I DESPAIR of the politicians at both UK and Scottish levels who seem to see everything in terms of confrontation and party advantage.

Now we are told that the Prime Minister's appointment of Alistair Carmichael as Secretary of State for Scotland is because he is "a political bruiser who will be more combative in the debate about independence" ("Bruising new phase for 2014 fight after reshuffle", The Herald, October 8).

This is not some grubby council by-election between warring party factions, it is a referendum to decide the future destiny of a nation of five million people. It is far too important to drag the debate down to the usual desperate level of who can shout loudest and be most offensive to those on the other side of the argument, as we see so depressingly often at Westminster and Holyrood.

We should be having a properly balanced and informed debate, but this has already been distorted by the constant scaremongering of the Better Together campaign, and by the UK Government using the weight of all its departmental resources to produce a torrent of negative reports and analyses. Meanwhile the Yes Campaign, which should be mounting a stirring and positive case for a successful and prosperous Scotland, has been trapped into responding supinely to these daily attacks.

I don't believe any of the leaders of the three main Westminster parties care tuppence about the future of Scotland. They are only concerned about maintaining their own political status, making sure that all the wealth from the natural resources which Scotland has in abundance continues to pour into the London Treasury, and that their delusional belief that the United Kingdom is still a world power is not damaged by any internal division. That is the limit of their ambition, and Scottish independence is therefore something to be crushed by all means possible. It is time we Scots started looking after our own interests and stood up for our own country.

Iain AD Mann,

7 Kelvin Court, Glasgow.

So Alistair Carmichael has won favour with David Cameron and has been appointed to the Cabinet. How did this come about?

In February and March 2012 a parliamentary bill, the Health and Social Care Bill, applying to England only, was having a rough ride, not only at Westminster, but from the vast majority of health care professionals.

One of the bill's key provisions was that, whereas formerly only 2% of beds in foundation hospitals in England could be allocated to privately paying and privately insured patients, the percentage was now to shoot up to 49%. It would mean that ordinary NHS patients would be squeezed down the queue for hospital operations.

The bill promised to be bad for Scottish patients too. The funding we receive from Westminster for our public services is allocated under the Barnett Formula at around 9.9% of the UK spend. And so if England were to spend less public money supporting publicly available hospital beds, then the UK global spend would drop, and Scotland would suffer a proportionate drop in funds for its own hospitals, from Melrose to Lerwick, and would be forced to try to draw in more private patients to make up the shortfall.

The bill was in the balance for weeks, as more and more amendments were forced on the Health Secretary, Andrew Lansley.

But eventually this ghastly bill was forced through Parliament and enacted on March 27, 2012. If Mr Carmichael, as the Liberal Democrat Chief Whip, had not severely dragooned his troops, many of whom had serious misgivings, then it would have failed to achieve a majority and would have been ditched.

After a little delay, Mr Carmichael has now been rewarded by David Cameron with a Cabinet post. His Cabinet post as Scottish Secretary has as its central purpose a second attempt at mobilising a socially destructive vote. Mr Carmichael's new target is to dragoon the Scottish electorate into voting No in next year's referendum.

If we vote as he wishes, the Scottish NHS, as a universally and equally available service free at the point of need, will inevitably suffer due to the accelerating shift from public to private healthcare south of the Border.

Yet the matter is in our hands.

One trusts that, come September 2014, Mr Carmichael will find that voters the length and breadth of Scotland are not as hand-wringingly useless at defending the public interest as Liberal Democrat MPs.

John Aberdein,

Quoys, Hoy,

Stromness.

AS the MP for Orkney and Shetland has accepted the position of Secretary of State for Scotland can we assume that we will hear no more mischief about the Northern Isles not wanting to be part of Scotland?

R Partridge,

Irvine Road,

Kilmaurs.