Your editorial prediction of last week that, based on the polls, "already hollow" Scottish Labour would be "crushed flat" in the General Election must present a particularly happy scenario for those who voted for independence and were disappointed.

For many, the most damning aspect of Scottish Labour's No campaign was its aligning itself with the Tories in scaremongering about everything from pensions and the pound to invasion by dark forces. Labour support for Scottish self-determination would have won the day easily.

Sweet irony, then, that many of those same scaremongers who so ardently opposed the realisation of that globally cherished ideal for their own country may now face a most apt denouement: if rejected by their fellow Scots it will be their pensions and the pound in their pocket under threat.

John Melrose

Peebles

I have just returned from a week in the very pleasant town of Berwick-upon-Tweed researching the question of why the local Conservatives have so signally failed to fill the gap left by the demise of the Liberal Democrats there (SNP manifesto pledges support to changes in UK welfare system and foreign policy, News, April 19). Time and time again, in talking with local people in the cafes, street market, taverns and in the beautiful library, regret was expressed that local people do not have the opportunity of voting for an SNP candidate. A group of councillors even quipped that such a candidate might have provided Nicola Sturgeon with the thin end of the wedge on the journey south.

Doug Clark

Currie