Better Together led to collapse

IT was interesting to read Peter A Russell’s explanation of “where Labour has gone wrong” after

“the party’s support nose-dived in the 2014 referendum campaign”. Mr Russell doesn’t mention Labour campaigning alongside the Tories as a factor, but speaking to voters during and after that campaign, I would suggest that was the straw which finally broke the camel’s back.

Mr Russell suggests that Labour “suffered” because it did not “champion its own past achievements in Scotland”, but the truth is that Labour, once a party to be proud of, had rested on its laurels and taken Scotland for granted for decades. Perhaps Mr Russell resides in a leafy Glasgow suburb, but the state of much of Glasgow’s housing stock was a disgrace, and notorious for having the worst slums in Europe; crumbling, damp-riddled tenements, resulting in pasty-faced children with hacking coughs.

It should be remembered that it was Johann Lamont, a former leader of Labour in Scotland who complained that “Scottish” Labour was treated as a branch office by the UK party. However, Scotland stayed very loyal to Labour over many years. It was said that in some areas a dead cat would get elected if it was wearing a Labour rosette. Last year, at the Holyrood elections, Labour suffered its worst result. Last week, it managed to beat the Tories. But after all the Tory sleaze, Boris Johnson’s partygate disgrace, and the flip-flopping Douglas Ross, even the proverbial dead cat could have beaten the Tories.

Ruth Marr, Stirling.