SO Partygate is turning off the faithful, is it (Polls show voters ditching Tories after partygate, Apr 5)? Really? Not the open manipulation of the rUK government when it attempted the illegal proroguing of the Westminster Parliament? Not the open attacks on the legitimate functioning of democracy and our own parliament? Not the corruption surrounding Covid contracts? Not the bending of the rules by the likes of Cummings and Jenrick? The latter broke the rules twice: once travelling to his second home, once to see his parents, and don’t forget he was the Secretary of State for Housing at the time of the Grenfell disaster. Not the spiralling cost of living? Not Rees-Mogg claiming the PM has been given the wrong information and therefore had not lied to the House? Really.
So with the forthcoming local elections, will it be potholes or parties? Will it be ABSNP and ABIs: Anyone but SNP and Anyone but Indys?
READ MORE: 'Disconnected' Tory Chancellor is turning off voters as cost-of-living crisis starts to bite
Or can we ask voters to stop and think? Do we want our local authorities in line with our government, or in opposition? In the absence of full powers and the fiscal ability to fund priorities and policies that will come with independence, can we afford local authorities and a government that are in effect confrontational? Or are we going to try to sync local needs to progressive national policies such as the latest: the doubling of the Scottish Child payment, helping meet the needs of children and their families/carers?
It may well be that partygate is losing Tory votes. It was to be expected, then, that the latest TV Tory election broadcast in Scotland shows them (male and pale) gunning for the SNP with the usual negative chorus of focusing on independence, whilst missing the irony that their broadcast is without policies and innovations of their own on offer.
Who could believe that such a party has the ability to hold power and deliver services at local level whilst its party HQ is diminished to the dangerous point that corruption, lying and rule-breaking are becoming the accepted norm? The remaining pro-Unionist parties offer nothing of substance, dependent as they are on main office finance and approval. They’re drum beating to an old tune.
So come May, will it be potholes, parties, or a belief that local elections are a required validation of pro-indy resolve?
Selma Rahman
Edinburgh
READ MORE: Yes support would be boosted by more empowerment at local government level
IN the upcoming Scottish council elections, let it be known that the SNP is firmly focused on all local issues, along with the campaign for independence. A prominent and pressing local and national issue has been affordable housing. Since 2007 the SNP Scottish Government has completed 102,055 homes through Scotland’s Affordable Housing Supply Programme. Its draft budget has committed to delivering a further 110,000 affordable “energy-efficient homes” by 2032, allocating a capital investment of £3.3 billion. To make sure this benefits all regional councils and to allay, as far as possible, the unfolding cost-of living crisis, cast your vote on May 5 for every SNP candidate.
Grant Frazer
Newtonmore
SCOTLAND is not going through a cost-of-living crisis. Scotland is suffering from a being-in-the-Union crisis. Scotland is a colony whose vast resources are being plundered by the colonial power.
Scotland does not elect its own government, it does not set its own tax rate. Instead Scotland has a foreign Tory dictatorship foisted upon it. This system is enforced through an absurd propaganda system wholly owned by tax-dodging billionaires and the UK state-funded broadcaster.
An example of the ludicrous nature of anti-independence arguments proffered by Unionists can be seen in discussion of the Ferguson Marine shipyard.
However flawed, the process the Scottish Government had to protect shipbuilding capacity on the Clyde. This was to build ships in Scotland for Scotland. This cost £250 million. This has drawn the ire of the Unionist parties.
READ MORE: 'Working in Barlinnie prison was better than being a councillor’
However, their anger is entirely self-serving, opportunistic and synthetic. The Tories at Westminster wasted £38 billion on a Test and Trace system that did neither. This is only one example – there are many more. The Westminster government squanders an infinitely larger amount and the Unionist parties are silent. This is because they only angry when the Scottish Government can be accused of profligacy. According to Unionists, Westminster and Boris Johnson can do no wrong.
The same goes for their arguments against independence. Every day British Unionists talk in cataclysmic terms about the dire consequences of the end of the Union. Yet far worse is actually being done to Scotland because of Tory Brexit. The whole Unionist line against independence is nonsensical and against reality.
Tory English Health Secretary Sajid Javid announced an end to free parking for NHS staff down south. The Scottish Government did the opposite. Such is the stupidity and contempt of British Unionists that they would take Westminster’s side.
To be a British Unionist requires the abandonment of reason and to accept any vileness, no matter how absurd, all in defence of the “precious Union”.
Alan Hinnrichs
Dundee
ANENT comments on the forthcoming royal jubilee, we should never forget that the House of Windsor is a longstanding litmus test employed by the UK establishment to gauge the gullibility and inertia of the tax-paying public.
On another level, but operating on the same principle, are the obscene amounts handed to footballers, golfers, tennis players etc for playing games. The crafty rich elites know well that if we swallow these disgraceful injustices, we will put up with anything. Sadly, they are right.
Jim Butchart
Haddington
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