Choice of battle

We owe a debt of gratitude to Louise Richardson, the principle of St Andrew’s University, for her reply (Letters, 19 September) to Alex Orr, who had written the day before to complain that her university had not glorified Mr Salmond (an alumnus) during its Opening Ceremony for new students.

Ms Richardson’s letter exposed exactly why the points in Mr Orr’s abundance of SNP-obsessed letters should be taken with a bucket of salt.

For those who may have missed this latest of Mr Orr’s bulletins, he implied that it was a deliberate slight for the university not to have included his Dear Leader in its list of “giants who have studied and served at the institution”.

Ms Richardson pricked Mr Orr’s bubble by informing us the ceremony was only three years old and in her brief speech, only four “giants” were mentioned: Mill, Knox, Kipling and Barrie.

Even if the ceremony were to have existed since the inception of the university in the 15th century and the speech had lasted two hours, I, for one, do not think that Mr Salmond deserves a mention among the many true “giants” who could have 
justifiably figured. Mr Orr seeks to turn virtually every event to the SNP’s advantage and would appear to be a very favoured correspondent by your newspaper.

As such, he might like to consider more carefully the fights in which he chooses to be involved.

David K Allan

Mainshill

Haddington