Over the last months and years, we have been constantly told what a good job each of the candidates has been doing in government and how well the SNP government have been doing with the economy, education and health.

However, during the debate each of the candidates, who were also members of the cabinet, accused each other of being rubbish at their jobs and said the economy, education and health were in fact in a poor way and being managed badly. How can anyone now trust any of these candidates or the SNP government to honest with the Scottish people?

Paul Lewis, Edinburgh

STV's Political Editor Colin Mackay with the three SNP leadership candidates - Kate Forbes, Humza Yousaf and Ash Regan

Vacuum at the top

I watched the SNP hustings on the TV and am now convinced that the SNP don’t have a leader of any merit to bring the party back on track.

The SNP have lost their way over the last ten years and have made no progress whatsoever in persuading the people of Scotland that independence would be good for Scotland.

Controversy over Boris Johnson and Brexit offered a golden opportunity for the SNP to win the Scottish electorate over to independence but this opportunity was completely lost and without an inspiring leader the next ten years will see just more of the same.

Dennis Forbes Grattan, Aberdeen

Nuclear is safe

As a frequent user of radioactive isotopes in my research on viruses, I made it my business to find out about the nuclear industry, and have been inside Dounreay and Sellafield.

I regard carbon dioxide spewed into the air by burning fossil fuels as being incredibly more dangerous than waste from nuclear power plants, which is so well contained that it has never damaged human health or raised the temperature of the atmosphere. So I disagree fundamentally with Leah Gunn Barrett, (Letters, 5 March) who takes the SNP party line in eschewing nuclear power.

As for accidents, Piper Alpha killed far more than Three Mile Island (none) or Fukushima (possibly one, maybe none) and Chernobyl was a 1960s Soviet design rejected long ago in Britain because of safety concerns.

As for looking forward to the day when Scotland sells electricity generated by wind farms or sunshine to England, the vagaries of the weather means that any contractual relationship will be as reliable as the one to build ferries; it is likely that when the wind doesn't blow, Scotland will have to import nuclear-generated power from England.

Even Norway, which generates most of its electricity from hydro, is climate dependent; I once visited a hydro power plant there that was being penalised for failure to deliver its contracted supply because there hadn’t been enough previous snow and rain.

Hugh Pennington, Aberdeen

Oil’s not well

Leah Gunn Barrett repeats the astonishing claim that Scotland can sell its oil overseas to fund a net zero transition in Scotland (Letters, 5 March). I thought we had a crisis of global warming, not Scotland warming.

Geoff Moore, Alness, Highland

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Scotland on Sunday letters: Leadership debate lifts lid on hypocritical candidates