SOME time ago (it might even have been the 1974 General Election), I attended an election meeting in Stirling at which the late William Wolfe, pictured, was asked from the floor of the meeting, the simple question: "What would the SNP do after Scottish independence?"

With no hesitation, his response was that the SNP would immediately disband, its fundamental purpose having been achieved, thus leaving the political stage open to an emerging Scottish Labour Party, a Scottish Conservative Party and Scottish Liberal Party, and so on, so that the electorate could vote for the political party of its choice to run the independent country.

What simple and naive times these must have been for a party, potentially, to willingly give up power, and to have a childlike trust that the other mainstream parties could split from their London centres of gravity and provide a credible Scottish government.

Jack Robertson,

Ash Terrace,

Stirling.