Perverse voting

If Brian Wilson is right in his analysis of the Scottish Government’s inability or unwillingness to use its powers to tackle inequality in Scotland (Scottish Perspective, 27 December), and I think he probably is, then the votes of many people in the indy referendum must have been 
perverse.

In particular, many people in the most disadvantaged parts of Scotland voted Yes, thereby voting to give maximum powers to a body, the SNP-led Scottish Government, which had already failed to use its powers to improve their situation.

Many voters, on the other hand, in the more prosperous areas, who will have probably benefited from measures such as the council tax freeze and free university tuition, seem to have decided a No vote was in their interests. They probably deduced that they could not lose in that even a continuation of SNP rule in a devolved parliament would not threaten their interests.

Perverse voting habits are not new, of course; some working-class people have always voted Tory and we now have working- class people voting Ukip.

All it needs is a suspension of disbelief for illogical behaviour to persist and even increase.

Henry Kinloch

Campbell Park Crescent

Edinburgh