ONE has been waiting in vain until now, but it has happened. Gordon Brown, the dour relic of Great Britishism, has surfaced to try to get his name in the papers and sound important.
He claims the so-called “great” British virtues of tolerance reciprocity between nations are being displaced by adversarial nationalisms, with the “SNP now threatening the hardest of ‘hard’ separations”.
His solution first and foremost is that we need a Labour government. An easy solution according to Gordon Brown, but we still would be in the sclerotic incorporating Union with its House of Lords, crumbling monarchy and isolation from Europe.
One must wonder what rose-tinted world Gordon now lives in? His views of the British state in the past are selective, as he omits the nasty bits such as colonialism, imperialism and the slave trade. He claims pragmatic internationalism is a virtue, in other words leave out the UK crimes against humanity.
As independence for Scotland is no more than a charter for international status, according to the Claim of Right in line with UN charters for independent nations worldwide, how can such be seen as hardest of hard separatism? Gordon Brown’s weird concept of the UK is a mere continuation of the present unfit-for-purpose set-up.
The UK parties in Scotland are in trouble, yet Brown does not ask why? Perhaps he needs to look at developments post-2014. The Vow was a lie, he was hoodwinked and outsmarted by Perfidious Albion in the person of David Cameron, and so the “clunking fist” was shown to be a mere replaceable cog in the Westminster machine.
If there is to be a Labour government again in Scotland, then it needs to be a post-indy Labour party revitalised after independence, a party with its Unionist trappings consigned to the midden.
Gordon Brown is a man going nowhere any more, fantasising on a sanitised British past, who only causes embarrassment when he pops up and tries to flog his deluded North British package to the Scots.
John Edgar
Kilmaurs
SOMETIMES I have to wonder what Gordon Brown thinks his “interventions” achieve. We get it! He wants the whole of the UK to be one big happy family again. But what he fails to recognise is that for many of us it never was.
Yet again, in his latest discourse, he reiterates his core belief; the ills plaguing the UK at present are caused by the “displacement of an outward-looking patriotism by narrow, adversarial nationalisms...”.
He goes on: “With the SNP now threatening the hardest of ‘hard’ separations...” and I’m going to stop him there.
How dare he! Again he offers nothing beyond more of the same. He tells us that only BritNats like him can be patriotic. He tells us “the great British virtues – tolerance, civic responsibility, reciprocity between nations and pragmatic internationalism” – are at risk. And yet, and yet, in every utterance there is no recognition that in order to protect these self same values, in order to move towards a more tolerant society, in order to protect its internationalism, Scotland should have the democratic right to ask its population if the British state is now the best caretaker of these values. These values he holds so dear.
So if Gordon Brown wants to defend his gold standard British nation, the very democracy he purports to cherish, he should support indyref2. He should make his case to the people of Scotland and trust the virtues of tolerance, responsibility and internationalism will help them make the right decision. Personally I have no doubt that they will!
Iona Easton
Glasgow
OUR PM’s less than favourable view of “verminous Scots” (Long Letter, November 16) is not without historical precedent.
Having laid waste vast swathes of Scotland – slaughtering countless men, women, children and animals – Edward I is reported to have handed the Seals of Scotland to one of his barons, with the conclusion “A man does good work when he rids himself of a turd.”
Like his Companion at Arms Rees-Mogg, Boris is a stickler for tradition.
James Stevenson
Auchterarder
INTERESTING piece on Donald MacLeod (10 things that changed my life, November 17), but I was slightly surprised that he didn’t mention his tenure at Rock Radio, a radio station that transformed and united the “rock community” in Glasgow and west of Scotland.
My abiding memory of Donald, who I did meet a few times (though I doubt he will remember me!), was at the Rock Radio farewell gig/party in The Cathouse, of him sitting morosely at the top of the stairs, head in hands, rueing the demise of this radio station that had contributed so much to our local music scene.
Keep up the good work Donald ...
Iain Lyall
Hamilton
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