Point of view

Joyce McMillan (Perspective, 10 January) bemoans a House of Commons so out of touch that it spends more time coming together to pay tribute to a colleague who died recently (Paul Goggin) than debating the future of the Union.

Further on she writes: “The electoral logic that propelled Labour in this direction [away from Joyce’s “social democracy” towards a wealth generating society] is obvious; to win Westminster elections, parties have to attract the votes of right-leaning swing-voters in Home Counties marginals. Yet it remains true – as Martin Kettle pointed out in a fine Guardian column this week – that the gradual eclipse of Old Labour has left huge geographical and social tracts of Britain completely disenfranchised, their voices and priorities unheard, their potential unnoticed, and their very presence barely recognised by an increasingly insular London elite.”

Perhaps post-independence we will see this rewritten in a letter from Moray thus: The electoral logic that propelled Labour in this direction (towards squeezing the rich until the pips squeak, to quote Dennis Healey, and strangling wealth creation) is obvious; to win Holyrood elections, parties have to attract the votes of left-leaning swing voters in the Central Belt marginals. Yet it remains true that the gradual eclipse of New Labour has left huge geographical and social tracts of Scotland disenfranchised, their voices and priorities unheard, their potential unnoticed, and their very presence barely recognised by an increasingly insular Central Belt elite.

No change there then Joyce!

Mark Tennant

Innes House

Elgin, Moray