WHILE I cannot disagree with Labour’s Douglas Alexander on the political legacy of Nicola Sturgeon, I find the rest of his patronising sermon on the state of Scotland to be so much regurgitated drivel of a kind I sadly heard often when he was MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South.

If not for the SNP government’s free tuition fees policy, my wife and I would have struggled to support our son through university, and the country would have been the poorer as then he may not have qualified as a doctor.

If not for the SNP government’s free prescriptions policy, the members of my family with long-term medical conditions would have found the cost of living fundamentally harder. These two policies alone have delivered for the Scottish people.

READ MORE: Douglas Alexander: Constitutional squabbling has cost Scotland progress

Mr Alexander accuses the SNP of wearing the toxic badge of identity politics. Yet is this the same Douglas Alexander who proudly stood beside tanks in Helmand province which had Union Jacks fluttering from them.

Perhaps it was an artificial-intelligence Douglas Alexander who applauded on the platform of the UK Labour conference in 2007 when PM Gordon Brown channelled his inner Oswald Mosley to bellow “British jobs for British workers”. Obviously identity politics are only toxic when the Saltire is being flown.

I pledge to the good burghers of East Lothian that I will search every inch of my ward to see what Douglas Alexander delivered of any lasting impact between 2005 and 2015, but It may take me some time to get back to them.

Cllr Andy Doig (Independent)
Renfrewshire Council

ALBA are right to demand that Douglas Alexander apologises for backing the Iraq war.

Labour seem to be displaying all the arrogant hallmarks of Blairism again. They’ve been out of office for 13 years but they have never been held to account for their illegal war.

We marched to the SECC to protest against the war but Tony Blair did a runner so that he didn’t need to answer to us.

READ MORE: Alba demand Douglas Alexander apologise for backing invasion of Iraq

The illegal invasion of Iraq wasn’t just an easy-to-forget policy error. It was a lie the Labour Party concocted so that megalomaniac Tony Blair could live it large with George W Bush. Don’t forget that Blair once dreamed of being president of a United States of Europe.

As Labour look likely to get back into government it’s no surprise that people are coming back out of the woodwork to get their hands back on power. Every single Blairite that supported Labour’s illegal war should apologise.

Frank Wood
Port Glasgow

MIKE Small in his Sunday National column (The ambivalent Union: Why Britain is going to end with a whimper not a bang, Sep 10) quotes from the Institute for Public Policy Research report on attitudes to the Union, mentioning an attempt to govern on the basis of “to the victor the spoils”. I would say that this attitude has underlain UK politics since at least England’s so-called “glorious revolution” in 1688. From the late Stuart kings’ attempts to assert divine right and absolutist authority, the English parliament had no interest in “democratising” power, but simply appropriated that absolutist power to itself.

This explains the unshakable devotion to first-past-the post elections (referred to by John Drummond last week). It gives the winning party a secure majority without majority support in the country, and allows them to do whatever they want until the next election. Actually, I think nothing could stop them postponing or cancelling elections if the wanted, such is the “glorious” British so-called constitution.

READ MORE: Top business journalist condemns Tory approach to Scottish economy

It is part of why the UK’s membership of the EU was always so uneasy, because the EU functioned by negotiation and compromise, while UK governments were by their nature accustomed to getting what they wanted, and ended up with the budget rebate and a number of opt-outs from policies that other member states agreed.

Other member states with proportional electoral systems take it for granted that you can’t form a government without negotiation and compromise, so for them that is a natural way to function.

I even think it shows its face when pro-EU commentators (mostly English) point to shifting opinion polls and hope for another referendum so the public can opt to rejoin. Why do they think the EU would want the UK back? It was always the awkward one, and it would only take one member state to veto any application.

Robert Moffat
Penicuik

WITH the cost-of-living crisis, the cost of repairing schools with Raac, cuts to benefits to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy, proposals to get the sick and disabled to work from home, and of course the Rwanda plan going pear-shaped, it is abundantly clear that the Tories have run out of humanitarian policies, not that they had many in the first place. They really are doing their best not to win the next election.

But when Sir Keir Starmer and Labour win, what policies are they going to implement? What are they doing to make stand-out, unique policies that can be well received by the electorate? The answer is a big hee-haw.

READ MORE: Catalan independence meeting addressed by SNP and Plaid Cymru

Nothing the Tories have implemented will be reversed, and they won’t be spending large amounts on anything. It will be Labour austerity, not Tory. A empty election full of worthless and empty election promises, nothing to fight poverty or the cost of living, but there will of course be money available for weaponry, and tax cuts for the big multinationals.

When Labour win at the General Election there will be no celebrations, just tweaking of Tory policies, and the official handing over of the jobs for the boys, and the poisoned chalice.

Robert McCaw
Renfrew