WHENEVER you hear the drums of war beginning to beat, you know we have a UK Prime Minister in trouble or a US President who needs to bolster the US military industrial complex! When George Bush decided to impress his father, George Bush Senior, by going to war in Iraq he needed a partner in crime and secured the support of Prime Minister Blair. Blair has never been forgiven for his lies about weapons of mass destruction, as we witnessed lately with a one-million-signature petition to strip him of the proposed knighthood.
READ MORE: Tensions between Russia and Nato will affect post-indy plans for Trident
It is disappointing to see the Scottish Government going along with the anti-Russian gobbledygook that has characterised the UK line since the end of World War Two. We have also had the anti-Chinese rhetoric being psyched up with noises about China threatening Taiwan. This to me suggests that Joe Biden has run out of ideas and is looking for ways to create jobs for the war machine that underpins the US economy.
For my own part I would wish to see an independent Scotland that pursued a path of peaceful international relations. It would be great to be a small country that provided practical help, education and shared intellectual property with poor nations that are struggling with the effects of poverty, war and climate change.
READ MORE: Boris Johnson lacks the capacity to deploy diplomacy instead of troops
The international role played by Cuban doctors and healthcare workers has been outstanding.
If you look at the support provided to countries like Pakistan after a major earthquake or South Africa during the AIDS epidemic, you see valuable help at a grassroots level in villages and remote areas. In setting up a new independent country we will have the opportunity to do politics differently and not simply carry on in the same old cynical neo-liberal way. Let’s reject the warmongers.
A man’s a man for a’ that!
Maggie Chetty
Glasgow
EXCELLENT letter by Roddy MacPherson in the National on Thursday hitting many o’er-long exposed nails on the head.
The longer it takes for the Sue Gray report to be published, the longer Johnson has to appear as the jolly smiling clown that he is, rallying his closest as they cheer him on while the backbenchers absorb the sober truth of the situation in their hellhole of a parliament where rowdy boorish insult is deemed more appropriate than honesty and respect.
He glibly boasts of his good work behind him and promises more at pace, his backing group cheer until all reality is lost, and Scots are far from where they should be.
Tom Gray
Braco
WHAT do the Lords, and other Unionists, not understand about devolution? The very word devolve means to delegate, to pass control down, and does not include the right then to take away the bits you later decide you don’t like. In any case, are they really too dumb to realise that they increase resentment and anger every time a decision is taken that affects the devolved body without consent, every time they impose a diktat without consultation?
Not content with keeping back cash that would have come direct to Holyrood from the EU and making the decisions about use of it by local government, a fully devolved area, and likewise with money for major infrastructure projects, they now want the unelected Lords to have oversight of bills passed at Holyrood, to make sure they suit the Westminster government.
READ MORE: Failed fraud policy in the UK shows how indy Scotland can get it right
How many times are they going to nibble away a little of one devolved area after another before they realise that they are the cause of alienation? And how many times have they ignored the withholding of consent by Holyrood, on the basis of that one word (referencing Sewel) “normally”? That word to Westminster seems to mean “every time they don’t like it” whether they are interfering in devolution or not.
There is one simple answer to provide better respect for devolution, and it is not greater interference. Remove that word “normally”.
L McGregor
Falkirk
WHY oh why does Kevin McKenna regularly spoil otherwise excellent articles with “asides” which are inaccurate and insult people? His article “Ankle tags and celibacy orders … how we ought to punish these Tories” (Jan 26) was amusing – but pointed. However, his suggestion that should Russia invade the Ukraine “British troops will see their first serious action in Europe since 1945” was inaccurate and insulting to many people.
Perhaps Mr McKenna should talk to the families of those British troops killed in the Balkan conflict or the Northern Ireland “Troubles” and ask them if they thought it was “serious action”. He could also talk to those involved who are still suffering from serious injuries and ask them if it was “serious action”.
I suppose it is possible that Mr McKenna doesn’t know that the Balkans and Ireland are in Europe.
Douglas Morton
Lanark
THERE seems to be a new party active in Scotland, witnessed in Tuesday’s Telegraph and the Aberdeen Press and Journal. Enter the Hospitality Party, acting remarkably similar to the Conservative and Unionists in laying out objections to indyref two. Obviously the original party is so mired in sleaze that it is using the services of these profiteering nightclub owners to act as the official mouthpiece. No doubt Michael Gove will be well acquainted with all of them!
Kenneth Burnett
Dyce
THURSDAY’S article by Lesley Riddoch muddies the independence waters. There is no such thing as a Section 30 order needed. The Westminster government has passed that the Scottish people are sovereign. The Scottish people can decide to have an independence vote whenever they wish.
William Purves
Galashiels
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