World power

Douglas Alexander and Ian Kearns’ polemic (Perspective, 31 October) was distilled common sense, impressively free of party political content. The need to re-think attitudes on a wide range of world issues, from the Middle East to nuclear proliferation; the changing identities of global powers, or intractable responses to climate change, amongst many other things.

In a word, the willingness to mediate and the ability to do so on a wide scale through our permanent membership of powerful international bodies, and to do so from a position of strength as the seventh largest world economy are imperatives not to be taken lightly.

Is this the time to destroy Scotland’s ancient connection with Great Britain in favour of a new little world whose protagonists seem unwilling or unable to delineate?

Peter Laidlaw

Bramdean Rise

Edinburgh