Capitalism is rigged, so let’s hurry up and scrap it so we can do better

Well sorry that’s just a load of total tosh! The watershed moment for me was when Thatcher managed to persuade many working class folk (mainly English) to vote for her in 1979 with a massive dose of help from the English “free” press. I was only 18 at the time voting at my first election. I seem to have been backing the wrong horse at UK elections ever since (I don’t count my SNP vote at UK elections as clearly that doesn’t change anything to sway UK governments).

Anyway, since then there has been a sickening consensus in the UK, slavishly followed by Blair’s New Labour, that only a piddling, wee smidgeon amount of dosh can be taken from the rich and powerful for the common good. I would go much further. Millions of people, not just the 1%, made “loadsamoney” during the 1980’s much of it being invested in sumptuous and maybe not so sumptuous, personal property and buy to rent flats. This clearly means that, on the whole, the offspring of those owners will inherit these properties, making many of them handsomely asset rich, without having to work again if they so choose.

The current taxation system is woefully inadequate to deal with such disgusting, immoral inequality. I’m too thick to suggest an alternative but if the political will was there (in Scotland too by the way!) loads of people with superior brain cells than I can muster, I’m sure can come up with a proper system that benefits those that have always been the losers in the current capitalist game.

That’s the rub, even here in Scotland, we need the political will!”

Ivor Telfer

Dalgety Bay, Fife

THE “Nasty Party” have shameless and inhumane credentials that go a long way back. At a Labour rally in Manchester in 1948 MP Aneurin Bevan, who had a burning hatred of the Tory party, said, “ So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin,” he went on to say, “ They condemned millions of people to semi-starvation.”

Over the years, not much has changed in the heartless Tory Party. Work and Pensions Secretary Therese Coffey seems resolute in her decision that the £20 pound uplift in Universal Credit will end on October 6. The “ Nasty Party” is certainly living up to its name. The cut will consign hundreds of thousands to abject poverty. Boris Johnson has stated that benefit claimants should count on their own “efforts” to increase their income. Johnson doesn’t know or doesn’t want to acknowledge the fact that 40% of claimants are the working poor. This from a man who said that the salary of Prime Minister is not enough. Maybe he should stop fathering children.

This Tory government, in spite of everything, can readily find over £200 million for a new royal yacht to be named after Prince Philip. Those working class people in the Labour heartlands of England – especially northern England – who surprisingly voted Conservative in the 2019 General Election must be beginning to rue the day.

Sandy Gordon

Edinburgh

IN the Tory faimily they’re needin loads o help They’re a sad case o self interest but they’ll no do whit their telt.

Nae need tae ask fur credit as Rishi has a stash But he’s got a problem wi poor people sourcin cash The third richest bloke in Blighty but he doesnae unerstaun That tae survive maist faimilies need a helpin haun

Sajid Javid plays wi Lego, he’s built a wee hospital No admittin tae himsel it’s just a makeshift model.

He’s been telt ‘Build 40!’ -a chore he should resist Cos the faimiy ken fine well thit the ithers dont exist.

Michael the teenager tells lies sae easily He’s stairtit gawn oot clubbin, dodgin the entry fee Dad-dancin oan his ain is his new dance craze Ravin like a reptile-It’s just anither phase.

Priti hears the doorbell but doesnae let you in And worse, she eggs oan her pals tae pan your door right in When ye ask her fur help, she’ll dingy ye casually There’s nae chance o bein asked roon fur a cup o Pritti’s bitter tea.

Noo Raab canny mak phone calls an he nearly crapped his jeans When he tried Pritti’s Afghan helpline an goat advice oan washin machines.

Remember Father Dougal’s coos sma an far away?

Weil Raab dogs aff his work an goes oan his wee cheap holiday An a the carpin critics goat richt up his nose Cos he thinks that the sea can open and the sea can close!

Wee Douglas an wee Gavin, they jist greet an wail They want their Daddy Johnson but he’s jist avoidin the jail Bampot Boris is oan benefits gettin dosh at cut price rates He launders a’ oor money tae his auld school pals and mates He’s takin up wallpaperin tae cover up his cheatin He’s aye cowerin’ in the fridge tae jink aff his cobra meetin.

If ever there wiz a problem faimily it’s this wan that’s fur sure They’re robbin us their neighbours, they’re stealin fae the poor They need a dose o something tae help tae make them see That they’re lackin human values an a thing ca’d empathy So tae the dysfunctional Tory faimily lets help them oan their way.

