IT is truly a wonderful world when a Labour politician, Alex Gallagher (Letters, August 26), calls for politicians to apologise for their actions which misled the public or just displayed incompetence.

I am sure many of us would seek an apology at the bare minimum from Iain Duncan Smith for his totally unacceptable running of the Department for Work and Pensions and the misery he has caused to hundreds of thousands of our fellow citizens. But why stop there? I am sure Mr Gallagher would want Gordon Brown to apologise for relaxing bank regulation and necessitating the bank bailout and he could say sorry for selling off the UK gold reserves at the lowest possible price.

I am sure we will all be happy to join Mr Gallagher in his mission to get Tony Blair to apologise for lying about weapons of mass destruction, taking the UK into an illegal war and causing the deaths of hundreds of British servicemen and women and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians and bringing chaos to the whole region. I await Mr Gallagher's call to action.

David Stubley,

22 Templeton Crescent, Prestwick.

THE local government elections won't be held until May 2017, but as Labour lost 40 out of its 41 Scottish seats in May 2015, and as the council by-elections held over the past few weeks have all been won by the SNP with the opinion polls forecasting more huge losses for Labour in May 2016, Alex Gallagher would appear to be brave to inform us in his letter that he is a Labour councillor on North Ayrshire Council.

In view of all the SNP successes, including winning the Parliamentary seat of North Ayrshire and Arran at the General Election, I don't think the voters are looking for an apology from the SNP on September 18. However, perhaps Councillor Gallagher might himself use the first anniversary of the independence referendum to mull over why the Labour Party so spectacularly lost the trust and confidence of the people of Scotland. He may come to the conclusion that Labour's fall from grace had something to do with their campaigning shoulder to shoulder with the Tories last September, with the Vow from the ex- Labour Prime Minister which wasn't kept, with the car crash of the UK economy under Labour, and with the Iraq war. And after Labour's jaw-dropping, bloody summer of vicious in-fighting which has characterised the Labour leadership election, an apology to the voters from the Labour Party, though long overdue, would be too little, too late.

Ruth Marr,

99 Grampian Road,

Stirling.

I WONDER if David Torrance has considered the possibility that his weekly assault on the SNP may be contributing in some measure to the party’s inexorable rise in the polls. In his latest deliverance (“SNP runs risk of becoming what it hates … New Labour”, The Herald, August 24) he chooses, perhaps unwisely, to denigrate Mhairi Black for “disingenuous vacuity”. Big words, Mr Torrance, but I hear that Ms Black’s maiden speech attracted 11 million hits on YouTube, a wider and more captive audience, I imagine, than you could ever hope to dream of. Maybe The Herald should give her a weekly column.

Stuart Chalmers,

3 Summerhill Road, Clarkston, Glasgow.