NOW that the pantomime season is over (no, the other one), it is up to the press and the public to hold whoever is getting into government truly to account. All these promises, billions of pounds, thousands of police, doctors and nurses, tens of thousands of homes, millions or billions of trees, multiple "new" hospitals, oh and £350m a week that we don’t have to pay the EU.

Let’s just make sure that their false promises come back to haunt them.

Steve Barnet, Gargunnock.

POSSIBLY one of the most unsavoury aspects of political discourse over the past 20 years or so has been the way the performance of our public services, especially health and education, has been shamelessly exploited by opportunistic and hypocritical politicians. Yet over the past few months, in the run-up to this very dark December election, this contagion has contaminated debate with unsurpassed levels of toxicity.

Fair and constructive criticism is of course an essential element in holding the government of the day to account, but what we have witnessed in recent months has reached new heights, or rather depths, of dishonesty and mendacity, as almost every leading opposition politician has feverishly attempted to outdo each other in levels of hysteria and humbug when attacking the Scottish Government’s record over policing, health and education and other services. If you believed a quarter of what is claimed by some of them, we would appear to have the worst public services not just in the UK but in the whole world.

Of course a cursory glance south of the Border immediately exposes the hypocrisy of people speaking on behalf of the very parties responsible for grim austerity and savage cuts which have had a devastating effect on policing, health, social care and education across the UK, but you will certainly find in many areas of England and Wales what a real crisis looks like.

Likewise, a quick reminder of the record of recent or current Labour or Labour/Tory local council administrations in Scotland should make many of them blush with shame, though it probably won’t. They seem to have forgotten, or would like us to forget, who was responsible for burdening our councils with many billions of PFI / PPP debt and who was responsible for squandering millions on vanity projects or fighting equal pay for female council staff. And the last time I checked, Labour or Labour Coalition councillors were still in charge of education and other services in many of our local authorities.

According to some, everything was perfect in a past age before Police Scotland was set up (no mistakes, no cover-ups, no bad appointments abuses of power or botched investigations etc) and you could be forgiven for thinking that our hospitals rarely if ever experienced long waiting lists, staff shortages, health risks, medical mistakes or tragic errors in the past. Yet this hasn’t stopped some unscrupulous opportunists from exploiting almost every tragic death, especially of children, or health concern, especially in our new hospitals, with a nauseous display of sanctimonious humbug and crocodile tears.

Of course there are problems, failings and mistakes in all our services, but shrill wailing from the rooftops over every problem that arises only serves to hide the truth and distort the reality, often making it more difficult to rectify matters when they do go wrong, as they inevitably will.

John Hodgart, Ayrshire.

MARY Thomas (Letters, December 10), in response to my letter of December 9, really should have paid attention. I have never said that I have been dissatisfied with the service from the NHS, indeed, I had a minor operation at Stracathro and the service was absolutely wonderful. My point is that the SNP is happy through bad management to waste millions at taxpayer's expense, for example, a new hospital lying empty and GP practices closing or being taken over by the NHS. The SNP regime's abysmal mismanagement of most aspects of Scottish life and the control it tries to exert over us has resulted in massive debt which Derek Mackay is totally incapable of controlling.

Ms Thomas, in common with other nationalist correspondents, irresponsibly and unbelievably refuse to believe the truth that the SNP is incapable of managing Scotland prudently. They constantly refuse to accept statistics from bodies such as IFS, Pisa, the Scottish Police Authority and more – even their own Andrew Wilson, in their misguided belief that once Nicola Sturgeon leads them to independence they will have reached the promised land.

Douglas Cowe, Newmachar.

IRRESPECTIVE of who won the General Election, we still have an SNP administration in Holyrood. During the campaign, Nicola Sturgeon focused principally on the constitution; no change there then. Yet the everyday realities of Ms Sturgeon's overlooked day job – managing Scotland's hard-pressed public services – continue.

During the campaign for example, we learned that, in many areas, Scotland's education system continues to drop down the world rankings under the SNP. Hospital waiting time targets are widely missed, to a shocking extent for cancer patients. The obesity inequality gap grows for Scottish children, our arts funding is deemed to be in need of a major overhaul and Calmac is suing the SNP administration over a ferry routes dispute. Plus, of course, the Alex Salmond trial looms large, early next year.

Wouldn't it be wonderful if Ms Sturgeon made an early new year's resolution and decided to concentrate on the job we employ her to carry out, instead of relentlessly indulging her UK break-up dreams?

Martin Redfern, Edinburgh EH10.