It's time to rid ourselves of the failing graduates of Eton

On it is a great song, The Bomb The Bomb We Finally Built The Perfect Bomb It Turns The Tanks To butter And The People Walk Away. In one of the introductions, on that record, Tom says, of the American government, that he just finished writing pile of songs about a pile of mess they had made, and just cleared his desk, only to discovered that a heap of new stories had just arrived; so he

had to pick up his pen and write some more. Tom is 84 now, and as far as I know, he is still wrestling with the issues of the day, I suspect he might have a backlog in the wake of the Trump presidency.

It is how I feel about the world of politics here at home in Scotland, there is always another awful story that needs to be addressed. Most of them emanating from the land south of our Border because of the grip of a Union that was forged from the bribery perforated, on behalf of Queen Anne and the English Parliament, by John Dalrymple, First Earl of Stair, (Stair is to the east of the town of Ayr. Dalrymple was the man who gave the orders for the Campbell militia to murder thirty eight members of MacDonald clan, in the notorious Massacre of Glencoe, in January 1692).

Lord Banff “sold” his vote for 11 pounds and two shillings. The Earl of Finlater sold his for 100 pounds. The Provost of Wig Town sold his for 25 pounds. Others bargained for a higher price, The Lord High Commissioner, Duke of Queensberry, James Douglas was paid 1325 pounds 10 shillings.

So by 110 votes to 68, in January 1707 Scotland’s Parliament voted was voted out existence and article one of the Treaty of Union states that the two Kingdoms of England and Scotland are United under the name of Great Britain. Today we suffer under the yoke of the words stored on a sheet of vellum deep in the cellars of Westminster (or wherever they hide these things these days).

There were some “jolly photees” of Liz Truss, from the 10 Downing Street photographer, trying to make her look like a model, a suggestion of glamour! Trussed up in what looked, almost, like a bearskin at changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace. There she stood with some Russian military guys with their huge rimmed hats. I wonder if she chartered another plane at £500,000, or maybe she hitched a ride on an Aeroflot.

Last week Boris was off on a short jolly too, over to Ukraine, well after the debacle of his trip to Moscow when he was foreign secretary, I guess they would not give him a visa go to back to Russia anytime soon. Sergei Lavrov commented after that Truss had not prepared for the meeting and would not listen (a lesson learned from Theresa May?). Indeed even before she got to Moscow, it is reported that she had signed papers ordering tougher sanctions on Russia, as if they care tuppence. I know that “tuppence” is from the old days, these days it is two pence, but the Tories have reintroduced “imperial measurements”. And now Jacob Rees-Mogg has the job of trying to work out what the benefits of Brexit are, I feel it in my water, that 20 shillings in a pound might make a come back.

In the meantime, back here on Earth in Scotland, our government is investing record amounts into renewable energy. The highest per person investment, per person in education in the UK – £1319 in England, £1382 in Wales but here £1685. Yet next week, or the week after, at First Minister’s Questions Sarwar or Ross will get up and bleat on about “the attainment gap”.

It is well known that poverty is the driving force behind this. It seems to me that in the current political arrangement, where our countries finances are ultimately controlled by the government of another country, there will always be this so called gap. What we need to be able to do is ensure that all our population can have a good standard of living, and move away from the desperation where loosing £20 a week from Universal Credit plunges folk into food banks, and where Brexit caused inflation gives folk sleepless nights.

Years ago I had cause to visit schools in the Highlands, some were in buildings left over from the Second World War, and on more than one occasion saucepans littered the floor collecting the dips of rain water through the ceiling. Our government has built or upgraded more than 1000 schools in the past few years. There is £2 billion of investment into the learning estate in the pipeline.

Here is a dream that we, Scotland, become an independent country. We rid ourselves of the Eton-schooled leaders of Westminster, where a Tory government is so packed with talent that the choice of Foreign Secretary is really only a model for a cut-down bearskin hat. Then through our world-class education system we nurture a scientist who makes the perfect bomb which turns the tanks to butter so the people can walk away.
Cher Bonfis
via email

IT says much about the state of our politics that the allegations of abuse brought into focus by the BBC’s Sarah Smith have been instantly weaponised by Unionist politicians from the Scottish Conservatives and the LibDems to condemn “nationalism”.

