SIR – Leader of the SNP Alex Salmond may not be the most popular politician in these parts, but at his party’s conference he summed up very well in his speech, the ‘deal’ done by the coalition government in selling off Royal Mail to private shareholders.

Focusing on the words of Liberal Democrat Vince Cable, he poked fun at the minister’s description of the ‘successful privatisation’ by describing it as like ‘selling £10 notes for a fiver each’!

Knowing what we know now and the immediate vast profits made on shares that were clearly ridiculously undersold by our government, taxpayers could be forgiven for being reduced to tears. But at least this ‘gallows humour’ caused me to smile, if ruefully, before getting out my handkerchief!

David Hornsby, West View Avenue, Wrose