Political games being played out

SIR, –We’ve heard a lot recently about Nicola Sturgeon and Theresa May, the two ladies who hold the most important political positions for Scottish residents. One has a clearly stated aim, has never made a secret of it, and seeks to persuade others to agree with her. She leads a party whose last manifesto stated that should the UK vote to leave the EU she would press for a second referendum on independence. On that manifesto her party received twice the vote of the nearest challenger but heads a minority government due entirely to the enlightened voting system in this most democratic of countries.

The other supported one side of an argument, lost, and now leads the team who won that argument. Her government has an overall majority despite receiving only 6% more votes than the nearest challenger and less than 37% of the total, albeit in a system designed to protect the Establishment. Her approach is expediency – a firmly held conviction is always open to “adjustment” as the recent Budget debacle shows. She urges her Scottish counterpart to abandon thoughts of a divisive independence referendum and pull together with the Westminster parliament in negotiations with the EU while at the same time refusing her a seat at the negotiating table.

I leave it to your readers to decide which of them is playing political games.

Graham K Davidson, The Lade, Birse, Aboyne