SNP must meet obligations and be more than mere UK wreckers

We need to acknowledge that our share of the accumulated UK debt is getting on for £120bn. We spend some £1200 per head more than the average UK citizen gets. There is scant acknowledgement that collecting far greater funding is coming under Holyrood control, income tax in its entirety, half VAT, plus some other smaller revenue sources. There are no new sources of revenue in prospect, so redistribution is the only way to ease the difficulties of those who are needy through no fault of their own, including minimum-wage workers who need pay rises (at least all parties agree on that).

Reducing taxes in some areas means finding cash to replace the gap, that implies yet more redistribution - but just restoring the 50p top income tax rate for those getting over £150,000 a year has limited impact ("SNP set to back Labour on promised tax rate of 50p", The Herald, March 30).

The SNP leadership while focusing on stifling internal dissent ("Party vote to clamp down on MPs who fail to toe party's line", The Herald, March 30) have to do better for Scotland in the UK and for the UK itself and not just be UK wreckers.

The UK's accumulated debt including our rightful share cannot be ignored, our MPs (of all parties) must co-operate actively in continuing to cut back the yearly additions, even if wriggle-room is restricted. Denial that we should not have to play our part helps no-one in Scotland in the long term. Debts have to be acknowledged and repayment reduction schedules established.

Austerity sucks, the debt accumulation should never been allowed to burgeon, but we are all stuck with it to some degree, the top end less than most, and there are only many more years of it in prospect. Our economists must spell out their actual costed plans for the longer term. Voters know that a euphoric approach for the future where austerity vanishes is quite unreal.

Joe Darby,

Glenburn, St Martins Mill, Cullicudden, Dingwall.

ACCORDING to Shadow Foreign Secretary Douglas Alexander, Nicola Sturgeon "judges the most propitious circumstances to be of a Tory government in Westminster after the election in May" ("Sturgeon push for deal with Labour in May", The Herald, March 28). Nothing could be further from the truth - though not for the reasons usually given by the First Minister.

The nationalists are desperate to avoid Mr Cameron's promised EU referendum, especially if the question is posed as "Should the UK leave the EU?" This would be a disaster for the SNP as it would embarrassingly turn Ukip into a Yes campaign, thereby forcing the nationalists to finally get around to removing their "Yes'"lapel badges and car stickers. Worse, SNP politicians would be going around warning that an exit would cost jobs, influence, security, standing, investment, and trade - in other words, all of the same arguments they so contemptuously dismissed as "scaremongering" when they were being advanced, by Better Together campaigners, against the SNP.

Keith Gilmour,

0/1, 18 Netherton Gardens,

Netherton Gate, Glasgow.

I NOTE that Richard Mowbray (Letters, March 30) predicts that the result of the General Election will be a cobbled-together Conservative/Ukip/Ulster Democratic Unionists coalition. Nobody knows what the actual result will be, but everybody knows that won't be the result in Scotland, so if Mr Mowbray is indeed correct it would mean that once again Scotland would not get the government it voted for and would get saddled with the abhorrent policies it had rejected.

According to Mr Mowbray that would be "a delicious smack in the face for the SNP, and what fun for the rest of us". It might be Mr Mowbray's idea of fun, but I suspect that the vast bulk of the Scottish voting public would consider another five years of Tory-led austerity, benefit cuts and food banks to be a tragedy for Scotland, and no laughing matter.

Ruth Marr,

99 Grampian Road, Stirling.

I WAS interested to read Alan Fitzpatrick (Letters, March 28) saying that one inevitable consequence of the SNP supporting Labour at Westminster would be a commitment in the SNP manifesto for the 2016 Holyrood election to hold a second independence referendum. I wonder if he is privy to the inner councils of the SNP, because I am not aware that this is party policy. As Dr GW Cross says in his letter on the same page it would not be in the interests of independence seekers to have a referendum until most of the elderly Luddites have flown away. I am proud to say that at 78 I bucked the trend amongst the elderly by voting Yes" and wear a T shirt which says "Don't blame me I voted Yes".

Alan A Stewart,

Rose Cottage,

Woodside Place, Dunlop.

I UNDERSTAND that Alan Fitzpatrick wants a referendum question that will favour the status quo, but his version, "Should Scotland remain part of the United Kingdom?", won't do. The Union of the Crowns and the Union of the Parliaments are different things.

If Scotland elects to become independent, but keep the Queen as Queen of Scots, then Scotland will still be part of the United Kingdom.

A better question might be: "Should Scotland remain under the control of the Westminster Parliament?"

John Kelly,

16 Park Avenue,

Edinburgh.

I WELCOME correspondent G McCulloch's comments on the Jeremy Paxman performance in the recent leaders' debate on TV (Letters, March 28). True to form the grand inquisitor's style remains gratingly self-satisfied and bordering on the downright offensive.

While I am prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt that his uncomfortable posturing is evidence that his search for perfect pants continues, his attention-seeking denigration of Burns some years ago as "the king of sentimental doggerel still rankles".

O wad some power the giftie

gie us ...

R Russell Smith,

96 Mllton Road,

Kilbirnie.