Laboured point

It would appear that Michael Kelly (Perspective, 22 March) has reached the bottom of the Unionist barrel of ideas.

In the middle of his article, he states that no modern constitution should use the hereditary principle for the head of state and then goes on to spend the rest of it concerned as to whether the Queen would accept being head of state of an independent Scotland.

During the whole of her reign, the Queen has worked hard to build the Commonwealth from what were the former colonies of Westminster’s Empire; adding Scotland to the Commonwealth, if it wished to join, would almost be a certainty especially as she has property here.

However, since Mr Kelly has a much greater knowledge of the west of Scotland Labour Party than I do, I bow to his superior experience on the non-democratic control of power.

If Mr Kelly would like to contribute positively to the independence debate, rather than try to come up with ever more spurious ideas for the status quo, he might like to look at the effect of devolution on the people of England. Despite voting for a Conservative government majority (of around 22) in 2010, thanks to the block of Scottish Labour (and Welsh) MPs, they ended up with a coalition.

The present devolution settlement leaves Scottish MPs with little to do at Westminster. At the same time Scotland made it clear in both 2010 and 2011 that it didn’t want anything to do with the Conservatives at any level with lower voting than they received in the wipeout of 1997.

Mr Kelly perhaps should address how you can keep together two countries with widely different political views.

It is now clear that the only political view they have in common is a desire for Labour, with its high borrowing strategy, to be kept far away from the levers of power.

Bruce D Skivington

Strath

Gairloch, Wester Ross