Swinney’s way

That does not mean I am incapable of embracing change. I am happy to do so – if it is for the better.

Mr Grodynski, when presented with an opportunity to embrace the changes offered by the Smith Commission, prefers instead, like most separatist suspects, to gripe about the perceived inadequacies.

Given the widely divergent objectives of the members of the commission going into the process, the outcome was inevitably going to be a compromise that could not bring 100 per cent satisfaction to any of them.

But evidently a listening and consensual approach prevailed and all, including finance secretary John Swinney, agreed to the final proposals.

The SNP Deputy First Minister showed he was capable of arriving at an agreed compromise. What did he do wrong?

Mr Grodynski then trots out a variation of the Holyrood good/Westminster bad refrain.

I have never understood why only Westminster politicians are “more motivated by selfish ambition than concern for their fellow citizens”. Would that not apply, for instance, to Mr Salmond – or Ms Sturgeon?

Certainly some politicians in Scotland – like Mr Swinney on this occasion – show they can put the interests of their fellow citizens before their own.

Colin Hamilton

Braid Hills Avenue

Edinburgh