By-election result shows Labour are less strong here

Scottish Greens take council seat from Labour in by-election win

The importance of this result is that it shows that the lure of the Labour Party in Scotland is a little less than predicted. It has a message for the General Election that Labour is not quite as strong in Scotland as it is in England. Keith Oram

Turnout was just 24.3% and a very low turnout will be the winner of the next Westminster election in Scotland. That very low turnout will show Scotland’s contempt for Westminster and the so-called United Kingdom in the most expressive way.

Sanny Martin

But Tory voters tend to turn out so those that can’t be bothered may shoot themselves (and the rest of us) in the foot. Rosemary Champion

Layla-Roxanne Hill: Scotland’s solidarity with the people of Palestine connects us to wider struggles

A great column Layla. What a mess, and all because of political choices.

Graham Carroll

Gaza and the UK’s neo-colonial stance in lockstep with the US is yet another reason for Scotland to break free and go our own way. Bill Cockburn

Abbi Garton-Crosbie: Structural change needed over lack of women in Scottish political journalism

We certainly could do with more women journalist, mainly because they usually are more honest and searching in their interviews and research. The current crop of male journalists appears to have lost any investigative skill and simply parrot the political narrative unquestionably.

There are a fair share of women journalists that also fit that description but they mainly work for the BBC where the male management ensures subservience to the political narrative.

Journalism and editorialship have lost the investigative skills that had to be present before social media. As an example, yesterday saw journalists parroting DRoss’s statement that a whistleblower had told him about an issue with ambulances at Aberdeen A&E.

The statement was covered by all news outlets, including The National, with no explanation for this occurrence. There could be any number of reasons, both good and bad, for the situation but none were offered. And whistleblower, when the name of the person is known?

While I would like to see more women reporting, they will only become relevant as journalists when they provide journalistic content and not just parrot attention-grabbing headlines.

Jim Anderson

Please continue to shout about this. You are so right to highlight that it is not just about numbers but about the different topics, focus and interpretation that women can bring to political journalism that are important. Alison Hall