Poor Assembly Members could not be removed by the Ballot Box

The Scotsman
Holyrood turf war
While agreeing with much of what Ian O Bayne says in clarifying his earlier assertions (Letters, 27 October), which I had challenged, I would like to make a point relating to his statement that "If we don’t like our MSPs’ decisions we have the option of turfing them out." For 73 of our MSPs (who are directly elected to a constituency) this resort is available to the electorate, but what about the other 56 - the "list" MSPs? These are nominated by their parties and, as such, are not directly elected by, nor accountable to, the electorate. This issue was brought home to me when I had a disagreement with one of my list MSPs. When I had the temerity to suggest that, if he was not prepared to listen to the concerns of his constituents then we had the obvious recourse to the ballot box, his reply, "This does not bother me as I am top of my party’s list", somewhat shattered my faith in this element of the so-called democratic process we have in Scotland, and which is soon to be applied to local councillors. Has Mr Bayne any suggestions as to how we might "turf out" these MSPs? GM LINDSAY Whinfield Gardens Kinross