Labour failures

However, while any constructive criticism is always welcome, it is perhaps a little low to use the deaths of people in the Tianjin disaster in China to make a rather weak party political point.

Furthermore, Mr Grodynski’s wider criticism of Labour’s record in government is also misguided.

The Institute for Fiscal Studies is clear that the last Labour government took 2 million people out of poverty, including 200,000 pensioners in Scotland, and doubled NHS spending.

Lastly, Mr Grodynski’s assertion that the SNP are the only party serious about cutting poverty in Scotland does not reflect reality.

As somebody who earns more than double the national average, I gain over £300 per year via Mr Grodynski’s party’s council tax freeze. Those on welfare get nothing from the council Tax freeze, but services they need like the school uniform grant are cut to fund it. So while I genuinely welcome Mr Grodynski’s comments, perhaps he should also look in the mirror.

(Dr) Scott Arthur

Buckstone Gardens

Edinburgh

If I read Stan Grodynski correctly he attacks one correspondent (Scott Arthur) for his belief in financial responsibility; Mr Grodynski seems also to be a fan of the economic policies of Jeremy Corbyn. He also supports the SNP, but as they also claim to believe in financial responsibility, is Mr Grodynski attacking his own party?

William Ballantine

Dean Road

Bo’ness, West Lothian

The whole Jeremy Corbyn business with the Labour Party is about electability and the “pandering to Middle England” mantra which has surfaced over recent decades.

A bumbling Gordon Brown parades back and forward in front of selected gatherings like a demented genius constantly frustrated because his theories keep on being ignored by a blinkered public. He is simply another Middle England acolyte. Maybe he should open his mind to a Middle Scotland for a change!

Meanwhile, Corbynites are increasing in number in England and its Middle lot had better look out.

Electability might not be high up their agenda but what’s with electability anyway? A Labour government that’s no different from a Tory one – is this what is meant by electability?

Maybe the Browns and the Burnhams and the other front bencher Labour folk, Yvette Cooper et al, should have a look from an electorate point of view, except that as career politicos they’ve forgotten or plainly haven’t a clue as to why an electorate might choose to reject policies put up merely for election purposes.

These are policies that mean nothing more than those of the rival party and are therefore  demeaning to an electorate they wish to woo.

It is a diminishing, a dismissal, of the electorate.

It is in keeping with when a microphone caught Gordon Brown’s remarks once during a street encounter with a member of that same electorate that in its demands for electability the present Labour Party appears to despise.

Ian Johnstone

Forman Drive

Peterhead

It is not universally accepted wisdom that Gordon Brown saved the Union. Another interpretation is that his intervention may actually have had a negative effect.

After all, the bookmakers’ prediction of the referendum result one week out was correct; the so-called vow, achieved by Brown, may only have panicked David Cameron into an ill-thought-out promise of English votes for English laws.

Could Jeremy Corbyn prove to be the better tactician? The bookmakers’ odds are more than interesting!

Moyra Forrest

Starbank Road

Edinburgh

Whoever leads the Labour Party, the end result will be the same if they ever gain office, as history so expensively shows.

It is time for Labour to change its name to something more appropriate, such as the “From a position of prejudice and studied ignorance, let us spend, borrow, and waste our way to economic oblivion Party”.

It would be an unwieldy but more accurate description of what they do.

Malcolm Parkin

Gamekeepers Road

Kinnesswood, Kinross