IT'S hard to say which view is more out of touch between the idea that Jim Murphy as Scottish Labour leader will unite our centre-left (Letters, November 4), or Gordon Wilson's that there was a No vote because the Yes campaign didn't focus on national identity ("'Coyness on nationhood' cost the Yes camp victory", The Herald, November 4).

Mr Murphy backed the Blairite agenda of war on Iraq, PFIs bleeding our NHS for corporate profits, and "welfare reform". That's not centre-left. It's not even one-nation Conservative. You might as well expect a buzzard to unite crows. It will - against it.

National identity wasn't the issue for most referendum voters, Yes or No. It was the risks or benefits of each option, both economic and for inequality and poverty. Plenty of Yes voters couldn't care less about national identity. Many are former Labour, Green or socialist.

Instead of looking at Scottish politics in terms of SNP versus Labour, or Scottish versus British nationalist, we should push together for maximum devolution of power from the UK Parliament to the Scottish Parliament, from it to local councils, and from them to community councils. In each case this must include the tax revenues or powers to provide funding.

Those who favour independence need to realise there isn't a majority for that, at least not yet, and that more devolution is worth something. Without devolution our NHS would already be privatised to the same extent as England's, and there wouldn't have been any referendum or any chance of another.

Those who want to keep Scotland in the UK need to wake up to the fact that at least 58 per cent of referendum voters voted for either independence (45 per cent), or more devolved powers, cited by 25 per cent of the 55 per cent of No voters as their main reason for voting No in Lord Ashcroft's post-referendum poll.

Unless enough power is devolved in the next five years to satisfy the majority, independence will likely come soon after. If there's real federalism or home rule, with most domestic policy and most revenues raised in Scotland devolved to Scotland, the UK may survive for much longer, unless it leaves the EU.

Duncan McFarlane,

Beanshields, Braidwood, Carluke.

CATHERINE MacLeod makes an important point when she argues that politicians could achieve much more by working together for the common good ("A man who brings out the best in others", The Herald, November 6). She cites the uplifting story of the terminally ill Labour supporter, Gordon Aikman, being invited together with friends and relatives into 10 Downing Street to discuss fundraising for MND Scotland. There are times when those of very different ideological and political persuasions can find common cause. The most recent example of this was of course the recent referendum on independence.

Now this is something that most intelligent people will understand, as history is littered with examples of former enemies coming together to confront a common foe. Alas, it is something which our First Minister seems unable to grasp. To paraphrase the great Aneurin Bevan, he, the First Minister, is either insincere or too stupid to be First Minister and I don't for one minute believe that he is stupid. It really is rather breathtaking the way that Alex Salmond insults the intelligence of the Scottish electorate. As I write this, I hear him on radio attributing the proposed burning of his effigy at Lewes in Sussex to the East Sussex Conservative Council, when, as I am sure he knows full well, this was organised by a completely non-political organisation ("Salmond effigies ignite online wrath", The Herald, November 6)

Mr Salmond believes that the Conservative brand in Scotland is toxic, and he may be right. He should, however, remember that many Conservatives, rather than vote Labour switched to the SNP to keep Labour out, believing that a vote for the Conservative Party was a wasted vote. He states that Scottish Labour will never be forgiven by Scots for "standing shoulder to shoulder" with members of the Westminster Coalition. Perhaps he might consider whether, during the No campaign, aligning himself with convicted perjurer Tommy Sheridan was the wisest of political moves.

My sincere belief is that our country will only prosper when politicians start to put the nation and people first and party advantage a very distant second.

Jim Meikle,

41 Lampson Road, Killearn.

IT is a great pity that Alex Salmond's 45 per cent minority have now - in their ridiculous storm of protest against the Waterloo Bonfire Society - portrayed the Scots as having no sense of humour. Previous years have seen David Cameron, Nick Clegg, Bashar Al-Assad and Piers Morgan go up in flames without this frenzied opposition. Perhaps another referendum vote can be arranged to check what percentage of Scots would like to see the effigy returned to the bonfire? I suspect we might see an increased majority ...

Robin McNaught,

19 Kilbarchan Road, Bridge of Weir.

EFFIGY burning has a traditional, if not respectable, place in Scottish history. On the outbreak of the Crimean War in October 1853, the townspeople of Moffat burned Tsar Nicholas I of Russia in effigy on the High Street outside the Annandale Arms hotel, where the Tsar had stayed as Grand Duke in December 1816 on his progress through the United Kingdom to celebrate the allied victory over Napoleon.

Elizabeth Roberts,

Millburn House, School Lane, Moffat.