ENTROPY can be defined as an absence of rational predictability or a gradual decline into disorder. Is this not a very appropriate description of what passes for current governance under a Tory policy regime characterised by incompetence, disarray and “a decline into disorder”? Chris Deerin (“Universal Credit was a good idea that came unstuck through incompetence” , The Herald, October 24) gently offers a friendly critique of the (mis) management of a policy that has floundered over years and years in attempting to devise a Tory welfare policy that has failed miserably in producing effective or appropriate outcomes. If this incompetence had been in the (Tory beloved) private sector several directors and managers would have been fired long ago.

Entropy is found with even greater clarity in the current Tory-managed negotiations around Brexit. Michael Settle (in the same edition) states “Following last week’s EU summit in Brussels, the Prime Minister in a statement said she remained “confident” she would be able to get that “new, deep and special partnership” with the EU” (“No 10 refuses to comment on story May ‘begged Juncker for help’”, The Herald, October 24). In Mrs May’s search for a “deep and special partnership” with the EU is it in any way rational to undergo a grubby angry divorce with Britain’s largest market, threatening a “no deal” option as a response, not to the EU, but rather to the noisy voices from within her party?

This Westminster Government is about to face a Budget against a backdrop of internal party strife, an economy deeply in debt (both public finances and private) with an immediate future so uncertain that major private sector organisations are in panic mode.

Meanwhile a leading political leader/economist quoting the LSE is warning “Scotland would suffer a ‘devastating’ Brexit bombshell with its towns and cities losing nearly £30 billion as a result of the UK leaving the EU (“Revealed: The £30bn hard Brexit bombshell for Scotland”, The Herald, October 24). Entropy indeed.

Thom Cross,

18 Needle Green,

Carluke.

I READ with interest your front page lead story today (October 24).

Three years or so ago, I remember being told that independence would leave Scotland £15 billion worse off.

Now it seems that staying in the union will cost us £30bn.

My question is this: why are we still here?

Alec Ross,

Lochans Mill, Lochans, Stranraer.

WHILE Britain stumbles toward the economic cliff-edge of Brexit, Jim Sillars (Letters, October 19) and Alasdair Galloway (Letters, October 23) are opening an interesting discussion about the future for Scotland in Europe.

What is missing so far is a recognition that Scotland (and the UK) are geographically and historically part of Europe, and whether the UK leaves the EU before independence or not whatever happens in Europe (and the UK) is of major importance to Scotland and can’t be ignored.

If you don’t like the way the EU is heading you don’t run away and hide like British Tory or Labour want you to, you get involved and try to change it. The Tories hankering after their imperial past want to re-create a trading empire across the world, but even if you managed to build a preferential trading relationship with Canada, New Zealand, India and Australia the combined value would be much less than half of the EU. If Scotland remains part of an isolationist UK our future will be grim indeed.

Should our future be with the European Free Trade Association or the European Economic Area? We might admire Norway and Iceland for their world-leading prosperity and the way they have managed their fishing and oil industry, but they are not a trading bloc that can offer Scotland an alternative to the EU, though it could keep us in the Single Market.

Our best option has to be with our European neighbours and colleagues. The EU is not perfect. It needs democratic reform. European Parliamentary representation and the qualified majority voting (QMV) system must be reformed to give recognition to land mass and territorial waters as well as population. Legislative initiative should pass from the Commission to Parliament and Council. We must question the drive for ever closer federal union. What is important is membership of the Single Market and Customs Union.

Let Scotland join the debate. Let Scotland lead the debate on climate change, on environmental protection, on self-determination for Europe’s peoples. That could be a destiny worth fighting for.

George Leslie,

North Glassock,

Fenwick.

HAVING spent the last few weeks on the Continent discussing the ludicrous Brexit negotiations with friends and family I doubt we have any alternative but to leave as soon as possible. Those among the EU population who are sympathetic to Britain – and these are many fewer than even the most pessimistic might suppose – admit there will be no “deal”.

We will be strung along for as long as possible to allow the EU to extract the last pound of flesh and get its banking centres to get up to speed and then we will be shown the door in the early 2020s. In a fit of absence of mind some 17 million Britons were taken in by “a parcel of rogues” and they will truly rue the day.

Rev Dr John Cameron,

10 Howard Place,

St Andrews.

DR Don Campbell Thomson (Letters, October 24) exposes the central myth perpetuated by the British nationalists, that Westminster has the supreme right to rule over the remaining countries of the United Kingdom. Whilst it is true that there was probably the forced subjugation of the peoples of Wales and Ireland, the fact remains that the Union of the Crowns and parliaments of Scotland and England were just that, a union of supposed equals.

Since that disastrous day, of course, history demonstrates that it was nothing of the sort, purely a move by the English establishment to control and asset-strip its nearest neighbour, a practice it continues to this day. I would dearly love to have someone explain the conundrum of the behaviour of the Westminster Parliament when, in the teeth of severe austerity, when all slack is being trimmed from every layer of society that it can find, it continues to display such largesse to a country and a population that they regard as hangers on and pariahs.

Ian McAulay,

42 Woodbank Crescent,

Glasgow.