Perhaps I could take Ian Bell's interesting analysis and examine it in a Scottish perspective (The storm rages, and all the Tories offer is froth, November 26). For too long now, too many SNP hopes have taken a Tory victory for granted. Even Wednesday's Tory 4% lead in one poll would likely mean a hung parliament with Labour as the largest party. To win a majority, Peter Kellner of YouGov calculates, because of demographics and boundary anomalies, the Tories need a 10% lead over Labour. On top of which a BBC poll now speculates that the global financial crisis has weakened SNP support on independence. The latter will not be achieved by default or SNP analysts employing false political science. Nor a lazy assumption that a Tory victory provides a framework for SNP victory in a referendum.

Perhaps I could take Ian Bell's interesting analysis and examine it in a Scottish perspective (The storm rages, and all the Tories offer is froth, November 26). For too long now, too many SNP hopes have taken a Tory victory for granted. Even Wednesday's Tory 4% lead in one poll would likely mean a hung parliament with Labour as the largest party. To win a majority, Peter Kellner of YouGov calculates, because of demographics and boundary anomalies, the Tories need a 10% lead over Labour. On top of which a BBC poll now speculates that the global financial crisis has weakened SNP support on independence. The latter will not be achieved by default or SNP analysts employing false political science. Nor a lazy assumption that a Tory victory provides a framework for SNP victory in a referendum.

Apart from the dangers of the "tartan shawl" - that Scots are easily seduced by small comforting gains at Holyrood - the SNP badly needs a change of direction, away from trotting gently towards a 2010 referendum. It must be jettisoned along with the supposed touching benefits of the National Conversation.

What Alex Salmond must do, and it's now or never, is to paint the advantages of independence in primary, visionary colours - with lots of specificity on policy - and forget about the self-limiting Holyrood approach, eg, greater fiscal autonomy or "good governance" as a backstop. The SNP must conceive of fighting a referendum as of tomorrow morning. That way the fainthearts can be galvanised into a more positive mindset. The financial crisis has radically changed the calculus and thus the battleground arguments in Scotland.

Brown's role as world statesman saving the British economy (and Scotland with it) can still be exposed as the farce it surely is. But it's precisely this persona that he is projecting and which is winning support by default. As the polls show, Brown is doing well, however vainglorious his posturing.

Glenrothes was a warning.
Chris Walker, West Kilbride.