SNP spending

Michael Kelly (Comment, 3 August) is one of those Labour politicians whose obsessive need to try to discredit the SNP at every opportunity renders them unable to see the wood for the trees.

Instead of railing against the SNP about cuts in services, Dr Kelly should save his anger for those at the top of his own party in London who initiated the cuts of 500 million in the Scottish Government's funding this year and next and were responsible, at least in part, for our current predicament.

Official figures show that Scotland's finances have been in surplus for the last four years, while those of the UK as a whole have been deep in the red.

Who now really believes that Scotland would not be better off running its own affairs?

PETER SWAIN

Innerwick Dunbar, East Lothian

Once again, Michael Kelly is spot-on with his analysis of the budget problems besetting the SNP administration in Edinburgh and what needs to be done.

How can any group of ministers be taken seriously when, before a ball is kicked, the biggest cash-devouring public entities of which they have charge are ring-fenced from cuts?

They charge a group of financial experts with finding a solution and immediately discard the painful answers.

It is quite frankly preposterous: incompetence and political cowardice on a grand scale.

ALEXANDER McKAY

New Cut Rigg

Edinburgh