As a veteran SNP member of some 45 years' standing at the last count I write

to endorse the thoughtful and courageous comments of the backbench SNP MSP, John Mason, in relation to the excessive reluctance of so many of his party colleagues to criticise the SNP administration in the various Holyrood committees ("Backbencher Mason

attacks fellow MSPs", The Herald, September 22.)

While I can understand that, in the run-up to last year's independence referendum the SNP whips were particularly anxious to avoid giving the impression of any emerging splits within the governing pro-independence party, it is surely unrealistic to maintain this facade of total

conformity ad infinitum as it is, in any case, unhealthy in a representative institution.

Moreover, despite my support for the SNP as the principal pro-independence

party, I have never for a moment believed that any party has a monopoly on political wisdom and, in an independent Scotland, I would hope and expect people to be free to make their own choices. In the event of a second independence referendum, I would argue that the achievement of independence could enhance rather than reduce opportunities for the expression of different political opinions and that, in the meantime, the SNP

could set an example by tolerating the expression of such differing views within their ranks.

I am reminded of the splits in the UK Labour party back in the 1950s

and early 1960s between its right-wing (the Gaitskellites) and the Bevanite left-wing which the Tories inevitably sought to exploit. In response Nye Bevan, the esteemed Welsh founding-father of the NHS, shrewdly pointed out that "the only place where there is complete unanimity is the graveyard".

Ian O Bayne,

8 Clarence Drive, Glasgow.