BRIAN Wilson urges the Labour Party and Anwar Sarwar to be positive and build support for "Labour policies and values" ("Labour will need much more than tactical voting to beat the SNP", The Herald, April 11).

As someone who voted Labour, or was it New Labour, in 1997 I thought then that I was doing exactly that. To my mind it is not too strong a use of language to say that many of the policies and indeed the ethos of that government of spin doctors were shameful. In this respect Mr Wilson and many others like him fail to appreciate the roots of the deep alienation many people, including Labour voters, feel from the Labour Party. This it must be said stems from much more than the Iraq war.

The current Labour leadership's comments on Brexit and their preparedness to use propaganda material like that depicting Rishi Sunak with accompanying comments about child sex offenders ("Starmer has ‘zero apologies’ for Labour’s Sunak attack advert", The Herald, April 11) are not to my mind the positive Labour message Mr Wilson is keen to see.

They are however probably unsurprising given Sir Keir Starmer surrounds himself with "advisors" and "experts" from the Tony Blair and Gordon Brown era. This may be one reason he is eager to suppress internal party debate and impose candidates selected from Labour HQ on constituency parties. Peter Murrell could advise him on where that leads. More importantly, it raises doubt on Labour's commitment to a more decentralised, less Westminster-oriented political system. Decentralisation is like charity, it begins at home.

A central paradox of modern British politics is that despite winning three elections in a row, the period 1997 to 2010 was a disaster for the Labour Party. This is because it abandoned many of the values Mr Wilson refers to. Has Sir Keir learned anything?

Brian Harvey, Hamilton.

• THE estimable Brian Wilson ends this week's offering to Herald readers with the wise words that Labour should campaign "not for 'unionism' as an end in itself, but for Labour policies and values".

As a lifelong Socialist and ex-Labour Party member can I ask him to explain what these are, and were they not cancelled with the banishment of Jeremy Corbyn and Richard Leonard?

Harold Wilson stated that the party was a crusade or it was nothing. I suspect the latter is the reality, as it is great at criticism but little on solution.

Kenneth Burnett, Aberdeen.

📝 Sign up for our Letter of the Day newsletter and receive our Letters Editor's choice every day at 8pm.

Get insight from fellow readers and join in on what has Scotland talking. Exclusive responses to our writers and spirited debate on a whole host of issues will be sent directly to your inbox.

👉 Click here to sign up

• THE Labour Party really is gravitating to the gutter with its latest desperate outpourings against Prime Minister Sunak and his wife ("Labour targets Sunak’s wife non-dom status in latest attack ad", heraldscotland, April 11). Heaven help us if and when it ever gets into power. Right now, we need this kind of thing like we need a banjo player for Beethoven’s Fifth.

Doug Clark, Currie.

Read more: Labour will need positive support to kick out the SNP

We must change the voting system

BRIAN Wilson's article has simply demonstrated not that we need to consider all tactical voting options, but rather that we need to change the voting system.

I for one want to be able to vote for a party in the knowledge that the vote will count. It doesn't count for millions of people in the UK under the current system. I also want to ensure that no one party has a large majority with significantly less than 50% of the vote (again).

I have noted in the last year that the Labour membership at Conference were supportive of dialogue around PR but have not taken this forward. I also note that (a form of) PR in Scotland allows the Conservatives a sizeable voice in the Scottish Parliament which they would not have under first past the post (FPTP).

We will be told by the "big two" that FPTP works as they scrabble to get a majority with less than half the vote, by any means possible.

Maybe they are correct? FPTP as we know it is not unique to the UK in Europe. Belarus uses it.

Paul Dickson, Peebles.

Starmer shares Tory beliefs

KEVIN McKenna ("Only a rerun of the leaders' race can fix this mess," The Herald, April 10) has, in my humble opinion, completely lost it. To suggest "Only Ms [Kate] Forbes as leader and Ms [Ash] Regan as her deputy" can begin to restore trust in the Scottish National Party is preposterous. What planet is he living on?

He also throws in the name of SNP MP Joanna Cherry, and Ash Regan again, as "shining a light on the sewer running beneath the party's leadership". These are two members of the party I would never ever vote for.

I applaud and respect the way Ms Forbes has endorsed Humza Yousaf as the SNP's leader and First Minister. Her tweets have been regular and positive. Mr Yousaf has taken on his new position with great aplomb. And long may that continue.

I recall I agreed with Mr McKenna last year (The Herald, May 9) when he wrote: "It's possible to hate the SNP and back independence." It was a call to Labour to raise its game. But I didn't realise then how much hate your writer apparently has for the SNP.

I'm a life-long Labour supporter but cannot now vote for it because Sir Keir Starmer shares many of the Conservative Party beliefs, including Brexit, immigration and basic democracy regarding Scotland's rights.

He's a Labour leader in a Tory suit. Not that there's much difference in the fashion stakes in the UK Parliament. It's all dark suits, white shirts and blue or red ties.

Perhaps we should look back at a couple of characters from the past from both sides of the House ... the colourful Conservative MP Sir Nicholas Fairbairn, from Fordell Castle in Fife, in his tartan trews, who died in 1995, the year after the best Prime Minister Britain never had, Labour leader John Smith, from Dalmally in Argyll, also departed this world. I would like to think Humza Yousaf, born in Glasgow in 1985 of a Pakistani father and Kenyan mother will be talked about with the same affection as these two gentlemen in 30 years' time.

Andy Stenton, Glasgow.

How long will this saga continue?

I APPEAR to be alone, a bit like the young lad disbelievingly viewing the Emperor's latest apparel, when I puzzle over the modus operandi of the police in the "the great SNP finance debacle".

Common wisdom seems to agree that the police were alerted some 18 months ago and that their investigation started at that point. Fast forward to last week and with a dramatic show of strength the private residence of Peter Murrell and SNP headquarters are descended on by plastic-bin-toting plod complete with tent. Mr Murrell is duly arrested, later released without charge, and copious amounts of paperwork removed from both premises and possibly even the contents of Mr Murrell's grey bin.

Being a layman, what has worried me about this scenario is the fact that we are dealing with allegations of some form or forms of financial irregularity. So I would imagine that any evidence would be found on computers or in various ledgers. So without recourse to this evidence what exact form did the police investigation take for 18 months?

More to the point, we are not talking about some multi-national conglomerate's year-end accounts; surely a decent Scottish CA could audit the fairly simplistic income and expenditure of a political party in a couple of lunch breaks? How much longer can we expect this farce to drag on?

Andy Trombala, Stirling.

Read more: The monarchy is our only safeguard against tyranny

Cut back on the Coronation

GAVIN Findlay (Letters, April 11) writes regarding the Coronation of King Charles III.

At this time of international economic crisis, threats of nuclear war, when the incompetents in Westminster are planning to make sure the non-doms don’t pay any tax, and when my shopping yesterday cost three times what it cost last week, the Coronation should be cancelled. Spending untold millions on a Coronation when people are living on the streets (due to incompetent Conservatives like Margaret Thatcher and Nigel Lawson selling off social housing and utilities to the highest bidders), millions of us are unable to pay fuel bills or pay for food, is obscene.

I have nothing against the King. I think his views on protecting the environment are sensible, not like the bampots in the UK Parliament with their unceasing talk of “economic growth”. But surely he knows that the vast ceremony should not go ahead at this time? An informal act of ritual to denote the fact that he is being crowned is all that is required in this time of economic morass that we are in.

Margaret Forbes, Blanefield.