Do not belittle achievements of the Blair-Brown governments

Dr Watson surely knows that it is now not 1979, and whatever Sir Alec Douglas-Home promised then is not relevant. He might also note that Lord Home is dead, as is Margaret Thatcher. Instead, we should look more to the Labour Government and its allies of all parties, which promised devolution in 1997 and delivered it within months. Likewise, there is no empty promise in the Scotland Act 2012, which is now delivering the biggest transfer of financial power to Scotland since the Act of Union. So we can be confident that extra powers will come to Holyrood following a No vote. Dr Watson must also know that the decision to limit the referendum to Yes and No is in line with the two-to-one opinion expressed in response to the Scottish Government's own consultation on the subject.

Mr Reid is also wide of the mark in his portrayal of the record of the last Labour governments, which in fact did remarkably well in raising the incomes of the poor through means that I have described many times in these pages: the National Minimum Wage, Working Families Tax Credits, Pensioner's Credit and so on. I apologise to your readers for repeating these achievements, but as Harold Wilson said "We will only stop telling the truth about them when they stop telling lies about us."

It is true that inequality grew, but mainly as the statistical effect of the growth of the ultra-rich. It should also be remembered that Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were not elected to implement a radical left-wing manifesto: as the former said: "We were elected as New Labour and we will govern as New Labour." Dr Watson and Mr Reid may not have liked an approach which made a prority of attacking poverty rather than prosperity, but the people of Scotland did if election results are any guide. In any case, Scotland is now somewhere in the middle of the OECD equality table, with plenty to do but less unequal than, for example, New Zealand, Canada and Australia.

Peter A Russell,

87 Munro Road, Jordanhill,

Glasgow.

ALASTAIR Macpherson (Letters, March 11) wonders if Scotland is being short-changed by only one person in the UK Embassy in Washington working entirely for Scotland's interests. Of course you would feel that if you thought that other members of the embassy staff were not working for Scottish interests as well as English interests.

As for other successful northern European nations that seem to make do with around 60 embassies, the Scottish Government White Paper projects a final number of between 70 and 90 foreign embassies, and the Irish total is 72. What does it matter to our Scottish exporters if we have no representation in another 110 capitals?

So the new Scottish embassies, at least in 70 to 90 capitals where we would have a presence, can get the Scottish exporter in to see the trade minister there which a UK embassy at the moment would find impossible? Seventy or more premises leased or bought in the most expensive capitals in the world, including London? Let us not kid ourselves we could even claim our share of the 180 UK Embassies (say 15) if we repudiate the share of national debt.

These new foreign embassies in Edinburgh will have to be very free-spending indeed to provide the taxes to pay for that, and for the bureaucracy to renegotiate more than 1500 UK international treaties.

Neil R Allan,

4 Dundarroch Road, Ballater.

LIKE Angus Macdonald (Letters, March 10), I too have received a letter from Lieutenant General Sir Norman Arthur (who has an address in Scotland despite the postmark from Southampton). Sir Norman apologises in his first sentence if recipients of his letter take a different view on the referendum from his. Nevertheless, Mr Macdonald takes offence at phrases Sir Norman uses in his letter, describing them as "tendentious". Your headline talks of "disrespectful language".

Why is it considered tendentious and disrespectful for an opponent of independence for Scotland to state what are, presumably, his honestly-held views when the Scottish Government spokesmen and women use words like "bullying", "scaremongering", "intimidating" or "preposterous" to answer everyone who opposes their view?

Mr Macdonald's letter does a disservice to the cause of rational debate which he says he believes in.

Jean McFadden,

16 Lansdowne Crescent,

Glasgow.

THE incoming SNP Government in 2007 inherited a Private Finance Intiative (PFI) shambles from the previous Labour Scottish adminis­tration, much of which will be costing us and our essential services huge sums of money for the next three decades. In response to this and the hugely constrained financial framework of a devolved administration without appropriate borrowing powers John Swinney and the SNP Government devised the Scottish Futures Trust (SFT), a huge improvement in limited circum­stance, which Alex Gallagher criticises (Letters, March 12).

During 2009-10, the SFT saved the Scottish taxpayer £111m, which increased to £129m in 2010-11.

In 2011-2012, SFT helped deliver £131m of net benefits and savings to infrastructure investment which were independently validated by Grant Thornton LLP and academics from the London School of Economics and Political Science.

More significantly, the new Southern General Hospital in Glasgow at a cost not far short of £1bn nears completion. This has been funded entirely out of current revenues and there is no better testament to the huge competence of the Scottish Government than this huge project.

David McEwan Hill,

Dalinlongart, Sandbank,

Argyll.

R RUSSELL Smith says he did not vote for Gordon Brown (Letters, March 8). Not voting for Gordon Brown is a pleasure that can only be enjoyed by his constitutents; not listening to his "gravitas" is one that is open to us all.

Iain Mackenzie,

Rockmount Barn, Machrie,

Isle of Arran.