JOHN Milne (Letters, May 27) is well wide of the mark when he equates Alistair Carmichael's desperate attempt to discredit Nicola Sturgeon with Alex Salmond's assertions about his legal advice on Scotland's EU membership after gaining independence.

I have no doubt that the former First Minister thought his assertions would have been confirmed even though he may not have had it in writing. What Mr Carmichael did was to leak a confidential memo he knew to be of doubtful provenance from a civil servant who confessed at the time that "it may have lost something in translation". He leaked it after what was universally acknowledged as a star performance from Ms Sturgeon in a televised leaders' debate.

Mr Salmond did not attempt to smear another politician in the way Mr Carmichael did. Mr Carmichael was in possession of doubtful information that could have been verified or otherwise by a simple phone call. I have no doubt that he would have Ms Sturgeron's number to hand and that if he had called, as Secretary of State for Scotland, he would have been put straight through.

The fact that he brazenly stated that this was normal behaviour in the heat of an election campaign compounded the felony as did his denials about his part in the smear. He then allowed an inquiry costing a huge amount of public money to go ahead when just by owning up at the time he could have avoided embarrassment to himself and his party.

Ruth Marr (Letters, May 26) is correct, he needs to go.

David C Purdie,

12 Mayburn Vale, Loanhead, Midlothian.

MY dictionary defines honourable as being "honest, truthful, respected, held in high estimation". It is hard to accept that any of these descriptions should continue to apply to the Honourable Member of Parliament for Orkney and Shetland, Alastair Carmichael, after the revelations and admissions of the last few days.

This is a man who demeaned the prestigious office of Secretary of State for Scotland by authorising the release to a London broadsheet of an inaccurate memo written by a junior civil servant, in an attempt to impugn the integrity of the elected First Minister of Scotland. To compound the deceit, he denied publicly on numerous occasions that he had seen or had any knowledge of the memo prior to its publication, knowing this to be untrue. Mr Carmichael deliberately lied to Parliament, to the people of Scotland and to his own constituents during several critical weeks just before the General Election.

Only after an investigation by the Cabinet Secretary was he finally forced to admit that he was aware of the memo from the beginning and personally approved its release to the press. It beggars belief that two distinguished LibDem colleagues, Sir Malcolm Bruce and Sir Menzies Campbell, should describe this as "just an honest mistake" and actually praised him for finally admitting his guilt. It was not even a dishonest mistake, it was a deliberate and calculated lie in an attempt to gain political advantage.

It is simply not good enough to say apologise when he is finally exposed. The honourable thing would be for Mr Carmichael to resign his parliamentary seat immediately and offer himself for re-election. And once again the Westminster Parliament has proved unwilling to, or incapable of, dealing with unacceptable behaviour by one of its senior members.

Iain AD Mann,

7 Kelvin Court, Glasgow.