It’s abundant from many a newspaper headline and the Twitter accounts of opposition MSPs and their parties that the bile, hatred and misogyny called out by Sarah Smith is also meted out on a daily basis to Nicola Sturgeon and Kate Forbes, who thankfully appear to have a much thicker skin than journalists.

In a healthier political climate, opposition politicians would make this balanced observation for the greater good, but their party lines and allegiances clearly negate this option.
Alistair McBay
Perth

THERE is a popular saying that it is the winners who write history . But popular records of events are coloured more widely also by selectivity and by propaganda.

The mainstream media campaign against independence in 2014 opened many people’s eyes in Scotland to the pro-ruling class bias of media magnates.

It is sad to see Sarah Smith go back to the US with bitter comments on her lips about her treatment in Scotland. But this is the same Sarah Smith who was forced to make public apologies for slurs against Nicola Sturgeon and the SNP. Sarah is not without some personal power with the John Smith Centre in memory of her father Labour Party leader John Smith and supported by her mother Baroness Smith, her sister Catherine and run by Kezia Dugdale, former leader of the Labour Party in Scotland.

On the day of the 2014 referendum I was canvassing for Yes at a voting station with a former provost of Glasgow City Council (canvassing No voters). She expressed the view that Yes events had been characterised by hate and violence including the demonstration outside the BBC. I said that I had never personally witnessed any of that including the demonstration at the BBC. All the events I attended were pretty joyous with people of all ages and backgrounds alight with the knowledge of people power and the capacity to change things.

The campaign by the people of Liverpool against The Sun newspaper was spectacular. The Sun’s appalling commentary about Hillsborough was called out by the City of Liverpool many of whose taxis today bear logos against The Sun. They refused to let these lies enter the public domain and into history.

The story of the Yes campaign has yet to be told. It was a glorious affair of high hopes, passionate debate and optimism.

We should not forget this because it can still be done.
Maggie Chetty
Glasgow

SEE that man Putin – he’s a seriously creepy guy. He geez me a bad case of the heebie-jeebies and I wouldn’t trust him and his fellow bunch of dirty rotten scoundrels if he told me grass was green! Funny, must just be a coincidence, but I feel the same way about that creep that masquerades as the UK Prime Minister!

It’s an extremely worrying time. I’m just glad that if this situation escalates inexorably, I’ve got a nice sturdy table that my partner and I, and of course the dug, can shelter under if the worst comes to the worst. Pity we don’t have a basement though. The garage will have to do.

Seriously, there has been plenty written and said about how awful Putin and his corrupt cronies are and I don’t disagree with it at all. However, on the basis that we should always endeavour to see ourselves as others see us, I thought a bit of historical perspective wouldn’t be out of place at this troubling time:

• The US are the only country to have dropped an atomic bomb on not only one city but, extremely worryingly, a second city soon after.
• The US have consistently over the years intervened in Latin American countries when their politics hasn’t been to their liking.
• The US tried to invade Cuba and was responsible for numerous attempts to assassinate Castro.
• The Vietnam War!
• The invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.
• The British treatment of the Irish, who were after all part of the United Kingdom, Great Britain and Ireland at the time, during the potato famine.
• The British treatment of the Republican community during the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland.
• The English treatment of a wee country that had the temerity to vote to hold a referendum!

There will be loads of other examples but I’ll let proper expert historians provide them. Of course there will also be many examples of the Soviet Union and Russia’s wrongdoings.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m 100% behind the sovereignty of Ukraine (and Scotland!) and any Russian invasion, however small, would be a disaster. However some of the holier-than-thou comments made by UK and US politicians during the current crisis really do, I’m afraid, stick in my craw! If that is how it makes little ol’ me in Scotland feel, how the hell do we think it makes many ordinary Russians (not the corrupt government) feel?
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