang a bell from earlier exposure.

I dimly recalled such classics as: "SNP promises to abolish student debt", "SNP promises to abolish the hated council tax", "SNP promises a referendum within 100 days of being elected", "SNP promises to match Labour's school-building programme brick for brick" and "SNP promises to join the EU" linked closely to "SNP promises that it has legal advice on EU membership".

Others historic SNP pledges include: "SNP promises to abandon the pound and join the euro", quickly followed by "SNP promises to abandon the euro and join the pound". Then there was: "SNP promises an independent Scotland will leave Nato" and "SNP promises Nato membership in independent Scotland". And again "SNP promises to get rid of Trident" and "SNP says getting rid of Trident will take years of negotiations". A headline reading: "SNP promises a promiscuity of promises" would accurately convey the real situation.

On the face of it the SNP promise to offer recruits a job for life in a new Scottish army is a good thing. A cursory examination of previous SNP's "promises" shows that many of them have not been kept and/or they are contradictory and mutually exclusive. If I was a serving soldier I would make an intense and detailed examination of the small print before signing my life away on the basis of "SNP promises" of a job for life, or indeed anything else.

Alex Gallagher,

12 Phillips Avenue, Largs.

I WAS disappointed at the headline "SNP promises recruits a job for life". It is factually wrong and yet Keith Brown is correctly quoted further down when he said Scottish troops would be guaranteed service "during the term of their contract".

Ian Gilbert,

16 Robertson Crescent,

Pitlochry.