So who can I vote for?

I NOTE two excellent letters from Celia Judge and Douglas Crowe (February 22) highlighting – so starkly once again – the failings of the Scottish Government. How many times do these have to be repeated in your columns before supporters of independence realise that this is not a land of milk and honey and black gold under the SNP?

When devolution came about, Scotland was given “the opportunity to deliver effective change” (Lesley Riddoch’s headline on the same day) and was promised a political climate so different from Westminster: in those days, there were politicians of some honour and stature to start us off and lead and mentor those MSPS new to national politics, but their places have not been filled by the same quality. Previously prominent leaders have been embroiled in expense irregularities and two public individuals are involved now in a public enquiry.

Currently, as an undecided voter, I have to emerge in a few weeks’ time from the “middle ground”, as Mark Smith has described it: what choice do I have?

On the one hand, I could vote for a ruling party which has poured so much money into failed companies and ventures that health and social services are suffering, or I could vote for one of the four opposition parties, all of which have proved to be thoroughly ineffectual in holding the SNP to account. If they are so bad at that, what will they be like in government?

Help.

William S Cooper,

Strathaven.