LIE, deny and keep talking through the questioning – it takes up interview time, so fewer questions – that’s the Tory way.

Boris Johnson on The Andrew Marr Show knowingly obfuscating about the shortage of butchers and asking Marr to make sure viewers knew that pigs get killed in abattoirs – when he knew what he was being asked about the possibility of pigs being slaughtered not for food but because of a lack of butchers in abattoirs. He is trying to make a fool of the electorate. Instead he is just making a fool of himself, but never mind – less time to get asked anything relevant.

WATCH: Boris Johnson squeals as he's grilled about pig cull by Andrew Marr

When asked about shortages he claims wages are going up, but according to the government’s own figures they give a warning that the figures must be read cautiously since last year many people were on furlough at 80% or working fewer hours. Wages were suppressed and are only now rising because people are working longer hours or are back to work, but Boris is unwilling to acknowledge the obvious.

Even Andrew Marr said Boris was going into the realms of bluster while not answering the questions.

To sum up: LIE about wages, DENY about the possibility of pigs being slaughtered but NOT for food, BLUSTER, just keep talking regardless.

Winifred McCartney
Paisley

THE country heard the PM being interviewed on The Andrew Marr Show on Sunday and got some eye-watering truths from the PM!

Questions on the current tanker driver shortage and future recruitment got a typical Brexit reply from the PM – we simply can’t go back to the old failed model of uncontrolled immigration! The PM informed viewers that in 2016 people voted for change (Brexit), then in 2019 for change (General Election) – incidentally, changes Scotland did not vote for.

READ MORE: UK Government could allow 1000 foreign butchers into UK amid Christmas shortage fears

The PM was asked why the Westminster government was removing the £20/week uplift to Universal Credit when energy and food prices are currently rising. The PM’s response was breathtaking, saying the government has reached out and supported the country through the pandemic, but we simply cannot go on like that! Begging the question, is supporting the country not the job of government during a pandemic? Typical Conservative policy, let’s move on and claw back from the poor, something all Conservative MPs in Scotland endorsed when they abstained from a recent vote in the House of Commons calling for the £20/week uplift to be made permanent.

Andrew Marr pointed out to the PM that we are now living with the highest taxes since the 1940s and asked the PM, can we expect any more tax rises? The PM said he fiercely opposed further tax rises, but did not rule it out and went on to say he does not want to raise taxes to subsidise low pay! His government’s policies exacerbate low wages and poverty Just take the recent increases to National Insurance, which will disproportionately affect those on low incomes.

Catriona C Clark
Falkirk

I CAN’T allow Sandy Philip’s letter of October 2 to go unchallenged. The transatlantic slave trade was unique in the way that it denied the humanity of those affected. Africa was robbed of so many people, their lives and those of their children were devastated, they were treated though they had no fundamental rights.

The Barbary Slavery to which Philips refers was appalling but different in this respect. Converts to Islam became freed – this was never the case for those enslaved from Africa during that period – while some Christian churches profited from slavery. Frederick Douglass and his supporters in Edinburgh campaigned to “send back the money”, as shown in Isaac Julien’s recent installation Lessons of the Hour at the Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art.

Whether our ancestors directly profited or not, we were all made complicit. Mackinnon and Mackillop’s recent research on remittances paid to the slave owners at the legal ending of slavery has shown how they laundered their money by purchasing Highland estates which were run on the inhumane basis they had developed in the extractive economy of the slave plantations, contributing to the Clearances. The amount paid by the UK Government to compensate slave owners after the law passed by Westminster in 1834 was so enormous that the debt accrued was only finally paid in 2015: everybody in the UK paying tax before that date were (unwilling) contributors to this injustice.

October is Black History Month. There are exciting events planned, and I look forward to full coverage in The National.

Cathie Lloyd
Edinburgh

THANKFULLY we have no petrol queues in Edinburgh. Are we being a bit more sensible than our friends n the south? But what about this bit of self righteous advice? Rather than a maximum spend, how about a minimum – £25, say. This would prevent, I am sure, the two litre top-up folk – just to keep a full tank.

Alex Leggatt
Edinburgh