Scandal after scandal continues to batter the former Scottish banks.

Now the Australian owner of the Clydesdale is leading it to the auctioneers ("Union: bank staff need to be informed on future", The Herald, October 31). This after several years of across-the-board banking malfunction and continued exposure to the customs of the City of London - most tellingly dissected in Ian Fraser's Gibbonian inquisit­ion Shredded: Inside RBS, The Bank That Broke Britain (Birlinn, 2014).

In Mending Scotland (Argyll, summer 2004) I compared the Scottish banks unfavourably with the public savings banks of Germany as sustainers of manufacturing industry. That was before the anarchic end of the Royal Bank under the "light touch regulation" preached by Gordon Brown, and despite a board containing some of Whitehall's finest. It was too big to fail, too dumb to live, yet apparently immune from the sanctions we as citizens continu­ally face.

Is it too late to urge on the leaders of Scottish politics and opinion - gathered in the Smith Commission - two things?

First, recognise the value of such regional-state-run enterprise as best practice for the rest of the sector, and for reviving mutual ownership.

Secondly, accept the necessity of its supervision from Scotland and openness to judicial and Parliament­ary examination and audit.

Professor Christopher Harvie,

West Avenel, 50 High Cross Avenue, Melrose.