Modern Scotland owes a great deal to 50 years of the SNP

What about the expulsion of thousands of people to vast soulless housing schemes at the back of beyond? Billy Connolly once called them "cemeteries with lights". Damp housing, no amenities, hopeless public transport – of course, if they were lucky they might receive a visit from their local Labour councillors as they visited their "schemies" in their smart expensive suits and their taxpayer-provided Roll Royce.

What about abolishing the trams just when they were becoming fashionable in other modern European cities? What about Labour's plans to close down and abolish the Subway – only stopped by a coalition of SNP and a few Progressive Labour councillors?

What about plans to build new housing schemes in Pollok and Bellahouston parks, concrete over the Clyde, and demolish large parts of Glasgow's Victorian architecture?

What about the 40-year swindle of stealing Scotland's oil revenues while our industries were closed down? Norway today is about the richest country in the world with its trillion-pound oil fund for future generations. Scotland had to be pleased with the crumbs that fell from Westminster's table.

I agree with Mr Torrance we have a long way to go, but at least with the SNP since November 1967 we have made a start. Modern Scotland owes a lot to Winnie Ewing and 50 years of the SNP.

George Leslie,

North Glassock, Fenwick.

I SUPPOSE the one thing that the advance in years brings is a certain perspective on the times you lived through. David Torrance writes that “novelty” is a persuasive reason for the Winnie Ewing victory in Hamilton. Really? A huge Labour majority overturned for what Mr Torrance seems to regard as a whim? Could I suggest that decades of poor economic performance for Scotland within the Union would be the main driver for this upset?

Scotland, over the course of the 20th century had given substantial electoral support, in succession, to the Liberals, the Tories then the Labour Party, all in the hope of a revival of our economy. No matter who was sent to Westminster, our economy stayed in the doldrums, people migrated in their thousands year after year and agitation for a “Scottish solution” had been growing since the end of the 19th century. That is where we had got to in Hamilton in 1967. A Parliament in Westminster which had little time for Scottish business, which tagged “Scottish” bits on to the end of bills (whether it had any relevance to Scots law or not), and which seemed increasingly irrelevant to Scottish lives.

Mr Torrance also claimed recently that “British” was the civic reference point in these islands. When I grew up, and for most of the time of the Union, “England” was used for nearly all day-to-day entitling - Prime Minister of England: King/Queen of the same: future King of: you get the picture. “England” fought wars, had a government and had a history. In 1967 very little Scottish history was even mentioned in our education system, never mind the increasingly important medium of television.

Mr Torrance mostly writes about the SNP. That’s fine, but as a British nationalist commentator, he really needs some context in his critique (as does BBC Scotland). There are three governments in the UK (Northern Ireland being in abeyance), all covering the same responsibilities. It is surely reasonable to juxtapose and compare the statistics for each, in the interests of fair comment and ethical journalism. Then we could have a debate.

GR Weir,

17 Mill Street,

Ochiltree.

I AM sorry that David Torrance could not bring himself to devote his article simply as a tribute to the remarkable Winnie Ewing, and her ground-breaking by-election win at Hamilton 50 years ago. Mrs Ewing was not only the first woman SNP MP, she was the first SNP MP to be elected to the House of Commons since 1945, and ever since her 1967 victory the SNP has been continuously represented at Westminster. Mrs Ewing served in the three Parliaments; Westminster, the European Parliament, where she was famously known as Madame Ecosse, and then in May 1999 she chaired the first meeting of the Scottish Parliament, opening proceedings with the hugely significant words "the Scottish Parliament, which adjourned on March 25, 1707, is hereby re-convened".

But it was the result at Hamilton, formerly a rock-solid safe Labour seat, which put the SNP and the cause of Scottish independence firmly centre stage. Harold Wilson described it as one of the lowest points of his Premiership, and the late Oliver Brown summed the situation up prophetically when he said that following the SNP victory at Hamilton, "You could feel a chill along Westminster's Labour back benches, looking for a spine to run up".

Ruth Marr,

99 Grampian Road,

Stirling.

THE thousands of young people on the streets of Barcelona remind me so much of the equally young Scots who voted decisively for independence in 2014 (“We refuse to be silenced: Massive march in favour of Scottish unity”, The Herald, October 30). This is a generation which does not view existing nation state boundaries as set in stone. And, of course, they are absolutely right. Most Western European frontiers are of 20th century origin. The boundaries of Sweden and Norway date from 1905, Italy from 1918, Denmark from 1920, the UK from 1922 (when it lost Ireland), France from 1947 and Germany from 1990. Spain, ironically, has one of the longest established frontiers in Europe – settled by the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht.

We may now have an older generation clinging on to frontiers established by their grandparents, and a younger one more open to the possibility of change. The history of European frontiers has not come to a natural end.

Sandy Thomson,

Burnside, Cromarty.