Letter: Contemptible response to defence issue

He asked about overall proportional defence expenditure in Scotland, about the way in which defence establishments are more and more being concentrated in the south, and about the future of the Lossiemouth base now that the decision had been taken to close the Kinloss base, both these bases being in his constituency.

The reply from Mr Cameron was to dismissively state that if Scotland ever became independent, as Mr Robertson wanted, then "it would not be planes that Scotland was flying, but Scotland would be flying by the seat of its pants".

I find such a response offensive and insulting to Scotland. If the performance of every other small country in Europe is anything to go by, an independent Scotland would be a far better place than it is at present, and, like every other small country in Europe, would be taking all necessary steps to defend itself, without wasting vast sums on illegal monstrosities such as Trident.

I would ask other Scots who take exception to Mr Cameron's remark to write to him and ask how they square with his "respect" agenda toward Scotland.

Nick Dekker

Nairn Way

Cumbernauld

I NOTE that during Prime Minister's questions David Cameron stated that: "If we had an independent Scotland you wouldn't be flying planes, you'd be flying by the seat of your pants."

The answer was to a question by Angus Robertson MP in which he indicated that the defence review will result in Scotland having fewer service personnel, fewer military bases, aircraft, vessels, army battalions and less defence spending than all our independent Scandinavian neighbours of similar size.

Would the Prime Minister care to tell us why he has such a low opinion of the defence forces of Scandinavian countries since he seems to be quite content that they are involved in many exercises with the UK?

If not, I think he should have the courage to tell these countries that their military capability is "pants".

Graeme McCormick

Arden

By Loch Lomond