lNO ONE should be surprised at the low viewing figures for the new BBC Scotland channel ("Crowded market blamed for slow start to BBC's new digital channel", The Herald, March 7) which has a meagre budget of £32 million (one-tenth of what licence fee payers in Scotland contribute to the BBC) compared to S4C, the Welsh language channel, which spends £84m a year.

It was always designed to be a fringe low-budget affair with the main nine o'clock news up against the most popular TV output rather than a proper autonomous mainstream Scottish channel with beefed-up news coverage from a Scottish perspective at six and 10 o'clock but opting into programmes like Strictly Come Dancing and the like.

The new channel does not get around Scotland's democratic deficit that exists in UK TV political coverage. Last month no SNP MP featured on the BBC Newsnight programme out of 69 politicians. BBC Question Time and the main UK-wide news and political programmes also routinely ignore the third largest grouping at Westminster.

However, this week's Debate Night programme on the new channel was far superior to BBC Question Time in terms of the audience contributions and the panellists' considered responses ably handled by Stephen Jardine. Such insight rather than bombastic heat is badly needed on other political programmes.

Mary Thomas,

Watson Crescent, Edinburgh.

I WATCHED the great Debate Night show on BBC Scotland channel last night (March 6). Three of the five panellists on the show articulated their support for an independent Scotland. Would BBC Question Time allow such a set of unBritish views? It would certainly not.

Francis Buchan,

5 Drybrough Crescent, Edinburgh.

Time to 'do a Carmont'

REGARDING the correspondence on knife crime (Letters, March 6 & 7). I believe the powers that be, rightly concerned at what appears to be a near-epidemic of knife crime and young lives cut short, would be well advised to refer to the record of senior Scottish High Court judge Lord Carmont who had significant impact on Glasgow’s razor gangs in the 1950s with his policy of severe sentencing for such offences, so much so that “doing a Carmont” entered the language of the underworld.

At the preventive stage in the crime cycle, rigorous “stop-and-search” and less pussyfooting over sensitivities will not eradicate knife crime, but will surely save some lives.

R Russell Smith,

96 Milton Road, Kilbirnie.

Memories of some vintage fun

RUSSELL Leadbetter certainly sparked off the memories with his item on the Scottish Veteran Car Rally of 1959 ("1959: The driving rain can’t dampen the pleasure of classic cars", The Herald, March 6). Under weeping skies, we as a family gathered at the Round Toll, Pollokshaws, gaining a long view down Pollokshaws Road of the approaching roadsters.

But is the report of the only steam car being missing is correct? I seem to have a memory of a Stanley Steamer puffing along, issuing clouds of vapour.

This was the final year of trams in Pollokshaws Road, and we boys gained the bonus of seeing cars getting stuck in the tramlines and skittering on greasy cobbles. One vehicle had the misfortune to have wheels of the same gauge as the tram lines, and on the approach to us where it should have turned for Barrhead Road, the slow-moving veteran was turned by the rails into Cross Street, a gracefully executed 90-degree turn.

Gordon Casely,

Westerton Cottage,

Crathes, Kincardineshire.