Sunak has pulled off a masterstroke. The election is not yet lost

Bringing back David Cameron is a masterstroke not only because of his vast experience, his affable personality and calm demeanour but also as a signal that the Conservative Party has moved back to the centre ground where the next election will be fought and won. If Chancellor Jeremy Hunt can pull some rabbits out of the Treasury hat next week in his Autumn Statement the opinion polls gap with Labour will shrink.

Inflation is already probably below 5% and the economy which was predicted to collapse is holding up. If a week is a long time in politics, a year is an eternity.

William Loneskie, Lauder.

• DOES Rishi Sunak have a death wish for the electoral prospects of his party? David Cameron is the man who as PM, failed to notice the all-too-evident vibes about the raging Euroscepticism gripping his party, fuelled by the antics of Nigel Farage. His complacency and political indolence landed us with our exit from the EU, Brexit being the wound which keeps giving our economy a headache.

Mr Sunak's decision shows that he is not only out of ideas and out of time but also out of his political mind by bringing back the man who has heaped so much trouble upon the UK.

Boris Johnson will be rubbing his hands with glee as he enjoys the spectacle of his former Chancellor piling up the logs on his political pyre to go out in a blaze of infamy at the inevitable debacle of the forthcoming General Election.

Denis Bruce, Bishopbriggs.

A comment on the rest of them

DAVID Cameron has been placed in the Lords so that he could be appointed Foreign Secretary, becoming the second Tory since 1979 to be Foreign Secretary while a member of the Upper House.

The last Foreign Secretary to be in the Lords was Peter Carrington during the Thatcher government. He is remembered for having the Falklands invaded on his watch and having to resign office.

The irony of having the architect of Brexit in charge of our dealings with other countries seems lost on our embattled Prime Minister.

Being in the Lords means Mr Cameron will not be accountable to the elected House of Commons and will not face their scrutiny or questions. Mr Sunak probably doesn't see this as an issue as he spends much of his time avoiding questions and scrutiny from the House of Commons.

What a comment on the current crop of Tory MPs that none of them was seen as capable.

John McArthur, Glasgow.

Read more: Matheson did the right thing. Now, how about the Tories?

The pot and the kettle

YOU report that Humza Yousaf called for Suella Braverman to be sacked for, and I quote, “fanning the flames of division” ("Home Secretary should be sacked and not allowed to resign, says First Minister", The Herald, November 13). Isn’t that choice coming from the leader of a party which, since inception, has done nothing but fan those very flames themselves and put Scot against Scot in the process? Surely a case of “the pot calling the kettle black”?

Bob Hamilton, Motherwell.

Double standards on Matheson

TWO of your regular SNP-supporting correspondents are quick to paint Michael Matheson as a paragon of virtue for repaying the £11,000 he claimed on expenses for use of an iPad while on holiday in Morocco (Letters, November 13). However they do not attempt to address the serious questions that remain unanswered over this issue.

First, Mr Matheson was reckless. He had been notified that the SIM card in his iPad needed changed. He was required to let the parliamentary authorities know he was intending to use it outside Europe. He did neither.

Secondly, why did he not use WiFi which was presumably available in his holiday accommodation?

Next, there is no evidence what online activities resulted in such an astronomic bill. We simply have Mr Matheson’s own assertion that it was used for legitimate purposes, a position that the parliamentary authorities appear to have accepted without seeking evidence to support it.

Finally, he chose to reclaim the whole amount as an expense and this was approved by the parliamentary authorities despite there being a policy that such claims should be capped at £200.

This is a long list of unanswered questions for both Mr Matheson and the parliamentary authorities.

In 2005 following questions which had arisen over the then Conservative leader’s taxi expenses, David McLetchie resigned. In response, an SNP spokesman said: “MSPs are accountable for the use of public money. Given the long list of unanswered questions about his expenses, Mr McLetchie’s position has become untenable, and so resignation was the only appropriate course of action.”

Why does the SNP now considered it to be acceptable for Mr Matheson to belatedly offer to pay back the expenses claimed rather than resigning?

George Rennie, Inverness.

• MICHAEL Matheson says that on reflection he is going to reimburse the eye-watering amount of almost £11,000 of roaming charges which previously he claimed as legitimate expenses for his use of his iPad on constituency matters whilst on a week's family holiday in Morocco. Opposition parties have questioned this explanation and called for him to hand over the iPad for checking.

An SNP spokesman is quoted as saying “ the issue was fully investigated" which is at odds with the statement by unspecified “Holyrood authorities" that “Mr Matheson had provided a written assurance... that the iPad had been used for parliamentary business and not for personal or governmental purposes", which seems rather less than what could be termed a full investigation before these expenses were approved.

Either the near-£11,000 costs were or were not legitimate expenses, and Mr Matheson’s decision now to reimburse them muddies the water on that question. If he wishes to prove their legitimacy, the obvious course would be to hand over his iPad for independent scrutiny to confirm for what it was used. Any refusal to do so would in my view call into question both his and the Scottish Parliament’s integrity which he says he takes extremely seriously.

Alan Fitzpatrick, Dunlop.

Read more: Beware the slippery slope to a police state

Justification for Braverman

THE appalling behaviour of violent counter-protesters on Armistice Day was appropriately dealt with by the police in London. One has to question however why the same methods of policing did not apply to the pro-Palestine march.

The Met after the march took to social media with photos asking for help identifying certain individuals whom they suspected of anti-Semitism or violence. There were so many police present for the march, why did the individuals not get their banners taken off them and why were there not arrests for violent behaviour?

This is exactly what Suella Braverman meant when she wrote of the London police force “playing favourites” and failing to treat pro-Palestinian mobs the same way as right-wing and nationalist protestors.

The newspaper headlines report so many arrests of the “far right”, implying that all was peaceful and law-abiding on the pro-Palestinian side, which is clearly not the case. Our police forces should carry out their tasks treating everyone the same. Unfortunately they do not appear to do so.

Jane Lax, Aberlour.

Shame on Flynn for disrespect

MANY thousands of people viewing the Act of Remembrance at the Cenotaph (November 12) must have noticed the disgraceful conduct of the SNP Westminster leader during the line-up of politicians at what was otherwise a very dignified occasion.

Stephen Flynn was holding his wreath upside down and deposited it on the steps of the Cenotaph facing in the wrong direction, the only person to do so. Then, during the following Act of Worship it was clear that he did not sing the hymn and then, at the end, he did not appear to sing the National Anthem either - a total insult to our King and to the nation. Whether this disrespect was deliberate or just plain stupid I suppose we will never know.

William R Hutcheson, Paisley.