Nationalists are failing the poor

Sir, - The Cities Outlook 2016 report shows a clear distinction between No and Yes voting cities – with Aberdeen and Edinburgh high-wage/ low-welfare cities and Glasgow and Dundee low-wage/high-welfare.

Not unexpected news.

Yet it is surprising SNP separatist dogma is deemed quite so attractive by some in Scotland’s less well-off communities.

The nationalists, as everyone knows, talk anti-austerity radicalism but walk a centrist Blairite agenda.

Nicola Sturgeon heads a party of universal rather than targeted benefits.

She prefers to freeze council tax year after year, benefiting the better off and penalising the needy in society, the heaviest users of now under-funded council services.

A crucial weapon in the fight against inequality is education.

Yet the SNP discriminates in favour of the middle classes by cutting 150,000 college places to maintain headline-grabbing free university tuition.

And we’ve witnessed a startling decline in literacy and numeracy rates in schools during the SNP’s nine years in government.

There’s no doubting support for the SNP’s anti-UK narrative is at its strongest in Glasgow and Dundee.

But why then does Ms Sturgeon betray such loyalty by failing to deliver on promises made to her most faithful supporters? Martin Redfern. 4 Royal Circus, Edinburgh.