I HAD to remind myself I was reading yesterday’s edition of The National on August 1 and not April 1. I mean I was smiling so much, and not at the cartoons either. But then I realised August is the silly season in politics.
After all, why would the Home Office not talk to all our freely elected, democratically appointed MSPs? Why would those responsible in Westminster ignore genuine letters from genuine people seeking advice and information regarding the condition and perhaps changing status of fellow human beings? Is Westminster “having a larf”?
I mean a Twitter storm over vacuum cleaners definitely shows the Tory party in cahoots with itself to provide us plebs with some light summer relief after all that heat. Ever considerate of us, they are. Those rumours of Tory party/Cabinet splits are just that. Vicious rumours. All’s well in their ideological bubble, far removed from the likes of us. And to prove it, that story about asylum seekers and their evictions, just where is our sense of humour? Lost obviously, since the Home Office will give the nod to Serco and the latter will pop up, shouting “Fooled you! Of course we’re not locking anyone out! We’re just playing!” And I must thank Kevin McKenna for so astutely pointing out the benefits of Project Food Bank and joining in with the applause due to the Tory party for their sure hand in this.
Playing with peoples’ lives, health and wellbeing; enabling financial gain and profiteering for some at the expense of others; manipulating legislation or worse, subverting it; and the sly, insidious rise, rhetoric and machinations of the rabble, the right-wing rabble, is all rather reminiscent of fiddling whilst Rome burnt.
Well the Tory party gathered the kindle during their years of austerity, then applied the Brexit match and this is no silly season! Maybe it is time to think of stocking up a few cans if I can afford it, but I don’t know if I could really stoop to burdening the Scottish health service with demands for extra prescriptions and the essential medicines regularly required by some in the family.
And what do I care if arts, artists, festivals, fringes, seasonal workers – all year, all seasons, all trades – might be threatened? Permanent staff shortages? No need to worry, just (further) cuts on those pesky, luxurious benefits and the lazy lay-a-beds will find jobs quick enough. I think I’m infected with some form of Moggitis, but do I need to worry? Obviously not, not when we’re in such strong and stable hands.
Come to think of it, am I partly to blame, since I seem to be suffering from a humour by-pass, and don’t seem to be able to join in with the silly-season madness.
I’d rather quit the rUK due to the fact that in their eyes I’m obviously a loser, and a burden to that state. I’m one of those mad indy supporters who believe in self-determination, strengthening the devolution settlement in the short term, not subverting it, as we regain our independence. You know the type: causing problems, joining marches, writing letters, annoying Tory party mandarins, Westminster bods and their junior staff here with questions about human rights.
I’m mad enough to think we can solve our own problems better than those we’ve not elected but who are in power over us. Obviously deluded, and not the full shilling. I wonder how many more there are like me? Enough to cause a stooshie, no doubt.
Selma Rahman
Edinburgh
READ MORE: Home Office tells MSPs: We won't talk to you about immigration cases
KIRSTY Hughes, like many discussing options for the timing of an indyref2, misses the elephant in the room that is Westminster.
Without Westminster and Holyrood entering into an Edinburgh Agreement 2, any attempt by Holyrood to force another referendum will find itself bogged down in the courts and thwarted by Unionist-led local authorities refusing to open polling stations.
Westminster could also take a Madrid-style approach to any plebiscite planned without its approval, and we all know where that can lead.
The SNP need to start the ball rolling now, whilst they continue to form a government at Holyrood, if the indyref2 is to have any basis in law.
R Knight
Balfron, Stirlingshire
READ MORE: Kirsty Hughes: Sturgeon may not be able to delay indyref2 any longer
WE live in febrile, uncertain times. Political analysis is a hazardous enterprise. There are too many people speculating about what might happen if (a) happens or (b) takes place. So I found Kirsty Hughes’s piece on July 31 most unhelpful. We need to base our political strategies on what we know and what we can do, practically, in the here and now: to speculate on what we don’t know is pointless.
Kirsty Hughes suggests that the hand of SNP leaders may be “forced” on either a Brexit referendum or indyref2. Given the uncertainty of the present situation, I would hope that careful, informed, principled consideration is being given to these decisions, rather than allowing them to be driven solely by events. And building a political analysis on a tower of “what ifs” gets us nowhere, especially if, as in Kirsty Hughes’s piece, it completely fails to take into account public opinion.
Cathie Lloyd
Letters, Lochbroom
IT’S quite simple: a referendum needs to be held before March, before Scotland is dragged out of the EU against our will.
It’s Westminster and the Unionists who are desperately trying to drag it out beyond that so that the EU nationals living in Scotland will be denied a voice, and be made ineligible to vote.
Lawrence Target
via thenational.scot
ARE today’s politics like a TV quiz show? It’s the Countdown to Brexit but will it be Deal Or No Deal? Anything other than indyref2 is Pointless. Scotland voted to stay in the EU and you don’t need to be Mastermind to see why. Leaving the EU will be a University Challenge for Scotland. Bring on indyref2 and let’s be In It To Win It!!
Fiona Bell
Edinburgh
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