Class interests still motivate the Tories

David McLetchie’s response to this (Letters, 13 August) offers not only little coherent rebuttal, but the following ad hominem attack – “the stand-up comedian of political commentary”, “entertaining but ultimately pointless diatribes”, “latest rabid rant”, “puerile publications of the extreme left”, “Comrade  Hassan”, “loony left” etc.

This kind of thing would have been mildly amusing had it come from one of the core of the prolific letter writers to The Scotsman who regularly offer such rants, but from a prominent Conservative MSP, former leader of the Scottish Tory Party, and a lawyer, it is more than a little contemptible and demonstrates the vacuum of values and policy at the heart of the Scottish Tory Party.

I wonder if David  McLetchie counts Gerry  Hassan’s 12 books on Scottish and UK politics as “puerile publications of the extreme left”, or his leadership of  the Demos programmes  Scotland 2020 and Glasgow 2020, or his vital work in  the arts, focusing on culture and creativity as “entertaining but ultimately pointless diatribes”.

Perhaps David McLetchie can point us to his published work and contributions to Scottish ideas, life and culture.

But in fairness, Gerry  Hassan did use two phrases in a long, thoughtful article that could be seen as pejorative – “right-wing zealots” and a “zombie party” – as descriptors of what the Tories have become.

David McLetchie’s letter rather tends to reinforce Gerry Hassan’s conclusion that the party has metamorphosed into one that warrants such labels.

The Tories have indeed “struck a chord across the spectrum”, and far from being a constructive dissonance, it is a deeply unmusical discord.

Peter Curran

Main Street

Kirkliston, Midlothian

David McLetchie MSP  dismisses columnist Gerry Hassan’s alleged rant with one of his own.

The Conservative Party, he tells us, is not underpinned by racism.

Maybe not; but, as one of the few people in Edinburgh who can claim to have spent time in private conversation with Enoch Powell, I can  assure him that, even as late as the early 1990s, it certainly was.

The Tories are, however, underpinned by class interest, and in that they fail Scotland and the rest of the UK woefully.

They concede a status quo in which 80 per cent of Scotland is to remain the private playground of a couple of belted earls, insurance companies and investment funds… and have no proposals to redress that balance in favour of the citizen masses whose votes they need.

Unfortunately, the current pale shade of the SNP takes largely the same position on land reform, and the Scottish people they claim to represent remain unemancipated. Land reform – true land reform – means taking the land from the few, and giving control of it to the many, and it’s time the SNP told us when it is damned well going to get on with it.

My still-missed father-in-law, a gentle Ayrshire farmer, used to dismiss the SNP of the 1970s as “the Tartan Tories”; he would have understood today’s politics – and I should have listened to him.

David Fiddimore

Calton Road

Edinburgh

It IS interesting that Mr McLetchie uses the phrase “have supported” rather than “are supporting” in his defence of the Conservative Party.

Everyone thought the  Conservatives had reached rock bottom in the 1997 election. But under his and Miss Goldie’s leadership, their  percentage of the vote has continued to fall.

If it wasn’t for the list  system it would be an insignificant party in the Scottish Parliament. In the 2010 election David Cameron won a clear majority of seats in the rest of the UK (306 out of 591) and it is likely that the  continued lack of Scottish Conservative MPs could again lose him an electoral majority in 2015.

As for racism, anyone  perusing the influential Conservative Home website would see that capping immigration, leaving the EU and scrapping foreign aid are among the favourite topics of the bloggers and responders.

The Conservative Friends of the Union, according to its website, has 290 followers on Twitter and 452 like it on Facebook. It would appear that more than 9,500 of those who joined are not going to admit it on the internet.

In fact, since at the recent leadership election there  appeared to be only around half that number of active members, why all these non-members would want to  associate with a failed party is puzzling.

Even if there are all these members, they only represent less than 0.2 per cent of the population – hardly a ringing endorsement.

While Gerry Hassan tends to view society through spectacles with a rose-tinted left lense and a blanked right lense, he does make some pertinent points.

Is it healthy that the Conservative Party depends, for more than half its funding, on the City of London, or, for that matter, that the Labour Party depends on an even greater share from the unions? Neither is a democratic representation of society.

Perhaps there should be caps on non-personal donations, and both parties should learn to work with smaller budgets.

The reality is that a lack of sensible policy direction and keeping in contact with constituency roots has caused the Scottish Conservative Party to lose its appeal.

While there are many who believe in a right-of-centre approach of small government, individual freedom, and low taxation and spending, they no longer support the Scottish Conservative Party.

Without a new approach and strong leadership, its  decline since 1997 is likely to continue.

Bruce D Skivington

Strath

Gairloch, Wester Ross