PERHAPS we Unionists should acknowledge the First Minister's better performance in Monday night's television debate with Alistair Darling, but he did not "win" the debate.

Mr Darling was not reduced to asserting the sort of inanities that we heard from Mr Salmond in the first debate: pandas, driving on the right under independence, and so on.

No, Mr Salmond did what he is good at: faux anger, opportunistic abuse and plausibility, all on behalf of the client state whose votes he seeks, winding up his ill-informed supporters into a frenzy of anger, bitterness, resentment, envy, entitlement and Anglophobia. It was a distasteful performance and an unpleasant sight to behold. Have these people any rational idea of the consequences of their intended actions?

As usual, in populist, but clever, fashion, Mr Salmond bent the economic information to his purposes. Oil in the ground is one thing; oil revenues over the next decade to fund the current public deficit and the SNP's bribes to voters, are quite another. England has 300 years' supply of coal under the East Midlands, Yorkshire and the adjacent North Sea, but it is not economic to extract. Britain has the perfect climate for tea-growing, but not the low wages for tea-picking. To transform these natural resources into taxable profits requires a higher world market price. And, in the case of oil, gas and coal, that is very unlikely as the United States fracks vigorously, withdraws its own oil and gas and sells its own coal on world markets.

The result is that world prices stagnate and tax revenues subside. But Mr Salmond, although he understands the economic difference between a stock and a flow, chose to bamboozle voters by pouring scorn on any attempt by Mr Darling to engage in serious discussion on the two.

Mr Darling's acceptance that Scotland would be able to continue using the pound was a statement of the obvious. But, as expected, Mr Salmond greeted it as a campaign saver, to the obvious delight of his gullible supporters. However, for a single currency to do its good work, it needs the backing of a central bank and a strong economic and political union. Mr Salmond cannot have these because he does not want the United Kingdom. Does he learn nothing from the trials and tribulations of euroland, which is again heading back to recession?

The bile running through Mr Salmond's performance was revealed at the beginning, repeated during the discussion and reiterated in his summing-up: the hated and alien Tories. Now there he does have a solution to deal with people like me. His "Basic Law" for an independent Scotland would include Articles that would make Tory policies unconsti­tutional by enforcement of income equality, by nationalisation of all health care and by no participation in Trident. I must be naive, for I thought constitutions in free societies were rules of procedure, not devices for hobbling political opponents.

Richard Mowbray,

14 Ancaster Drive, Glasgow.

ALISTAIR Darling lost Monday's independence debate so thoroughly because he is unable to present himself as a person of the people. He does not have the immediate instincts for solidarity and struggle which would have let him take advantage of the many open goals that Alex Salmond left. The answer to the question on how many children will be pushed into poverty is that one is too many, and when people in Wales suffer and there are protests in Yorkshire, we march alongside these people and do not separate and split our struggle from theirs.

Of course we oppose the politics of austerity, but we cannot set up a new country each time we do not like a government. One reason is that the costs and problems of doing so are legion. As Mr Salmond said, while claiming that all would be well, the rest of the UK is our biggest market. But separation would turn it into our biggest competitor, and we would be in conflict over oil rights, the currency, financial services defence contracts, pensions and much else. What few on either side dare to say is that such struggles become very intense. It doesn't make sense for a nation of five million to get into an economic fight with the 60 million next door. Especially when, as the family split becomes bitter, they have the capacity to simply pull the plug on our economy.

Professor Greg Philo,

Glasgow University Media Group,

Adam Smith Building,

40 Bute Gardens, Glasgow.

WELL, now we know, the buses are all parked outside, the only problem is that we do not know which one to board. Of more concern is the fact that Mr Salmond does not appear to know either, or if he does he is scared to tell us because he knows the consequences.

He talked about creating some jobs, numbers unspecified, which would be in the public sector, the burden of which would require to be borne by the private sector. He ignored the thousands of people who would be made redundant with the consequent loss of their spending power and taxes.

He admitted that the NHS in Scotland is the responsibility of the Scottish Parliament and not West­minster. He did not explain why, with vastly increased expenditure over England, the performance is apparently poorer.

