THE Labour Party in Scotland appears almost finished as a political force and completely confused. The cutting of budgets and the resultant damage to our public services is a result of the austerity measures pursued by the UK Tory Government.
Every informed person in Scotland knows this very well. But never a word to effect comes from the Labour Party in Scotland. Its support expects it to oppose the Tories. But instead they join with the Tories in attacking the SNP Government which is struggling as best it can to deal with budgets reduced by the austerity agenda. Labour has lost the plot.
We now have the ridiculous position of the Labour team at Holyrood calling for the SNP to increase taxes for the well-off in coalition with the Tory team which wants the SNP to cut taxes for the well-off.
Obviously the SNP can’t do both. What we now see is a Labour Party in Scotland that has completely lost sight of what it is for and why many of thousands of Scots used to support it.
These voters are being treated with contempt and it is little wonder many of them have now gone to the SNP.
Dave McEwan Hill
Sandbank, Argyll
I NEED to respond to these shouts about banning Trump from visiting the UK and how we should be opening our borders to all these refugees and foreign nationals (Scotland stands up to Trump, The National, January 31).
I have personally worked in Syria and as much as I like the people I am convinced that the majority of the male refugees are moving purely on economic grounds; the country has had a huge unemployment issue for many years and no doubt the war has made things worse. The hard fact is that we have many problems of our own at home, we have food banks and many disabled people having benefit cuts, we have huge problems with schooling and hospital waiting lists, our police are struggling.
Where on Earth do you think the money is going to come from to feed and provide homes for all these people? Make no mistake, once they are here they will never leave. T he other point is that none of the politically correct brigade mention the fact that countries situated close to the Syrian border, such as Saudi Arabia, refuse to allow them in. For goodness sake it is a fellow Muslim country with acres of space and huge tent villages sitting empty, add to the fact that they have more money than we have.Why must they travel all the way over Europe to get into Germany and the UK as well as France? Very simple logic, they get to stay in a country that provides free money and food plus accommodation.
More importantly, what business is it of ours if the USA decides to put a halt on the numbers coming in? Do we demonstrate against Saudi and the Gulf states refusing to take them in? The silence is deafening. We should keep our nose out of US politics and focus more on the poor quality politicians that we have sitting in Westminster.
Sort out our problems and issues before you start importing thousands of people into an already over-crowded UK. Why do you take part in demonstrations and give money to help migrants? Go help our old folk or our disabled people instead.
David Piper Livingston JUST want to take issue with your headline: “Scotland stands up to Trump”. To be clear, I do not agree with the policies currently being pursued by Trump but the numbers of protesters you admit yourselves is only in the “tens of thousands”. Last time I counted Scotland’s population was just over 5 million – I would put my mortgage on it that there is a large slice of Scotland’s population that agrees with what Donald Trump is doing.
To summarise my point you do not speak for the whole of Scotland. Like with independence you cannot guarantee that you speak for the majority – therefore your headline should not suggest that it does.
Robert Johnstone
Halesowen, West Midlands
MANY of your recent articles and letters have focused on the dangers which a populist like Trump creates once granted power. The childish enthusiasm with which he is signing executive orders is frightening to any person of liberal mind and his abominable and irrational attack on seven members of the UN stands as a warning to us all. There is a very limited amount which we in Scotland can do but we can certainly love-bomb our US friends and assure them that we are on their side in any efforts to impeach this international thug, elected like Hitler on a populist vote.
We can also make it very clear to Mrs May and her cronies that we Scots are entitled to know exactly whose finger will be on the trigger of Trident if the shiny red button on Trump’s desk attracts his attention in one of his moments of pique.
KM Campbell
Doune
WIDESPREAD protests are taking place against Trump along with calls for him to be banned from the UK and his invitation to meet the Queen rescinded. That’s what happens when an unpalatable potentate does unsavoury things. Or is it?
Let’s take King Abdullah, the late king of Saudi Arabia, the largest women’s prison. The same king who was the guest of the Queen at Balmoral. Disgracefully, flags were hung at half mast at Buckingham Palace and Westminster when he died. King Abdullah who presided over thousands of public executions and reneged on his decision to allow women to drive. Here’s a taste of what it’s like to be a female in Wahhabi Muslim Saudi Arabia: a female child is not registered at birth; every woman must have a male guardian, even if that guardian is her small son; the male guardian’s consent is required before she can have medical treatment, open a bank account, leave the country or enter further education; the male guardian can marry her off at any time.
Clerics decree allowing women to drive would undermine their reproductive role, women may not mingle with unrelated men and may not work in all but lingerie shops; women may not go outside unless accompanied by a male; as there is no public transport, unless she has a driver, a woman is housebound.
In 2002, 15 schoolgirls died in a fire because men would not rescue them as they were not wearing burkas. In 2003, King Abdullah increased the budget of the religious police who enforce these laws. In Saudi Arabia, public beheadings take place as entertainment.
Where are the outraged protests? There are protests against Israeli atrocities but not against Islamist horrors. And of course there are protests against Trump who decreed a temporary halt to immigration from some countries exporting terror, until more effective vetting can take place.
Rosie Lucca
Dunfermline
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