Letter: More fool Nicola

I must confess that, looking at Friday's date, I did think that Nicola Sturgeon's show of indignation over "Glasgow Labour being caught red-handed using taxpayers money for party political propaganda" (your report, 1 April) was some sort of joke, but on reading it again I'm assured that Ms Sturgeon was serious.

It turns out that the city council may indeed have erred in publishing Gordon Matheson's article in Glasgow magazine, but in looking for examples of abuse of taxpayers' monies on a much grander scale, Ms Sturgeon perhaps needs to look a bit closer to home.

One only has to say the words "National Conversation" and "Year of Homecoming", two events on which many millions of pounds were spent, and which were exploited shamelessly by the SNP to push the independence message, with many audiences abroad describing the speeches on the Homecoming by SNP ministers as nothing short of party political broadcasts.

It is telling, of course, that Ms Sturgeon made no attempt to deny the content of Mr Matheson's article, the extract from which accurately describes the abuse of power by John Swinney in threatening greater cuts if councils did not freeze council tax and fund other SNP pet projects, all with an eye to the election in May.

Perhaps Mr Matheson's article should not have been published in a council-funded magazine, but the people of Glasgow surely deserve to know the truth, however embarrassing that might be for Ms Sturgeon's party.

Bill Goodall

Baird Drive

Edinburgh