PETER Russell (Letters, November 28), particularly given his political experience, seems very optimistic in believing that another Smith Commission will end the impasse about the location powers to be repatriated from Brussels to the UK on Brexit.

His proposition ignores the importance of context in politics. The original Smith Commission sat immediately after a referendum result that was much closer than many at Westminster had considered possible. As Andrew Grice wrote, reporting an interview with Alistair Darling in July 2014, “the feeling in his [Darling’s] No campaign is that keeping Alex Salmond below the 40 per cent mark would be a decisive victory, while a much closer winning margin would not stop the Scottish National Party (SNP) coming back for more – and another referendum – within 10 years.” Thus, the victory was not decisive, and the Smith Commission was the outcome at the time.

By 2017, however, the dominant view among media commentators is that Ruth Davidson has saved the Union, having increased the number of Scottish Conservative MPs from one to 13. If Mr Russell believes a Westminster Government will accede to another Smith Commission in the present political context, I would respectfully suggest that I doubt this very much.

Another complication is that it could hardly deal with Scotland alone as before, but would have to engage with the complexities of the other devolved administrations in Wales and Northern Ireland, who are equally concerned about repatriated powers.

But more importantly, the implication of Mr Russell’s argument is that the Westminster Government would respect the recommendation of a new Smith Commission. Why would they, when they failed to do so last time, as Tom Gordon made clear in this newspaper on November 30, 2014. He quoted one participant to the Smith Commission as saying “a lot of stuff got gutted out of the document in the final couple of days”, including health and safety at work, abortion law, and a Scottish National Lottery. If they didn’t respect the full Smith proposals in 2014, why would we expect them to do so three years later?

Lastly, Mr Russell manages to work in a reference to “the SNP’s Police Scotland VAT mess”, but in so doing he is careful not to mention that not only did the SNP have a manifesto commitment to a unified Scottish Police Force, as well as Fire & Rescue, but Mr Russell himself campaigned on a Labour Party manifesto which promised the same change, as did the Conservatives in their manifesto. So, hardly only the SNP, as any other elected party would have been in the same situation.

That said, I would agree with Mr Russell about the importance of compromise, and in that regard, faced with about as close to a political consensus as we are ever likely to get in Scotland on this matter, perhaps Westminster might have been able to compromise its view rather than acting purely vindictively, as it has done for the last four years?

Alasdair Galloway,

14 Silverton Avenue, Dumbarton.

DAVID Torrance’s perceptive article (“Parties jockeying for position in race to offer voters a choice”, The Herald, November 27) refers to the increasing closeness of Labour and the SNP as a consequence of the election of the left-leaning Richard Leonard as Scottish Labour leader. The abandonment by Labour, both at UK and now Scottish level, of the centre ground will almost certainly assist in cementing the Conservative resurgence in Scotland.

To date the Conservative success was based principally on its anti-separation stance. If therefore support for independence is on the wane, although in my view it would be dangerous for Unionists to think this, there would be a possibility that Conservative strength could start to slip. However with the Conservatives virtually the only party – the Liberal Democrats do not appear to be making much headway – occupying the centre ground in Scotland the likelihood is that their resurgence will continue.

While there are factors beyond the left/right divide which determine how a person votes nevertheless, as Tony Blair, John Major and David Cameron all recognised, a party, in order to win, needs to appeal to the centre ground. Ruth Davidson’s Scottish Conservatives must now be feeling very happy.

David S W Williamson,

49 Pinnaclehill Park, Kelso.