I NOTE that David Torrance has written his last column in The Herald ("Political tribalism offers easy answers in frustrating world", The Herald, April 23). He devotes the column to an examination of how "deep stories" are at the heart of political parties and movements, helping to shape and construct an identity and a public face which may well conflict with reality, but retains the support of loyal devotees. Not surprisingly, given the history of his columns, he uses this as a stick with which to beat the SNP, referring to their being ‘caught out over the Cambridge Analytica affair’ contrasting with their self-presentation as a party which ‘keeps its promises, never compromising, spinning or fudging as Tories and Labourites are inclined to do.’

While he acknowledges that all parties have their "deep stories", and convenient fictions, I find it remarkable that, in his last column, he devotes not a single word to the story that has dominated the headlines for the last couple of weeks – the appalling treatment of the Windrush generation. This episode provides evidence, if any were needed, that the Tories’ deep-story view of themselves as "caring" or "compassionate", is, and always has been, a complete myth. The venom with which Theresa May attacked Jeremy Corbyn in a Commons exchange last week, in an attempt to deflect the blame for this sorry mess on to Labour, exposed the viciousness at her own core, a callousness apparent in her own initiation of the policy of creating a climate of hostility towards illegal immigration, and repeatedly implicit in the disparity between her warm, glib words in conference speeches and her subsequent actions. The predictable baying of her Tory colleagues in this particular exchange was ample demonstration of the prioritising of party advantage over any sense of needing to show a caring or compassionate stance. The deep story displayed here reeks of xenophobia and racism, and is one that needs to be called out.

Part of any "deep story" analysis of politics has to be an acknowledgement of blindness, and blind spots, in our view of the world. We all have them, in our personal lives and in our attempts to understand wider realities. Mr Torrance has left his stint as a Herald columnist with a glaring blind spot on show. He concludes with the comment that he hopes he has "succeeded in describing Scottish politics as it is rather than how I or others would like it to be". Claiming an ability to represent the political world "as it is" suggests that he remains tangled up in his own fictions and contradictions. Much like the rest of us.

Dr Angus Macmillan,

76 Georgetown Road, Dumfries.

WHATEVER was SNP MP Pete Wishart getting at with the reference in his latest blog post to the need for British identity to be “tackled and reviewed” in the pursuit of Scottish independence? ("We must be creative to win a second referendum says Wishart", The Herald, April 23).

Did he mean that the SNP should change its institutional antipathy for all things British and start instead treating the UK and those who believe in it with a new level of respect? It would be nice to think so. Or was he rather suggesting that in order to succeed the SNP would need to go even further in seeking to undermine the sense of British identity that so many of us in Scotland value?

Perhaps in making his comment without proper explanation he was hoping others in the SNP might explain how best to ‘deal’ with the inconvenient truth that the majority in Scotland are equally at one with their British as well as Scottish identity, and do not feel the need to smother one in the pursuit of the other.

Keith Howell,

White Moss, West Linton, Peeblesshire.

SNP MSP James Dornan has said that he "truly despises" being a part of the UK. Presumably he also despises the freedoms he has in the UK. There are countries where the kind of abuse that he and those of his disposition level routinely at the UK, its personnel and institutions would lead to a knock on the door by the police followed by incarceration. The UK, however, now confirmed as having the world’s fifth largest economy, is a place where Mr Dornan and his cronies can say what they like about the country and all its works without any fear of retribution. There is nothing to be despised about that kind of freedom.

Jill Stephenson,

Glenlockhart Valley, Edinburgh.