PETER Russell (Letters, July 15) claims the Yes campaign is denigrating the record of the Labour Party.

No-one is denigrating the achievements of Keir Hardie or Atlee's government, but the last Labour government and Ed Miliband's Shadow Cabinet had and have little in common with either.

The minimum wage, devolution and relative peace in Northern Ireland were a few high points above a sea of continued Thatcherism.

Tony Blair and Gordon Brown expanded the Conservatives' private finance initiatives (PFIs) in the NHS, renaming them public-private partnership (PPPs). To fund big profits for PFI consortia hospitals now have fewer beds and fully trained staff than those they replaced.

Their governments also continued privatisation by the back door in the English NHS. Shadow Health Secretary Andy Burnham has since said health policies should be "consistent across England, Scotland and Wales". That means further privatising Scotland's NHS next. New Labour also began many of the "welfare reforms" continued by the Coalition. Labour gave the disgraced Atos its cushy contract, with commissions for every disabled person to whom it denied benefits - commissions it kept even if its victims won an appeal, if they lived that long.

Scotland has the option of something better. Scotland has the option of becoming independent and choosing from party policies that aren't designed to try to take votes back from Conservative and Ukip voters in the south of England. Scotland has the option to vote Yes and provide social justice for our own people and a progressive example to the remaining UK.

Then there might be a Scottish Labour Party whose policies wouldn't make Keir Hardie, Clement Atlee and Nye Bevan sick to their stomachs.

Duncan McFarlane,

Beanshields, Braidwood, Carluke.