Numbers game

Brian Monteith (“Tactical voting may just nudge nationalist train off track”, Perspective, 3 February) proposes tactical voting for Ukip in Scotland at the European elections as a means of denying the SNP a possible third MEP.

He needs to be careful, as it is entirely possible that enough unionists could vote for Ukip without giving Ukip enough votes to gain an MEP but at the same time taking sufficient votes away from Labour or the Conservatives to give the SNP a fourth MEP.

But isn’t it typical of the unionist mindset that Brian Monteith doesn’t appear to see the bigger picture?

I am far more concerned that Scotland (5.3 million people) within the UK only has six MEPs.

That is the same number as each of Cyprus (1 million), Estonia (1.3 million), Luxembourg (half a million) and Malta (400,000).

However, Denmark (5.4 million), Finland (5.2 million) and Slovakia (5.4 million) each with a population of a similar size to Scotland’s, each have 13 MEPs.

In fact, each Scottish MEP has to represent more voters than MEPs do in any other country in Europe; that’s a “benefit” of the Union that Better Together will never tell you about.

Andrew Parrott

Stuart Avenue

Perth