We resentful Scots
From Mr Bruce Leeming
Sir: As we say up here. who stole Tim Luckhurst's scone (`Smack of lunacy', 27 October)? OK, so he doesn't like the Scots, or their temerity in wanting to take
charge of their own affairs. Jibes at the recent Edinburgh case of the spanking Frenchman, the devolved Executive's obsession with the repeal of Section 28, and its desperation to beat Westminster to a ban on hunting are certainly in order. Such PC-driven initiatives are just as deplorable in the eyes of thinking Scots as they are in Mr Luckhurst's.
But what seems to escape similarly scathing journalists is what lies behind this irritating situation: 300 years of resentment as a non-nation, replaced by a brokenbacked, limited-powers institution only ever likely to attract time-serving party hacks. Unless and until Scotland regains proper control in all spheres of its polity, the pusillanimous 'social worker' mentality is bound to dominate.
Perhaps Mr Luckhurst's periodic emissions of vitriol are in Scotland's long-term interests.
Bruce Leeming
Edinburgh
Mr Richard Coles Sir: I am confused by Tim Luckhurst's complaint about the Scottish Parliament. He berates it for the 'fanaticism which attended repeal of Section 28, and still attends the continuing attempt to ban hunting with dogs... '. I'm with him on the hunting issue, but if fanaticism attended the repeal of Section 28, it wasn't on the part of the Scottish Parliament. It was on the part of those who opposed repeal, like the unelected and unaccountable Mr Souter of Stagecoach, and Cardinal Winning, who went to enormous (and costly) lengths to defend a measure which interfered in the private matter of sexuality and undermined responsible teachers trying to discharge their public duties.
Richard Coles
Grafton Underwood, Northamptonshire
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