I AM glad to see First Minister Nicola Sturgeon taking the battle against austerity to London ("Sturgeon rules out signing up to policies of austerity", The Herald, February 11).The victory of Syriza in Greece has shown the total failure of the policies of cutting public services as a way to solve the economic crisis.

We in Scotland should show the way to tackle austerity and join with the Greek Government and the growing number of people across Europe who are rejecting cuts to public services and jobs and instead advocating investing in public services and creating jobs which will help grow the economy and state revenue. This is not rocket science, it is the analysis of Keynes in response to the depression of the 1930s and for many years was accepted by most governments.

It seems that governments and political parties - including the Labour Party - have forgotten their Keynes and resorted to policies which inflict pain on the poor and the public sector while rewarding the bankers who created the crisis in the first place.

It also makes the choice at the General Election very clear between the austerity party of the Tories, the austerity- lite policies of Labour and the SNP, who could hold the balance of power at Westminster. The policies Ms Sturgeon outlined in London would not only be good for Scotland but could help revive the UK economy overall.

Hugh Kerr,

Wharton Square,

Edinburgh.

NICOLA Sturgeon asserts that austerity is "morally unjustifiable and economically unsustainable". What is immoral and unsustainable is running up further debt when it involves little investment for future returns but is solely designed to support present consumption, self-indulgence and "something for nothing" idleness. Leaving debt repayment to our children and grandchildren is utterly selfish, and failing to recognise that speaks volumes about the moral bankruptcy of the contemporary left, especially those in the SNP. Is Ms Sturgeon so purblind that she refuses to accept that a separate Scotland, owing to the collapse of the oil price and associated tax revenues, would have a budget deficit that is proportionately bigger even than that of the UK?

Ms Sturgeon proposes a false prospectus that more public debt be incurred, even when the evidence of the last five years, contrary to what the SNP and Labour lefties told us, is that cutting debt, in combination with an expansive monetary policy, has produced an outstanding economic recovery. I assume that the gist of her hyperbole about austerity is that wages, adjusted for inflation, have fallen over recent years. But real wages are now beginning to rise again. And this is good news. It shows that the economy is slowly adjusting to, and overcoming, the consequences of the blow-out of the Brown years after 2001.

Within the context and aftermath of that financial crisis, the long fall in real wages has been the response to competitive pressures in world markets and to the Coalition's welfare reforms which have led to a surge of the able-bodied into work. An increased supply of labour has held down wage and productivity growth. Only now is investment in new equipment starting to take off and so raise earnings. But, without that fall in real wages, employment over the last four years would have collapsed, instead of rising by 1.75 million new jobs. We (and they) should be grateful that hundreds of thousands are no longer a burden on the taxpayer, and are working at wages that are merited by their skills. That these wages are low reflects the tragic failure of state comprehensive education over the last three decades properly to equip so many for the world of work.

Paid work is more conducive to self-respect and happiness than is a life on benefits. However this seems not to matter at all to Ms Sturgeon. No doubt she agrees with Rachel Reeves MP, Labour's shadow work and pensions secretary, that "five more years of Tory failure could cost an extra £9 billion in welfare spending" ("Tory plans are threat to UK survival, says Brown", The Herald, February 4. Why? That extra welfare spending is more likely to be the result of the blatant voter bribes of Gordon Brown and the SNP to increase out-of-work benefits. Do these lefties learn nothing? Do they want to keep people in penury, pauperism and political supplication? They should be ashamed.

Richard Mowbray,

14 Ancaster Drive,

Glasgow.