TO steady the sinking ship, Jeremy Hunt has taken over as Chancellor, being seen as a safe pair of hands who brings with him a reputation for confidence, gravitas and competence, his ministerial record having no obvious blemishes to suggest skeletons in his background.

His skillset centres round exuding patience, calmness and competence which he does with aplomb with little or no likelihood of serious gaffes.

However, being Chancellor demands a different mindset in grappling with serious economic concerns, dependent upon specific and specialist knowledge. He is reputed to have a brilliant mind but it may not be the mindset necessary to carry out his duties as Chancellor without great support from his economic advisers. It is all rather reminiscent of the elevation of Alan Johnson to that post and he recognised that he needed a primer in economics to understand the intricacies of the demands of that position.

As this administration limps to its inevitable demise, Mr Hunt is here to put a gloss on the whole perspective to limit seat loss at the next General Election.

It does look as though it is too late even now to counteract the hostility felt by the electorate which is not likely to forgive and forget, even if the alleged vote-winner extraordinaire, Boris Johnson, is restored to the position he sees as his preserve to boost his party's vanishing electoral hopes.

Denis Bruce, Bishopbriggs.

• RIGHT-WING newspapers routinely warn voters that a failure to elect a Conservative government would result in the country being led by a combination of MPs from Labour, the LibDems, and the SNP, this being described as a political horror show and a "coalition of chaos".

If the recent erratic behaviour of the current Government has proved anything, it is that there is no need for parties of whatever colour to combine to create chaos; the Conservatives can do it all on their own, and can now claim copyright on "coalition of chaos".

Ian Hutcheson, Glasgow.

COULD THIS BE A PLOT?

HAS it occurred to anyone that Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng may be Russian agents in deep cover?

Jim McSheffrey, Giffnock.

• WHO would be a London bus driver having to avoid the number of people being thrown below the wheels of their vehicles?

Malcolm Allan, Bishopbriggs.

HOW CAN WE EXPECT THE UK TO PROSPER?

THE Conservative belief to which we have just been subjected is that the country would prosper if the rich had every aid to become richer and the poor and disabled were left to rot. A radical diet, condemned by past experience, the financial markets and the uneasy suspicion that this is not what the electorate voted for, has led to its reversal at great cost to us all, except for the hedge fund managers who contribute so much to the party.

But how can we expect any rational financial policy from Tory fantasists in the grip of second-rank academic theorists whose mantra still reads “Feed the rich donkeys and the poor will be able to survive from what emerges at their nether end”? How can we expect the UK to become prosperous when the taxation system allows the rich to stash their earnings tax-free overseas and companies to manage their affairs in such a way that earnings in Britain are taxed at low rates abroad? The poor enjoy no such luxuries.

It may be legal but is it ethical?

Would we rather live in an independent Scotland with a government which cares for our poor and disabled and expects the rich to pay a reasonable amount to provide the facilities like medical care, child care and university education that make Scotland envied south of the Border and by the rest of the world?

I would.

Elizabeth Scott, Edinburgh.

REDISTRIBUTION IS A MUST

I REFER to Robert Frazer’s objection (Letters, October 15) to my use of the term “unfunded tax cut”. By employing this widely used and generally understood phrase I was referring to this grossly malfunctioning Government’s failure to demonstrate that it had a coherent strategy to deal with the financial consequences of its tax cuts. The lack of such a strategy was a consequence of the triumph of neo-liberal ideology over sound economic sense.

Obviously I don’t agree with him that I am “perpetrating the regressive, outright totalitarian notion that everything belongs to the government and we own nothing without its permission”. I am instead suggesting that a redistribution of wealth and income is the mark of both progressive social democratic and compassionate Conservative societies.

John Milne, Uddingston.

FM SHOULD BE CAREFUL

IN reaction to Downing Street chaos, Nicola Sturgeon, as ever sniping from the sidelines, calls for a snap General Election – Predictable rhetoric, especially after her "detest  the Tories" comment, but surely that's not what she wants?

First, it messes with her "I'll make the next General Election a de facto referendum on independence" spiel. The Supreme Court's decision is months away on whether the SNP administration can hold a 2023 advisory referendum – the separatists need to await the case's outcome before fighting a single-issue General Election.

More importantly, with Labour riding high in opinion polls, there's a decent chance the SNP will lose both votes and seats to Labour in a snap General Election, which Labour wins outright – so SNP MPs won't be needed to prop up a minority Labour administration, which ideally they'd seek to do as a quid pro quo for Sir Keir Starmer granting a Section 30 order. With potentially little time before a Westminster election to hone a campaign exclusively focused on an anti-UK narrative, if the nationalists shed votes to sub-50%, then Ms Sturgeon's ceaseless Indyref2 demands are even easier for Downing Street to rebuff. Plus fewer Commons seats gives a clear message that anti-UK sentiment is waning even further in Scotland.

Ms Sturgeon should be careful what she pretends to wish for; she surely realises there'll be no imminent General Election. Tory MPs aren't turkeys voting for Christmas.

Martin Redfern, Melrose.

SNP MUST GIVE US CLARITY

I HAVE always thought John Swinney to be a thoroughly decent man, a credit to himself, the SNP and Scottish politics.

But he let himself down badly on Question Time last week (October 14) by drawing a deceptive veil over the SNP’s Achilles heel in its relentless quest for another referendum on independence – its currency proposal.

He stated that the only way to avoid another economic calamity akin to the Liz Truss mismanagement of her uncosted mini-Budget would lie in Scotland being fully independent of the Westminster government.

But later in the debate he advised that the SNP’s proposal about post-independence currency remains to keep the pound until such time as economic conditions are right to develop a discrete Scottish currency. Despite being asked many times, he refused to elaborate further or give any indication of timescale.

He cannot have it both ways. If Scotland had been independent when Ms Truss took over, her tanking of the pound would have had just as much impact north of the Border as in London.

When you think it through, using the currency of your near neighbour (and a serious competitor for inward investment and export growth) does not give you any sort of financial independence whatsoever, especially when that country’s GDP is about 12 times greater than your own. Your country is not able to make key decisions which impact on the cost of borrowing. If England sneezed we would catch a bad cold.

In my book, the SNP package of proposals, as it stands, does not deliver full independence. I can clearly foresee Ms Sturgeon as Prime Minister of Scotland blaming all our own self-inflicted financial chaos and carnage on Westminster – she is after all the champion of passing the buck.

Alex Salmond lost in 2014 because he refused to deal with risk management. Nicola Sturgeon looks like she is treading the same path.

If the forthcoming SNP paper on the economy does not give clarity on how and when to rejoin the EU, and on what terms, as well as clarifying why they consider keeping the pound does not significantly impair independence, their leaders should just shut up about a referendum and give us all peace. What they are proposing at the moment is no more than glorified devolution.

Stuart Ross, Glasgow.

Read more: The Union will never be the same again after this debacle