Key information lacking

Professor Matt Qvortrup (Platform, 12 April) asks: "Could Scots hand Howard keys to No 10?" Not, one would imagine, if they are relying on his sources of information.

The Ayr seat, which Sandra Osborne won in 2001 for Labour with a precarious majority, has been abolished. The two new seats into which her erstwhile constituents have been transferred - Ayrshire Central and Ayr, Carrick & Cumnock - both have notional Labour majorities of more than 20 per cent.

And in Aberdeen South, the Tories start off in third place behind Labour and the Liberal Democrats - to whom they lost three formerly safe suburban wards in the 2003 council elections. Aberdeen South is indeed a two-party marginal, but neither of those two parties is Conservative.

(DR) AJ THOMSON

Edenderry, Belfast

Northern Ireland