MARGARET Ferrier’s excuses for her gross breach of Covid-19 regulations would be amusing if the matter weren't serious ("Pressure grows as Ferrier refuses to quit as MP after Covid-positive train journey", The Herald, October 12). She wants to focus on her train trip from London to Glasgow, and claims it was an aberration brought about by the effects of the virus. However, there were numerous other acts that call into question her judgment and common sense.

It appears it was a week last Saturday and while at home that Ms Ferrier first experienced the symptoms of Covid-19. From the nhsinform.scot website: “It’s very important that you stay at home if you have symptoms that may be caused by coronavirus.” But what did Ms Ferrier do that day? She waltzed off to a gift shop, a beauty salon and a leisure centre; then, the next morning, to a church service. How many scores of people was she indoors with over those two days?

Ms Ferrier’s symptoms were sufficiently severe that she went for a Covid test on the Saturday evening. However, rather than wait for the result, on the Monday she took a train to London so she could make a brief speech in Parliament that evening. Whatever she said, I think we’d know by now whether it was of earth-shattering importance. Soon after her speech, she found out her test was positive. Surely the severity of the situation would now dawn on Ms Ferrier?

Not a bit of it. She says she didn’t want to self-isolate in a hotel for two weeks. So she kept quiet about her test result and caught a train home the next morning; she says she had no alternative. For her information: there’s a dozen BA cabin crew, mainly young women, who have just spent two weeks in a basic quarantine facility in Hong Kong; not because they tested positive, but because they’d worked alongside someone who had. And there are many thousands more travellers worldwide who’ve had the same experience, often being required to stay in quarantine facilities at their own expense rather than the taxpayers’; that’s how countries like New Zealand have squashed Covid.

Ms Ferrier claims it’s "Covid wot dunnit"; she says it “makes you act out of character”. I beg to disagree; it’s more likely that Ms Ferrier’s actions while experiencing mild symptoms of Covid have revealed her character all too clearly. She should resign.

Doug Maughan, Dunblane.

DISGRACED SNP MP Margaret Ferrier seems to be trying to paint herself as the victim following her coronavirus rules-breaking train journey by accusing the SNP hierarchy of trickery over supposedly withdrawing the party whip then refusing to re-instate it when she came clean and told all. She is entirely the author of her own misfortune through making the London to Glasgow train journey knowingly having been infected with the Covid-19 virus and exposing dear knows how many people to catching the virus. She should stop digging a deeper hole for herself and resign from Parliament. She has lost the trust of the people and will never regain it.

Bob MacDougall, Kippen.