Letter: No mandate
The coalition's stronger claim to a mandate derives instead from the Labour Party's insistence that the vote of the United Kingdom as a whole takes precedence over the Scots vote. Are Labour supporters fully aware of the increasing cost their acceptance of Westminster's supremacy imposes on Scottish democracy and society?
Prior to May's general election, Scotland had been ruled from Westminster by parties it had rejected at the polls for 27 of the 65 years since the Second World War. If the current coalition survives for a full term, Scotland will have been ruled at UK level by parties it had rejected for 32 out of 70 post-war years. On existing voting patterns, a further six years of Conservative-led government would find Scotland having spent half its post-war history under UK governments it had rejected at the polls.
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Hide AdFurthermore, since 1970, each of the rejected Westminster governments - Heath, Thatcher/Major, Cameron - have pursued policies progressively more hostile to Scotland's policy preferences, culminating in today's coalition aiming to cut Scottish public spending by amounts well beyond even Mrs Thatcher's ambitions.
STEPHEN MAXWELL
Findhorn Place
Edinburgh