I am now an exiled Yorkshireman living and working in Scotland and was amused as to the remarks made concerning Alex Salmond's remarks about "Labour London" and "the London Way!" and, of course, the ongoing West Lothian question.

I would like to point out a few observations I have made since moving to "Bonnie Scotland" over these remarks:

Labour London: As far as I understand, this was originally coined by either the Scottish Lib-Dems or the Scottish Socialist and was later adopted by Alex Salmond at Westminster.

London Way: The Labour government, led by a Scot in Gordon Brown, are really making things easy for the SNP in general, and especially at Holyrood. Mark Stuart is spot on about what David Cameron needs to look at and act upon if the Union is to remain.

Personally, I feel that many voters here in Scotland are as yet undecided as to whether being part of the Union or not actually matters a great deal in their lives and this is just like many regions of England were really indifferent to John Prescott's push for regional assemblies.

Finally, many in Scotland feel that, over the Olympics, the SNP has now placed itself with all the major parties in being full members of the Duplicity Club.

Alex Salmond has taken a stance against a Team GB football side for 2012, and yet the leader of the SNP at Westminster is calling for a knighthood for Chris Hoy, the Scottish cyclist with three golds.

From: Sheila White, Penshurst Road, Potters Bar.

THE Union question (Yorkshire Post, September 1) is never addressed from the viewpoint of the man in the street in England.

To start, in Ken Clarke, David Cameron (of Scottish heritage) chooses a fanatical European to conduct a supposed focus on the English and the Union.

Unless they take what is happening north of the border seriously, there will be no Union to rule. The only true answer is for a federal system – each country independent, self-governing with tax-raising powers.


Show a leg – it must be the great British summer


From: Norman Armistead, Green Park Avenue, Cayton, Scarborough.

IT said that the time will come when we shall know the seasons of the year, not by weather conditions (hot summers with Continual sunshine and winters when we are knee-deep in snow), but by the falling and return of the leaves on the trees.

Climate change would suggest that that time is almost upon us. We shall continue in the future to have summers, it's just that the weather will be different.

Talking of summer, there is another evidence of its arrival, a sartorial one. I refer to the popularity among men, from the youngest to the oldest, of wearing shorts.

I well remember – nigh on 60 years ago – proudly wearing my first pair of long trousers. In those days, at 12 years of age, this was a rite of passage, the first step to being grown-up. Every boy wanted to dress like his dad.

Not on the beach, of course, when, throwing caution to the wind, dad would roll up the legs of his trousers for a paddle in the sea – complete with knotted handkerchief doubling as a sun hat.

And if you spent your holiday at Butlin's, at Filey or Skegness, there was the further embarrassment of the knobbly-knees contest.

I say this to point out that things seem to have come full circle. Nowadays, it's not boys wanting long trousers (actually, they wear them from infancy these days), but, as I say, men of all ages in shorts.

From the day the clocks say that summer time has begun until we lose an hour at the back end of the year, we see exposed legs below the knee everywhere.

My own legs, from my knees to my sock line, are of a different hue to the unexposed parts.

All of which gives a whole new meaning to a changing climate, or climate change.