ON the day of the local government elections I sat in a pizza restaurant in Edinburgh with my two sons at around 7pm.

At some point while eating our way through our pizza my oldest son buried his head in his hands and gave us his classic "Oh no". I asked him what was wrong and he asked me if I had voted. I hadn't. We had both forgotten.

Anyone driving through Drymen could be forgiven for thinking that there was no election for our small rural community, there was so little to highlight the fact that it was taking place.

For a short while my pizza didn't taste so good as a feeling of guilt settled on my taste buds. But thanks to Stirlingshire Labour elected councillors, my guilty feelings were a waste of time and my vote would have counted for nothing ("Labour's coalition tactics squeeze out SNP", The Herald, May 12).

We have a problem in this country. We have to get young people to engage in politics but with what happened in Stirlingshire and the rest of the country where Labour set up coalition councils with the most unlikely of bedfellows, there will be an even smaller electoral turn-out of electorate come the next elections because this makes it all pointless.

Iain Macwhirter said that Keir Hardie would be turning in his grave with the shenanigans of the Labour councillors ("Tribalism is forging unlikely coalitions in local councils", The Herald, May 10).

My father, a life-long committed, fully paid-up member of the Labour Party, would at best be kicking up a dust storm while many millions more who helped to establish the Labour Party will be spinning in their graves.

Allan McKenzie,

Drummakil, Drymen.

WHAT are the voters expected to make of the latest political shenanigans? In some parts of the world, people would be taking to the streets in protest at this affront to democracy, but I suspect Scots voters are more likely to sigh with vexation and vote in even fewer numbers next time round.

All my life I believed that my vote counted, but given the unholy alliances in some council areas, and I live in one of them, it would appear that in many cases if you win, you lose. The Labour Party especially is going to find it very difficult to explain to voters why it has allied itself with the Conservatives, a party which the majority of Scots dislike and distrust, and which saw its vote fall again on May 3, as it did at last year's Scottish Parliament elections, and which sends only one MP to the Westminster Parliament.

Going into coalition government with the Tories has led to what could be a terminal decline for the Liberal Democrats throughout the UK. The lust for power in our town halls which has led to Labour abandoning the last of its principles for power may well end in a repeat of the drubbing it took at last year's Scottish Parliament elections, as voters ask the question – which twin is the Tory?

Ruth Marr,

99 Grampian Road,

Stirling.

IT is ironic that SNP MSP Chic Brodie is exercised by what he calls "a real betrayal of what electors voted for". Having failed yet again to be elected in Ayr he secured the last place on the South of Scotland list. A different version of PR for local government elections means no one party is ever likely to have an overall majority in South Ayrshire and so arrangements have to be made. As the only party coming out of the election with more seats than it went in with, Labour is strongly place to deliver its manifesto and drive forward a Labour agenda.

Mr Brodie can relax about "progressive partnerships" being overlooked. In South Ayrshire the SNP has spent the last five years working hand in hand with the Tories and has demonstrated clearly that it haven't a progressive bone in its body.

Alastair Osborne,

Seil Cottage, Symington.