There has been much hand wringing about David Miliband's announcement he is leaving British politics and the loss to public life ("Shock as David Miliband to quit politics", The Herald, March 27).

As a Labour Party member for more than 50 years, I will be raising a celebratory glass, as will many other members.

As a special adviser to Tony Blair and as a Cabinet Minister to him and Gordon Brown, Mr Miliband has been at the centre of the New Labour project, which highjacked the party's philosophy, compassion and purpose.

Labour, as the name says, was formed to defend and improve the interests of working people and their families. Instead we got the same Thatcherite neoliberal economic policies, which have caused the worst recession in living memory. Over-reliance on an unregulated, immoral financial sector, continuing decline in manufacturing, more insanely expensive PFI projects, outsourcing public service jobs including welfare and employment at greater cost and less efficiency, closing Remploy factories and making disabled workers redundant, in England introducing foundation schools and hospitals ... the list goes on. Bankers and chief executives rewarding themselves with obscene salaries and bonuses, widespread tax avoidance, while working people have seen their salaries, conditions, savings and pensions decline.

Mr Brown's tax policies were the catalyst for the attacks and almost elimination of decent company pension schemes. On foreign policy, there has been our involvement in illegal, imperialist wars, support for feudal dictatorships and continuation of Trident, a real weapon of mass destruction.

In 1997 the people voted overwhelmingly for Labour and radical change after 19 years of Tory misrule, instead they got the same economic policy with some improvement in social policy. The result, Labour lost five million votes between 1997 and 2010.

Notwithstanding the blatant failure of these "market" policies, David Miliband and politicians around him have continued to advocate them. Clause four of the Labour Party constitution, which is printed on the back of membership cards, states: "The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party." Those Labour politicians with their record of failure, who do not accept the fundamental principles of the party, should pick up their bags and go.

Bob Thomson,

Past chairman/treasurer,

Scottish Labour Party,

741 Shields Road, Glasgow.

When the Scottish Government was voted in at the last election it stated its intention to hold a referendum on independence in the autumn of 2014. This led to the debate on what questions should be on the ballot paper. One proposal that had reasonable support for inclusion was what came to be known as devo max. This was ruled to be unacceptable by both the Labour and Conservative parties. Remember Ruth Davidson's line in the sand stance on no further devolved powers? Yes, the same one washed away recently by the tide of political expediency.

Unionists have consistently pointed to opinion polls as proof that the electorate do not want Scotland to be a free and independent country. Why then are we now being asked that perhaps, just perhaps, if we vote No, further constitutional powers could be debated.

Debated, mind you, not guaranteed. This is just another cynical attempt to try and persuade the voters who have yet to decide to stick with a London Government that continues to dig us into an ever-increasing economic deficit with debt of now more than £1 trillion and kick the whole independence issue into the long grass for the next 10 years or longer.

If it is a serious proposal, let's have firm details before September 2014 of what this new constitution would mean. We all know this won't happen and it should be rejected for what it is: another electioneering gimmick.

John Martin,

Tanera,

Lintwhite Crescent, Bridge of Weir.

"After independence, we intend to remain part of the European family." Thus ended Nicola Sturgeon's address to European Policy Centre members in Brussels on February 26.

The crux of her claim is the identity of the "we" she refers to.

If she means the Scottish people, who were never afforded the democratic courtesy of being asked their intentions, that would indeed be arrogance, compounded by naïve complacency, if based solely on opinion polls. She also seems to prejudge the result of the intervening Scottish election.

Presumably she would expect to win a referendum on continued EU membership, so let's have one, say three months before the independence vote.

That would partially redress our being taken into the original Common Market on a raft of Government lies about retaining sovereignty.

Being eventually subsumed into a European super-state under planned central control was also covered up. Where stands "independence within Europe" in such a future?

Any referendum should in any case proceed from public petition, not political dogma.

Robert Dow,

Ormiston Road,

Tranent.