Up for debate

Alex Orr (Letters, 27 May) expresses disdain for the fact that we Scots are to be denied a democratic vote on our country's constitutional future by the coalition government's legislative proposals for the transfer of additional powers to the Scottish Parliament.

One would have thought that the historical fact that the Scottish people awoke on 1 May, 1707, with the news quite literally ringing in their ears that their nation's political independence had been signed away without their democratic consent by the parcel of rogues would have taught someone as erudite as him that the British state only does democracy when it suits.

He is correct, however, to suggest that the proposals in this bill should act as a catalyst for a wide-ranging debate on what would be the fairest and most beneficial model of fiscal autonomy for Scotland's economic future.

COLIN C I DOUGLAS

Mansfield Road, Scone, Perthshire