Not more msps!

An excellent letter from Bob Taylor, who says that there is no need to increase the number of MSPS and that having 129 MSPS for a country of five million is more than adequate (Letters, 14 January)

Under the terms of the Scotland Act 1998, Scottish representation at Westminster was to be reduced from 72 seats to 59. This is the present number.

However, the second part of the equation, the reduction in MSPS from 129 to around 106, did not happen.

As one would expect, turkeys do not vote for Christmas and in a rare show of unity, politicians of every hue told everyone how extremely busy they were to save their jobs and pensions.

The 129 MSPS, mostly SNP, have failed to address the problems we have had for many years. If I may remind them, the economy, education, the NHS, unemployment, child poverty, fuel poverty, homelessness and more recently their failure over Police Scotland.

The annual cost for having 129 MSPS is £75 million and one can add another £32 million for the 1,223 councillors.

The SNP is fond of referen- dums, so one proposing to reduce the number of politicians and councillors is long overdue.

CLARK CROSS Springfield Road, Linlithgow Former first ministers Mcleish and Mcconnell are well wide of the mark in their expansionary ambitions for Holyrood.

Scotland has too many overpaid and underperforming politicians already. It’s notable that the biggest cheerleaders for Holyrood are those who have been, or who are still, in its bubble detached from the real world.

Attention should be directed to improving the performance of the current crop of MSPS, and in particular the hapless Derek Mackay, who is drowning as Finance Secretary. The fiscal challenges facing Scotland are accumulating at a frightening pace.

In the improbable event that there are spare funds, then priority should be given to establishing some genuinely independent evidence based advice on how to address Scotland’s poor economic performance.

The political poodles of the laughably named Sustainable Growth Commission should be cast into oblivion. ROBERT MILLER-BAKEWELL

Whiterigg, near Melrose