Lessons from history for Scots Tories

Michael Forsyth doesn't get it (your report, 24 May). The Scottish Secretary who took Scotland's Tories to their lowest ever point cannot resist handing out advice to the unfortunates who inherited what he was instrumental in destroying.

The first thing the Scottish Tories have to do is acknowledge their complicity in the wilful destruction of Scotland's industrial base. It wasn't just Margaret Thatcher that turned Scottish stomachs. It was the sight of the sycophantic Scottish Tory party, led by Mr Forsyth, supporting her all the way that the Scots remember with most distaste.

With one or two honourable exceptions, the Scottish Tories urged her on as she ordered the killing off of the steel plant smashing all European production records (Ravenscraig) and the plant with the biggest order book in Britain with the whole of the European motor industry queuing up for its product (Gartcosh), as their working plant, their order books and their jobs were exported to Teesside and South Wales.

Scottish Tories do need to change. We await a full national apology. But first they have to disown Margaret Thatcher, Michael Forsyth and their past.

Then they have to ask themselves why a party that presumes to value the virtues of sturdy self-reliance is quite so determined to keep its country in a suppliant position.

When they work that one out, they might have chance to move forward.

DAVID McEWAN HILL

Tom Nan Ragh

Dalinlongart, Argyll

Dr Eamonn Butler's article (Opinion, 24 May) demonstrates why the Conservative Party has so little electoral success in Scotland. This is not so much from his proposed solution for the Conservatives' problems (that the party needs to rebuild its branch network, reconnect its elected members with the party and elect a charismatic leader, all of which might help) but from the way he delivers it. Like many on the right politically, he doesn't hide what appears to be his contempt for Scotland or its institutions. It is this attitude that has made a return for the Conservative Party so difficult in Scotland.

In the Fifties, a considerable element of Conservative electoral success in Scotland came from being a patriotic Scottish party, which opposed Labour's centralising of newly nationalised industries in London. If the Conservatives can find a way to back more powers for Scottish institutions over the resistance of the Labour Party, perhaps they would find a new role in Scottish politics.

ROBERT SEATON

Saxe Coburg Terrace

Edinburgh