Capital central

I sincerely hope that the outcome of the referendum will be, as Bill Jamieson suggests 
(Perspective, 7 August), a decentralising of government throughout the United Kingdom.

For Liberal Democrats, a federal structure of government plus a strengthening of the powers of local authorities and reform of the House of Lords would be the best possible outcome. I trust that when this happens Scotland also will see real decentralisation and the reversal of the concentration of power in Holyrood which Scotland’s regions have endured in recent years.

From the abolition of local enterprise companies, through the removal of fiscal discretion of local authorities by freezing council tax, increasing central control of every aspect of education, to the formation of Police Scotland, plus numerous other more subtle examples, centralisation has been the hallmark of the SNP Government.

Mr Salmond is no champion of decentralisation.

He champions only one centre of power – and that is Edinburgh.

Joan Mitchell

Bagbie

Newton Stewart