MUCH attention on First Minister's Questions centred on Nicola Sturgeon's joust with Jackson Carlaw over the proposed workplace car parking tax ("Sturgeon hits out at ‘Tory hypocrisy’", The Herald, February 22). But the more important exchange came when Richard Leonard asked the First Minister about cuts to council budgets. Ms Sturgeon replied (I paraphrase) to the effect that “there are no cuts. Councils are getting tons more money in 2019/20. That's why many of them, even SNP-run councils, are sacking teachers and proposing school closures and other reductions in council services.”

Am I alone in questioning her logic on this? If local authorities really are getting “more money”, as the SNP leadership insists, why are real councils in the real world having to cut such important services in the face of growing need for those services? It makes no sense, particularly as the Scottish Government got a small increase in its allocation for this year. Why are councils getting cuts when there is more money in the pot?

In my experience the only people who are taken in by this are SNP politicians, in particular SNP councillors, who will happily whistle the “more money” theme as a musical accompaniment, while casting their votes to cut vital services for their own constituents. As that other nationalist, Margaret Thatcher, once said, "it's a funny old world".

Alex Gallagher,

Labour Councillor Ward 8, North Ayrshire Council,

12 Phillips Avenue, Largs.

NICOLA Sturgeon took great delight, at the latest First Minister's Questions, to use one of her favourite ripostes to the opposition. When challenged over her “lack of spending" in certain areas she replied that there was no money left, therefore any changes must be matched by a loss of finance elsewhere in the system. Now she is facing a potential teachers strike ("Teachers threaten strike action in schools by April", The Herald, February 22) where she has to come up with more money to avert this outcome.

This leaves Ms Sturgeon with her own dilemma. If the financial offer to the teachers is raised, perhaps she will also inform the public where the consequent cut in services will come. If she does not give the teachers more money, she will have created a very damaging strike at a very sensitive time in the school calendar. It's Sturgeon's choice.

Dr Gerald Edwards,

Broom Road, Glasgow.

CATRIONA Stewart has some fun at the expense of those getting agitated about our First Minister taking time out to tour North America, quickly followed by a trip to France ("There's no funny tinge to Nicola Sturgeon's junket", The Herald, February 22). In normal circumstances she would be right to defend the right of Scotland’s leader to travel abroad promoting Scotland’s best interests, but of course the circumstances are anything but normal, and from the content of Nicola Sturgeon’s speeches it was very clear that on this occasion promoting Scotland’s business interests abroad was far from being the main point of the trips.

Instead, the First Minister focused on trying to paint the UK Government in the worst possible light, and her own, as ever, as a shining example of all that is good. No matter, it seems that, the SNP consistently misses its own targets in the critical public services that are supposed to be its priority, just as long as its leader can get onto the world stage and seek to undermine the UK and our place within it.

Keith Howell,

White Moss, West Linton, Peeblesshire.

CHRISTOPHER H Jones (Letters, February 22) contends that the SNP is "driven by Holyrood'; well, the Holyrood Parliament is elected by voters in Scotland, and accountable to voters in Scotland, unlike the position at Westminster where Scotland has a mere 59 seats out of 650. I must correct Mr Jones in his assertion that "dissent within the ranks" of the SNP is not permitted, as lively and robust debates are a feature of SNP branch, constituency and group meetings, but differences of opinion do not become the open warfare we see raging within the two main unionist parties. Bitter internal squabblings in the Conservative and Labour parties have now boiled over, at least a dozen MPs have left their parties, more are expected to leave, and others, including government ministers, are threatening to leave.

Mr Jones argues that within the Unionist parties "whilst some members may be disenchanted with a party position at least they are free to go their own way"; indeed, they have gone their own way right out of their parties and formed their own group. The reality is that both Labour and the Tories are in not so much as a deep hole as a bottomless pit, and no amount of digging will get them out of it.

Ruth Marr,

99 Grampian Road, Stirling.

IT would be instructive for those supporting the status quo of government to think carefully of the rules by which certain "democratic” decisions have been made or rather concocted, and which are a backdrop to the present growing appeal of Scottish independence.

In 1979 the conditions for the Scottish devolution referendum were imposed by Westminster. Briefly, the determining factor was that if less than 40 per cent of the eligible electorate voted Yes, the Act of 1978 which determined the referendum, would be repealed. The Yes vote was 51.6 per cent but with a turn-out of 64 per cent the resultant Yes vote was 32.9 per cent of the eligible electorate and the Act was repealed. This electoral contrivance is unique, and contrasts spectacularly with that governing the EU referendum of 2016 and even more spectacularly with the usual rules of UK General Elections.

In 2017, when account is taken of the turn-out in the General Election, the Conservative Party achieved less than 30 per cent support of the eligible electorate and less than 50 per cent of the actual vote, but under the Westminster rules it formed the minority government, albeit having bought the “courtesy” of the DUP.

In 2016 the Yes vote to leave the EU was 51.89 per cent but after factoring in the turn-out of 72 per cent the Yes vote becomes 37.44 per cent of those eligible.

In 2014 the Yes vote in the Scottish referendum was similarly 37.54 per cent.

The conclusion that only an independent Scotland with its own written constitution will be able, in its own interest, to unscramble the rules by which the Westminster establishment protects its position is plain to see.

J Hamilton,

G/2,1 Jackson Place, Bearsden.

Read more: Catriona Stewart on Nicola Sturgeon's trips