Do not undermine McConnell's legacy

Your suggestion that Jack McConnell "will not be seen in the same league as Donald Dewar" (Leader, 27 August) is every bit as silly as Gerry Hassan's claim earlier in the week that the Scottish left (apart from Wendy Alexander) has been brain dead since 1906.

If "historians" ever get round to studying dispassionately "the records of the early years of home rule", they will rate Alex Salmond above Tony Blair spin doctor-turned-journalist John McTernan, who was sent from London to "help" McConnell save New Labour.

But they may also notice that it was in fact a young councillor and activist - Jack McConnell - who chaired the critical meeting in Stirling University where Dewar, after much dithering, finally announced his willingness to support his party joining the Constitutional Convention.

Jack McConnell will be remembered for much more. McTernan glosses over this as it does not fit with his partisan attacks on the SNP record on education, but it was of course McConnell who cleaned up the Labour exams fiasco presided over by Sam Galbraith.

McConnell also stepped into the breach for Tony Blair at the G8 in Gleneagles in 2005 after the July bombings - thus building on earlier work by Henry McLeish in establishing overseas links directly with the Scottish Government (not least in respect of Africa, India and China).

Gerry Hassan's article was also unfair to Tommy Sheridan, whose ideas included free school meals, an end to poinding, the reform of local taxation and the scrapping Trident. Gerry also makes no reference to the role of STUC's Campbell Christie. I, in turn, make no mention whatsoever of Gordon Brown, whose silence on the Scottish home rule issue for so many years was odd. No mention of those in the Labour Party whose big ideas included taking donations from Jersey or setting fire to curtains in hotels.

Neil Robertson

Glamis Terrace

Dundee

In his excellent article (Comment, 26 August) Gerry Hassan omits a major factor in the Labour Party's reactionary stance in Scotland.

It is the need for UK Labour to hang on to the support of Labour voters in Scotland (and Wales) in order to have a hope of ruling in England.

Although Labour in Scotland has renamed itself "Scottish Labour", its manifest purpose is not to promote the interests of the Scottish electorate but to provide lobby-fodder in the Westminster parliament.

Robin MacCormick

Dalkeith Road

Edinburgh