IF I might take the slightest issue with Carole Williams (Letters, November 20), what we are in Dumfries and Galloway is conservative. This is only partly a reflection of our age profile; people of all age groups are, in the main, reserved, exhibiting a quiet resistance to violent change, respectful of traditional values.

The question is: are the Conservatives conservative any more?

READ MORE: Letters, November 20

In the depths of the Second World War, perhaps the greatest ever Conservative Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, offered union with France, which De Gaulle rejected, pre-empting his more famous “Non!” It was a pro-European outlook that the folk of D&G overwhelmingly endorsed in 2016. Even Conservatives like the elder Mundell spoke of the disaster of leaving the EC. Yet a bastard political tide fostered by five media barons, masquerading as Conservatism, rent our ties with Europe.

For generations we have been proud of our agriculture. Painstaking stockmanship has been passed on from generation to generation, resulting in the finest quality produce to feed the nation. All to be sabotaged for lower food standards promoted for self-interest and reward by a Conservative in the pocket of American agro-industrialists; condemned by the Scottish Farmers Union.

READ MORE: Is Douglas Ross unaware a Unionist coalition is already up and running?

For over 30 years Dumfriesshire was represented by Hector Monro, once described as “the last of the decent Tories”. He was a parliamentary under secretary of state at the Scottish Office between July 1971 and February 1974 and voted against his party on devolution, announcing his support for a Scottish Assembly in 1974. We are now represented by Mundell.

There is not a resistance to change for the sake of it in the south of country but there is a respect for traditional conservative values such as democracy, care for those less well off, good management and trade with our neighbours; all of which have been abandoned by the Conservatives.

Ian Richmond
Dumfries and Galloway