MICHAEL Fry (SNP attack line doesn’t ring true – Boris Johnson is happy to spend, December 24), talks interestingly about academics who have toyed with the ideas of Blue Labour and Red Tory. He has argued in the past for more of a connection between the Scottish National Party and the large body of traditionally conservative citizens in Scotland . This would form a blue/yellow pact, These colours mixed together make Green.
On the confident assumption that the Scottish Government will – by means of cancellation of the many times broken Treaty of Union, and by the use of single subject referendums (ie cancellation of Union; type of currency; international alignment with NATO/EU/EFTA; royal status) – bring us to the normalcy of independence during the period that England is becoming a part of the USA, it is now time to convince the less radical and more backward-looking Scots of the benefits of the Green philosophy.
For this is a philosophy that embraces the best of Scots characteristics, described by Arthur Herman in The Scottish Enlightenment as “literacy, skills, discipline and initiative”.
Michael Fry is one of these Scots who has yet to make this jump, having spoken against the Green movement in the past. Being mentally athletic enough he will soon make the move.
In his piece he speaks, almost with approval, of “local or communal management and provision of services” as being something many can share in comparison with “the UK’s present bureaucratic juggernaut”. Thus he is praising the Green principle of “subsidiarity”. When we are independent we will be able to follow this democratic idea, empowering community councils and local authorities. Even Scotlandwell once had a parliament, to share fairly the access to the oxgangs.
Another short hop Mr Fry will have to make is to accept that the old Scots thrift, now known as austerity, will have to be retained, but must be coupled with the Green principle of “equality”; that each must be given according to their needs, and each must give according to their abilities.
This in turn ties in with the Scots idea of liberal education, which should equip everyone to contribute to society as best they can and thrive by the products of our hands and heads, not by exploitation of the environment or others. Of course the need for education varies with age, requiring life-long learning thereby preventing wasted talents.
Thus the best of the SNP’s efforts to modernise Scotland will be integrated with the pressing need to create a Green planet, and both will sit happily with the Scot’s natural qualities which derive from our geography and history. Gerry Hassan in The Sunday National (Scotland is already breaking away from the Union, December 15) recently suggested that such an ethical example could be world-leading, another Enlightenment. I agree.
Iain WD Forde
Scotlandwell, Kinross-shire
TWO prominent religious leaders’ Christmas messages this year encouraged people to reject “darkness”. There is certainly a need for a new “enlightenment”.
It seems to me as if humanity is suffering from mass Stockholm syndrome, whereby consumerism is the captor and advertising is the bond. “The syndrome is marked not only by a positive bond between captive and captor but also by a negative attitude on behalf of the captive toward authorities who threaten the captor-captive relationship”.
Much of the world’s current malaise is due to this insidiousness, which has moved the economy away from prioritising human needs to that of wants.
However, there is a dawning of hope in France with some cities trying to ban public adverts. Dawn in France comes just before sunrise in Britain.
Geoff Naylor
Hampshire
CONGRATULATIONS and thanks to Lisa MacDonald for her e-mail letter published on December 24 (While some of us shop, others lack even a bed for the night).
It is a brilliantly constructed letter with its message brightly shining through its several layers.
I don’t have any tears left to shed and am almost, but not completely, out of hope for the future. Nevertheless, on reading her letter, I had a lump in my throat.
I am not one of the consumers nor one who needs a shop doorway or blanket. I avoid plastic and try to help where I can those less fortunate than myself.
Like “one Mum .. crying” all I want is “the freedom to build a better future”.
Robert Mac Lachlan
Foulden
MAYBE Fry (SNP attack line doesn’t ring true – Boris Johnson is happy to spend, December 24) should wait till BJ has finished rowing back on his election promises before pronouncing on the end of austerity under the Tories.
Stuart Clark
Via thenational.scot
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