REVELATIONS about internecine strife within the SNP with individuals struggling to get on party lists and using underhand tactics to do so in the process should fail to surprise the many and vocal Nat-watchers among The Herald's readership. In previous Holyrood elections Dorothy-Grace Elder and Margo MacDonald were smeared, unceremoniously driven off the lists and out of a party in which they were the most recognisable figures by colleagues and their cliques. These latest stories seem in tune with previous form. Margo MacDonald single-handedly out-polled her erstwhile party as a whole, devastating its vote by two to one on the Lothians list, evidence enough that voters dislike division and punish it accordingly. Long may such silly, unpleasant and revealing behaviour continue.

Fraser Crawford, 52 Gloucester Drive, London.