10 years o’ community service at least tae serve oor society!

(Wee Gavin’s jist piped up tae say, “Just shut up an go away.”)

Euan Girvan

Glasgow

TIME now for straight talking and the stowing of political intrigue and double meaning.

I am an ex-infantryman turned combat medic now teaching first aid and I do not do intrigue and double speak, perhaps that is why a career in the diplomatic Corps was never a viable option on my retirement from the military.

So here we are then with an absolute hoofing majority in the only Parliament that matters a working pact between two parties that support Independence but yet I read and hear rather pathetic comments about under representation, or who is looking after the cat that once walked down our street, oh and before anyone complains, I am a cat person. I have a grandcat who at random points of the year gets spoiled. So what is it with this nitpicking by the small minded, the heavily blinkered, are their extremely fragile egos under so much threat that they do the round robin of cut, copy and paste into the printed press with statements that only serve one master and that one sits in the Palace of Westminster.

Basically folks I do not care about your politics I only care about securing a YES majority at the next referendum everything else is an irrelevance or a hurdle placed by those that cannot or will not leave their hyped up ego behind.

The division caused by pop ups will be amplified by the Westminster elite, and the adoption of right wing fundamentalist ideas from the Bible Belt of the USA only serves Westminster. However such is your hatred of anything other than the true doctrine of independence as written by your messiah and his lieutenants you can’t see the damage you are doing.

Wise up, no seriously wise up before you cost my Nation its Independence.

Cliff Purvis

Veterans for Scottish Independence 2.0/SNP Armed Forces and Veterans Group

SO Dominic Raab has announced that the government in London will not recognise the Taliban. Coincidentally, the Taliban did not recognise the British occupation, the US occupation nor the regime they attempted to impose on Afghanistan.

Did Tony Blair really believe his adventure in the Middle East would benefit Afghanistan rather than end in the chaos that many of us anticipated and has now transpired? Now he must be held to account and the world must learn to engage with the Taliban without an agenda that is based on what can be taken from Afghanistan.

Ni Holmes

St Andrews

RICHARD Walthew (Letters, Aug 30) complains that I make “no allowance” for the effects of Brexit, poverty, and Covid in my letter of August 28 expressing concern at the growing trend in the Scottish NHS to have queues of ambulances waiting outside hospital Accident and Emergency departments.

He goes on to say that if I am dissatisfied with our NHS I should simply “go private and pay the accompanying charges”. It may be news to Mr Walthew, but the private sector does not yet provide much in the way of Accident and Emergency services. I have no doubt that Brexit, poverty and Covid all play their part in the crisis currently engulfing the Scottish NHS. The real question is, what is the government going to do to fix it?

My main point was to contrast the government’s commitment to spending £5 billion on electrifying the railways against an extra £1 billion on the health service over the next five years.

A few years ago my late mother was a “frequent flyer” to the local Accident and Emergency department. In her last three years she must have passed through the department around 10 times. Her failing liver, resultant infections and two broken hips saw her diagnosed, treated and discharged with reasonable speed and attention.

It is difficult to fault the ambulance crews who gently picked her up from the floor and transported her to the hospital, the nurses who looked after her, the doctors and surgeons who treated her, the radiographers who took numerous X-rays and the physiotherapists who got her literally back on her feet. They managed to keep her in reasonable health and enjoy most of the final period of her life. Many remembered her from her numerous visits.

I spent many an anxious half-hour or so in a corridor standing adjacent to my mother, who was lying on a trolley having been initially assessed by a nurse but while waiting to see a doctor. I clearly remember saying to her “well at least we are not like the hospitals in England where you have to wait in the ambulance to actually get into the hospital”. I never thought that I would see that situation here in Scotland. However last week at Hairmyres Hospital in East Kilbride on the TV news was the sad sight of SIX ambulances queued up waiting to pass their patients into the hospital.

I sincerely hope the First Minister or the Health Secretary never find themselves in the position of waiting, in the back of an ambulance, or for a lengthy period of time standing in a hospital corridor with their loved ones beside them lying on a hospital trolley.

Politics is about priorities. Electrifying the railways, political deals with Greens or anyone else, gender recognition, hate crime legislation, net-zero carbon, smoke alarms in every room in every home, free bikes all need to come second to improving the Scottish Health Service, and soon, not in five or 10 years’ time.

Iain Wilson

Stirling