KEVIN McKenna's article ("A party for holding the jackets but not for the actual fighting", The Herald, April 14) got me thinking about a new Scottish "centrist" party.

We have similar problems to rUK: decline of family life, globalisation and the loss of accountable, local ownership, increasing automation and loss of well-paid, skilled jobs, obesity, and decline in education.

A new party should spell out the problems, and how to fix them

We need independent commissions to recommend education, health and economic reforms based on what's best for the country, not for politicians, and a review of how well devolved powers have been discharged, and which of them are actually required.

Many, for example the new welfare EU farm payments agencies are kilted versions of existing UK or EU powers, cost a fortune, may not actually be deliverable and actually serve a different agenda, that of prising Scotland apart from the UK.

It should also emphasise and encourage personal responsibility, counter the blame and entitlement culture and reward those with genuine need.

A new party could emulate the Greens, and get enough second votes to win several regional seats at Holyrood. The threat might just galvanise the main opposition parties out of their complacency and into developing – and communicating – common sense policies now.

And in a very possible scenario where neither Labour, SNP or Conservatives can form a government, its support could be conditional on the adoption of radical, common sense solutions to Scotland's needs.

Allan Sutherland,

1 Willow Row, Stonehaven.