Spoilt ‘elite’

“Banking tycoon’s former wife escapes drink-drive ban” (your report, 4 March) – apparently because the sheriff recognised that a ban “might damage her business interests”.

I can’t be the only reader to wonder what the outcome might have been if the profile of the offender had read “District nurse, single mother, former wife of redundant miner”.

Am I doing our minor establishment figures, sheriffs and their clerks among them an injustice by supposing that she might well have left the court without her driving licence?

I am appalled at the increasing unremarked incidences of Rigsby-like deference paid by our minor officials – sheriffs, councillors and political functionaries – to those with money, influence, or both… and proud of a newspaper unafraid to report them.

Can’t they sense the build up of justified resentment among ordinary citizens that everyone else can? Where do they think the non-SNP Yes vote came from if not largely from those who demand a “fairer” society?

The establishment – and, yes, there is an establishment – has a simple choice, driven by social media and the web which means they can no longer hide their partiality and veniality.

It is reform itself, or be reformed. It won’t, I promise you, enjoy the latter.

David Fiddimore

Calton Road

Edinburgh