I NOTE with interest David Torrance's latest column ("An egali­tar­ian belief belies real Scottish Establishment", The Herald, September 1).

The article laments a little the British Establishment's elitism culture and a surfeit of oratory accompanied by "a lack of will to do anything about it". I would contend that the move towards independence for Scotland is part of the will to do something about it.

For all the well-meaning rhetoric of the Dennis Skinners, George Galloways and so on voiced over the years about ridding an outdated system of its heavy presence of privilege, precious little has been accomplished. How can the conclusion be otherwise when food banks co-exist with a House of Lords straining its structural grandiloq­uence so as to accommodate many who started life among the under-privileged but are now enjoying the lucrative Upper Chamber as reward for their ineffective egalitarian eloquence and useless interventions against Establishment privilege, of which they are now a part?

Years ago the argument used against the SNP was that they had to fit into the standard traditional left-right-centre political spectrum as though that was democracy's Holy Grail. Now they are seen as offering a breakaway from the cosy West­minster Establishment that has so failed to close poverty, gender, housing and other gaps, or defend our public service institutions.

I would hope that David Torrance is sincere enough to acknowledge that Scotland's independence referendum is not a veiled attempt to set up an Edinburgh equivalent to the Westminster Establishment but a real cross-party endeavour to indeed "do something about it" instead of the endless egalitarian eloquence over the years that has maintained rather than damaged privilege.

Ian Johnstone,

84 Forman Drive,

Peterhead.

DAVID Torrance provides an interesting Scottish background to the recent social mobility report. I have always been of the view that any institution or employer daft enough to employ someone on the basis of where they went to school, rather than the individual contribution and potential they represent, did not deserve to stay in business for long.

If "something must be done" then maybe it is time for a little less of the "us and "them"? The pupils and teachers in independent schools (and their families) are Scotland's pupils and teachers too.

John Edward,

Director, Scottish Council of Independent Schools,

61 Dublin Street,

Edinburgh.