IT is difficult to know whether to congratulate or commiserate Richard Leonard, who stumbled his way through the swamps and bear-pits of the jungle that is Scottish Labour (or the Accounting Unit of the UK Labour Party, to give Scottish Labour its officially registered name) to become the latest in a long line of branch managers ("Leonard gets straight to work canvassing for council candidate", The Herald, November 20).

Mr Leonard is known to be a staunch supporter of Jeremy Corbyn, and all the comments he has made since his victory suggest that Mr Leonard will dutifully toe Mr Corbyn's Westminster line, and that the last nail has just been hammered into the coffin of any lingering hopes that Scottish Labour might assert itself and take an independent stance from London Labour.

However, with the rapid turnover of office managers, recent history suggests that it may not be long before we hear Mr Leonard announcing "I'm the Leader of Scottish Labour – get me out of here".

Ruth Marr,

99 Grampian Road, Stirling.

THE Scottish Government team, led by Nicola Sturgeon, have saved 1,800 jobs at BiFab, by their immediate and committed intervention ("BiFab pulled back from brink 3 times", The Herald, November 20).

Great credit must also be also be given to the workers and unions for their calm and dignified work-in which bought time for the negotiations to succeed.

All in the yard agreed that the Scottish Government intervention was absolutely critical in the successful outcome and the yard workers were unanimous in their praise.

Unfortunately, Richard Leonard, about five minutes after becoming Labour leader in Scotland, struck the only sour note, claiming that “the workers had forced a deal from the Government”, when everyone involved had worked in harmony to the same goal.

Credit where it is due, Mr Leonard.

James Duncan,

30/4 Rattray Grove, Edinburgh.

THE imminent budget from the Conservative Chancellor Phillip Hammond, and the concurrent publication of former Labour chancellor and Prime Minister Gordon Brown's latest book, provide the opportunity to highlight some of the convolutions that tend to attach to the numbers.

One headline on a book review page about Gordon Brown’s memoirs was “He’s still bitter”. Well, he is not the only one. After all, his Labour Government stacked up an accumulated budgetary deficit of £160 billion for the incoming Conservative/Liberal Democrat coalition to clear up in 2010. Mr Brown had declared that he would not borrow, except to invest. Yet, he used the annual £30bn borrowing over about six years to employ one million more public servants. No repayments were made, so the debt built up. Only by sacking all one million on day one could the Coalition Government stop the debt rising further. The reduction in staff has featured, gradually, in the solution.

Curiously, the cuts required are still being classed as “austerity”. That is disingenuous – it implies that we had austerity just prior to Labour coming into power at the start of its thirteen years in 1997.

So, if Labour had really wished to end that austerity, surely it should have increased taxation to consolidate the policy? But that would have meant an increase of 6p in the standard rate, and that would have wrecked the economy, just as the eventual repayment of its debt did.

But the Conservative Government has questions to answer, too. In the recent context of tax avoidance, it admits, or claims, whichever is more appropriate, that it has recovered £160bn – yes, £160bn – precisely the amount of Labour’s legacy, from that source. Leaving aside the interest factor, why have the Conservatives not devoted all of the £160bn to clearing the debt?

What a lot of fiscal problems that would have solved – so where did they spend much of that windfall?

Douglas R Mayer,

76 Thomson Crescent, Currie.

BEING an ex-miner and a staunch Labour Party supporter, like all from the coal mining communities I find it absolutely disgraceful that former leader Kezia Dugdale has decided to appear on I'm A Celebrity... Get me Out of Here (“Utterly ludicrous: Labour veteran’s verdict on Dugdale’s Celebrity stint”, The Herald, November 19).

With all the problems in the world today, how on earth can young people take politics seriously when this happens? To think when was in my thirties I used to get very angry to anyone who said a bad word about the Labour Party.

I have realised for many years now how silly I had been and this decision by Ms Dugdale only confirms it.

John Connor,

David Henderson Court, Dunfermline.

CAN I predict that Kezia Dugdale will be a huge success in I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here)?

Surely there can be no better preparation for dealing with unpleasant biting creatures than being leader of the Scottish Labour Party.

Michael Watson,

74 Wardlaw Avenue, Rutherglen.

WITH Alex Salmond hosting the Kremlin-backed RT (Russia Today TV programme and ex-Labour leader Kezia Dugdale off to Down Under to join the ITV celebrity show I’m A Celebrity, Get Me Out Of Here!, I suggest that suitably qualified politicians with time on their hands and desperate to remain in the public eye might consider the opportunity afforded by the BBC’s Would I Lie to You?

R Russell Smith,

96 Milton Road, Kilbirnie.

SAD to say, perhaps, but there is simply one, overarching reason why Kezia Dugdale's jungle safari in a ridiculous, mind-numbing TV programme is newsworthy: an increasingly benighted populace giving the oxygen of publicity to fatuous, puerile, so-called “'entertainment” shows such as I'm a Celebrity ... not to mention the attendant coverage of same by a cannibalistic press and social media outlets.

Of course, I may be elitist, naive or short-sighted here. So be it. However, I'll stick with the Dutch, Renaissance priest, humanist and social critic, Erasmus, when he offered the thought that "in the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king."

Mr G McCulloch,

47 Moffat Wynd, Saltcoats.