HAVING read your front-page report ("Salmond:

My respect for Putin", The Herald, April 28) I have to be magnanimous and say that I feel strangely sorry for those who had been going to vote Yes in the independence referendum. As your leader comment ("Salmond may rue praise for Putin", The Herald, April 28) comments, Alex Salmond may regret the day he made the remarks. I would go further and say that I feel he has caused irreparable damage to the SNP cause during the most sensitive time in Scotland's modern history. I am certain his published quotes must have swayed thousands to vote No in September.

I suggest that if anyone wondered what style of leadership an indepen­dent Scotland would have - now we know, if we had not suspected. Mr Salmond could easily have said, for example, that he admired Didier Burkhalter, who is the President of Switzerland, but no. He picked one of the most powerful men in the world, a former officer in the KGB who is accused of displaying all the atti­tudes required in anticipation of starting a major war.

The First Minister is also quoted as saying "I have a sneaking regard for anyone who takes on powerful establishments". Presumably this does not apply to the relationship between members of Cosla and Holyrood? I also really wonder if he has much regard for the anti-wind farm lobby? The statement also seems at variance with the Scottish Govern­ment's track record on curriculum development in our schools where what many consider to be the ill-considered railroading of teachers has left both staff and pupils on a knife edge of uncertainty regarding the results of this year's examinations.

Bill Brown,

46 Breadie Drive, Milngavie.

LIKE myself, I am sure many people will have been taken aback by Alex Salmond's reported backing for Vladimir Putin. In the eyes of the West, Mr Putin has turned from "Vlad the Lad" into "Vlad the Bad" given his support for the Assad regime in Syria, which has used chemical weapons against its own people, and allegedly fostering revolution in the eastern part of Ukraine. I am surprised that a man who is aspiring to become leader of a new democratic country should look up to such a figure.

President Putin is an autocratic figure and if Mr Salmond is heading in the same direction, it does not bode well for the people of an independent Scotland.

Bob MacDougall,

Oxhill, Kippen,

Stirlingshire.

ALEX Salmond's reported opinions on Mr Putin are sensible and completely reasonable. They do not qualify as "praise" but represent an honest and pretty accurate assess­ment of Russia's successful leader who appears to enjoy massive popularity and overwhelming democratic support among his people.

Mr Putin, as befits an effective political leader, pursues Russia's interest with considerable energy and no little success, which seriously discomforts the US/UK axis and we are therefore expected to dislike and fear him. I dislike George Bush, Tony Blair and a busful of others of our own leaders past and present rather more than I dislike Vladimir Putin.

Mr Salmond has an alarming record of honest commentary and saying it like it is. This is part of his success and why it can be difficult to beat him - and why, I believe, we have this attack on him.

Dave McEwan Hill,

1 Tom Nan Ragh, Dalinlongart, Sandbank, Argyll.

I APPROACHED your front page this morning with a sinking feeling of dejá vu. Yet again we abandon the serious business of governing our country to throw stones at a politician for something of no consequence to their job. If they earn their money honestly they have the democratic right to spend it as they please. Their private lives have nothing to do with me, and any explanation is due to their partners and family.

In Britain we have an odd and unsavoury obsession with other people's lives, a net-twitching mentality which belittles public life and neatly distracts us from real scandals. I haven't read Mr Salmond's interview in GQ and have no inten­tion of doing so because it's not relevant to the way our country is governed and other things are far more important.

Even the most despicable person can do something one can occasionally admire. Although I detest every policy both Margaret Thatcher and Nigel Farage ever supported, and their political beliefs, I will admit to a tiny bit of admir­ation for Mrs Thatcher's tenacity and Mr Farage's ability to admit mistakes. I have never voted for either of them and never would.

Can we give up this obsession with politicians' personal lives and concentrate on issues which matter?

Ann Ballinger,

Glen Sannox Drive,

Cumbernauld.

YOUR report on Alex Salmond's reported admiration for Mr Putin gives me the opportunity to reflect on how the West views events in "foreign" countries and how it immediately recognised the uprising by the armed militia that overthrew the previous, democratically elected, Ukraine government.

The developments that have taken place since Mr Salmond's interview, which took place on March 14, result in the UK, again with America, upholding this armed insurrection and then having the audacity to complain that Russia is supporting the Ukraine minority that is opposing this revolution.

I have no brief for the previous specific Ukraine govern­ment, nor did I have for Saddam Hussain of Iraq, but I cannot see how, by continually meddling in the affairs of other countries, the relationship between the West (Christian) and the East (Muslim) can be improved.

Indeed, having read the intro­duction by Tony Blair (he of the Iraq war without any democratic man­date), in his paperback edition of his A Journey, I am becoming concerned that the lessons of past follies are not just being forgotten but are in fact repeated.

He says, for example, that "the world needs our leadership for a simple reason: while our values may have been nurtured in the West, their appeal and their ownership is vested in humanity. Liberty, justice the people above government, not the government above the people; these are the values we forged over cent­uries and they represent the steadfast evolution of human progress".

So there we are. From Mr Blair's perspective, the UK is destined to intervene wherever and whenever to speed up the "evolution of human progress" so that everyone in this world agrees with the West's view.

Alan McKinney,

10 Beauchamp Road, Edinburgh.