Has Ann Moffat, in her iniquitous attribution of proportional representation to the elections of Hitler and the SNP leader, forgotten that it was her own Labour Party that introduced the said voting system to the Scottish Parliament in an (as it happens futile) attempt to prevent the election of an SNP-led administration? In her allusion to Nazi policy is she not, in fact, confusing the SNP with the Labour Party? It is, after all, a Labour government that invaded and devastated neutral Iraq on a cynically false pretext and it is Labour that seeks to prevent the self-determination of and quest for prosperity of smaller nations such as Scotland and Wales. The electorate will be slow to forgive such a wicked slur on the steadfastly democratic credentials of the SNP.

Roy N Pedersen, 8 Drummond Road, Inverness.

Whoever said there was no such thing as bad publicity plainly never met the MP for East Lothian. Ann Moffat, for it was she, yesterday let herself and the Westminster Parliament down with a foolish and ill-judged remark implicity comparing Alex Salmond with Adolf Hitler, a remark that will simply confirm the contempt in the public mind for the playground abuse so beloved of some of our more traditional politicians.

This might have been designed to play well with her masters in the Labour party, and to raise her profile in the constituency which she still occasionally visits, but it has backfired badly.

She really has but one option in this regard. To admit that such puerile remarks have no place in democratic debate, apologise fully to the First Minister of Scotland, and to attempt to represent East Lothian in the least embarrassing way she can find.

Andrew Sharp, 4 Birch Court, Doune.