JO Swinson needs to be careful what she wishes for. Her current constituents have the stark, and for some of them unwelcome, choice between remaining in or rejoining the EU but leaving the UK, and a futile protest vote that will be ineffectual in the EU debate and leave them incarcerated in a Johnson/Corbyn hell.

In the unlikely event that she holds her East Dunbartonshire seat, she will be a party leader who is unable to participate in many parliamentary debates under the EVEL convention. How long she is able to sustain this position in a party with a sizeable number of former Cabinet ministers such as Chuka Umunna, Philip Lee, Luciana Berger, Angela Smith and Sam Gyimah is debatable.

She may have been the best of a poor choice in a party of a dozen to take over from a 76-year-old man; how she will fare in a party of crocodiles like Umunna is a different matter.

Anyone voting for Ms Swinson in the expectation of her being the next Prime Minister is as misled as she is herself.

Ian Richmond
Dumfries and Galloway