Poor comparison

David Stevenson (Letters, 5 January) compares us in Scotland unfavourably with similarly sized countries in Northern Europe. But such a comparison has to be tempered by history and geography. Unlike us, the Scandinavians weren’t pioneers in the Industrial Revolution and urbanisation, so they never developed any equivalent to Glasgow, with its early – and continuing – massive social problems. And their location made them particularly prone to invasion – Finland by the USSR, Norway and Denmark by the Third Reich – events which created political memories which make any direct comparison between our politics and theirs pretty meaningless as a guide to the future.

HUGH PENNINGTON Carlton Place, Aberdeen