DOESN’T it beggar belief that Kevin McKenna is railing against daytime TV, “replete with shows in which people from disadvantaged communities agree to lay bare the chaos of their lives” while supporting Kezia Dugdale for abrogating her responsibility as an MSP and dumping her constituents for her jungle junket?

How is it in any way politically or morally acceptable for an elected representative to absent herself when she should be working diligently to obviate the “chaos” in the lives of those who elected her?

When McKenna claims “we have a confident, bright and articulate young Scot taking advantage of an opportunity to convey positive messages about diversity and socialism”, has he ever watched I’m A Celebrity ... ? Does he realise that what we get to see is the edited version that producers want viewers to see? It is an entertainment show based on the titillation of the public’s voyeurism of participants operating under duress; it is not a forum for political opinion, informing and diatribes.

Dugdale’s partner, the SNP’s Jenny Gilruth, disingenuously claims “there are things we should be angry about right now. The rape clause. Universal Credit. Brexit. Kez going on a TV show isn’t one of them – let’s get some perspective.”

Yes, let’s. Shouldn’t Dugdale be working for those who elected her to deal precisely with these serious issues Gilruth highlighted rather than traipsing off to be the most horrible critter in the jungle?

Haven’t Dugdale and Gilruth behaved like wee bairns role-playing being politicians with their blatant disregard for their parliamentary responsibilities as MSPs? Is this what Labour and the SNP deem an appropriate standard of behaviour? When we vote at elections are we really just electing potential reality show “stars”?

Will the sting in the critter’s tale be Gilruth jetting out to welcome her partner as she emerges from the jungle, a further abrogation of parliamentary duty?

What I don’t understand is why it is left to party leaders and not Parliament itself to sanction Dugdale for bringing it into disrepute?
Jim Taylor
Edinburgh

IN October 1974, Harold Wilson and the Labour Party won the General Election. He was soon to be replaced by James Callaghan. The next General Election had legally to be held by October 1979. To blame the SNP for the downfall of the Callaghan government and the election of the Thatcher government at the May election that year is incorrect (Letters, November 22). That vote simply brought forward the inevitable by five months. The Labour Party would have been unlikely to have won an October election because of their poor performance in government. Some of us remember the Winter of Discontent that preceded this: the rubbish piled high in the streets, the unburied bodies and so forth. Cat Boyd should research her articles better.
Robert Mitchell
Stirling

DOUGLAS Turner (Letters, November 22) is correct about the fall of the Callaghan government. The PM himself predicted that his government would fall to the Tories because of the pig’s ear it had made of the Scottish Question and the reneging on the referendum.
Lorna Campbell
via thenational.scot

LAST night I attended a debate in which both the SNP and Conservatives were taking part. Nothing new or interesting about that I suppose, but there was also two other minor parties there – the Christian Party and the rather new Scottish Family Party.

It was very good to see a new party with a new focus that the other parties do not have. Families are the core of the next generation of taxpayers.

Your small snippet about children in Iceland yesterday shows exactly why, and what can happen when the family is a core component of government policy. A small change can and will bring about huge benefits to the whole nation.

Definitely one to watch, and use your second vote wisely – even if it’s just to get better sportsmen/women. Iceland now has almost half of all 15-year-olds in a sports club four or more times a week. Remember that small nation beat England 2-1!
Kenneth Sutherland
Livingston