With regard to oil and its fluctuations in price, he could not confirm how he would balance the books if in any year there was a shortfall for whatever reason, lack of production, price fall, excessive costs and so on. The number of ugly turbines which he has littered the countryside with could con­tri­bute to a downturn in need for oil.

Regarding what he will do when he loses, he did not respond and instead condescendingly offered Alistair Darling a position with the negoti­ating team. Neither has he acknowledged the split that he has created across Scotland and which will not be repaired for a long time, if ever.

William Leslie,

13 Greenside Avenue,

Prestwick.

WATCHING the TV debate, I confess I did feel a wee bit sorry for Alistair Darling. The political party to which he belongs is not even in govern­ment, yet he is leader of the Better Together campaign. So who does he speak for? Is it Labour, who are by no means certain to be the next UK government, or even to be part of a coalition? He cannot possibly speak for the present Coalition partners, many of whose policies he openly rejects. Or does he represent some common prospectus agreed by Labour, Conservative and the Liberal Democrats? His position seems to be a bizarre poisoned chalice.

Whatever you think of its contents, the White Paper on Scotland's Future is at least tangible evidence of the Scottish Govern­ment's aspirations for an indepen­dent Scotland. You can read it and decide whether you like what is proposed. The Better Together campaign has produced no equivalent vision of Scotland's future in the Union, just an inchoate chimera of vague and varied hints of jam tomorrow; a poke of squealing pigs.

You could question whether the TV debates featured the wrong protagonists. Should they have been between the respective political leaders Alex Salmond and David Cameron, or campaign leaders Blair Jenkins and Alistair Darling? Should they have involved the other party leaders in Scotland, who could, in theory, become future First Ministers of Scotland? Thankfully, the argu­ments are academic since Monday night's debate, like the one before it, was nothing more than media-driven frenetic window dressing.

Anent the scraps of increased but unspecified devolution being offered by the UK parties as an incentive to reject independence, remember the old proverb: "The Devil was sick, the Devil a saint would be; the Devil was well, the devil a saint was he".

Iain Stuart,

34 Oakbank Crescent, Perth.

DURING the referendum campaign, emphasis has been put on the campaign being a campaign based on Scotland and her future, not on personalities. Yet from the beginning of the televised debate Alistair Darling turned the debate into a very personalised one, attacking Alex Salmond in his first statement. This theme continued throughout and I found it very distasteful from a politician of Mr Darling's standing and a very poor message from Better Together. The outstanding question of the night was '"why are we not better together now?"

Catriona C Clark,

52 Hawthorn Drive, Banknock, Falkirk.

ALISTAIR Darling's performance in the referendum debate was risible and pathetic. He was comprehen­sively humiliated on every issue from currency to the NHS to North Sea oil. Also, that the Tories would not win the next UK General Election or that Scotland won't be torn from the EU by an in-out EU referendum.

If Scots vote No what we can expect is further Tory austerity which will not be mitigated by an unlikely Labour win at the next UK General Election. Labour are as committed to welfare cuts as the Tories.

The reason for the cuts in the first place is due to the bank bailout of which Mr Darling was the architect.

Further consequences of a No vote will be: the Barnett formula will be abolished, the NHS privatised, tuition fees reintroduced, free prescriptions scrapped, strikes made illegal, no public sector pay rises until at least 2018, Trident renewal, widespread fracking and under-25s losing benefits altogether.

Alan Hinnrichs,

2 Gillespie Terrace, Dundee.

PUTTING any other issues aside, Alex Salmond won the debate on manners. Does Alistair Darling not know that it is rude to point? Does he not know that it is rude to refer to someone as "he" or "him"? Our First Minister, on the other hand, courteously referred to members of the audience and Mr Darling by their first names throughout. I rest my case .

Rona Ferguson,

21 Greenbank Crescent, Edinburgh.

AFTER witnessing five minutes of the Darling/Salmond debate, I understood why the Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, home of fossils and dinosaurs, had been chosen as the venue. Are there no inspirational politicians any more?

Bob MacDougall,

Oxhill, Kippen, Stirlingshire.