The Scottish Greens are ready to do the hard slog to break through the UK’s system

IAIN Macwhirter is a journalist I used to respect. His article today (“An SNP landslide – but don’t expect Indyref2 soon”, May 9) does nothing to help me regain that respect.

I’m an auld Green who has swollen ankles from my pre-election leafleting. At least a few readers may understand why I’m upset. After considering Alba, Mr Macwhirter pronounces: “If that was ‘gaming the system’, then surely relying on list votes from the Green Party is similarly cheating?”

There is a huge difference between the Scottish Greens and Alba. The Greens returned the UK’s first-ever elected parliamentary Green in 1999 (Lord MacLeod of Fuinary was unelected). That’s only 22 years ago, not a few weeks ago like Alba.

Sure, so far we have only won MSPs on the list. But the Greens do not only contest list seats. The party has a longterm perspective, and is prepared to put in the long, hard slog necessary for a small “minority party” (as our German cousins were in the 1970s), to break through the UK’s near-impenetrable first past the post system. Last week, we stood in 12 constituency seats across Scotland, from Inverness & Nairn to Galloway & Dumfries West. In one, Glasgow Kelvin, the persistent Patrick Harvie polled more than 9,000 votes and was placed second.

In Edinburgh North and Leith, Lorna Slater, standing for the first time, and no doubt in recognition of her fine recent TV showing, won more than 6,000 votes and came third. In one other constituency we won more than 3,000 votes, and in another four we won over 2,000 votes. Hardly an upstart party like the hapless list-only Alba with which Mr Macwhirter compares us.

We don’t have eight MSPs to the LibDems’ four because we were born under cabbages.

Dougie Harrison, Milngavie.