ALYN Smith doesn’t disappoint, does he? His latest project is to win over Scottish Conservative voters to the independence cause, by appealing to Tory disenchantment with their own party’s policies, particularly on asylum, presumably appealing to their inherent decency (Disenchanted Tories are ripe to be won over to Yes, Apr 20).
But the Tories as a middle-class, fairly decent set of chaps disappeared when Maggie Thatcher crashed onto the scene. We consoled ourselves that she was just an aberration, that the Tories weren’t really like that. The trouble is, they are really like that, and worse.
They have any number of ghastly politicians who delight in stamping on and demonising the poor. Their policies since the 1980s have been to trample the working class underfoot in favour of multi-national corporations, outsourcing jobs, importing everything we used to make here, and awarding their own supporters billions of pounds as a direct result of a national crisis. Since the 1980s, they have stripped trade unions of power and forced workers to engage in a competition with each other for minimum-wage jobs.
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Alyn let the mask slip somewhat when he said he does not “feel in any sense British” while acknowledging “of course” the reality that he is, and he is not the only one who appears to have blurred loyalties. But no matter, he did not feel ashamed to be British until the last few weeks?
Where to start? Just being forced to hold British passports does not “make us British”. The UK is a cobbled-together nation-state, later adorned with a forced Britishness of Empire, monarchy, and subjugation of others, firstly the “precious family of nations”, the Scots, Welsh, and Irish, then those overseas who were also fortunate enough to be conquered, occupied and stripped of assets.
That being British is mentioned at all is a strange position for someone claiming to be trying his damnedest to get Scottish independence. He does not say much about the utter cruelty of this British government in welfare assessments denying the disabled benefits, working the poor literally to death, denying people the basic necessities of life while enriching Tory supporters at a time of national crisis. He does briefly mention a winter of discontent to come.
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He does not call out the appalling waste of money refurbishing the Houses of Parliament, sustaining the monarchy and renewing Trident, or those who should be paying more tax but don’t want to. He appears to be ashamed to be British only because of the recent Rwanda asylum plan and Partygate. He thinks there are disenchanted Scottish Tories now looking to independence. Well, I would love to know where. The clue is in the title of the party they support – Conservative and Unionist.
Put together with the disastrous attempt to save England from itself over Brexit (which the SNP had to give its best shot, apparently) the “trickle down” economic plan promoting above all entrepreneurship and business, and the abandonment or watering down of policies such as the National Energy Company and measures to tackle the housing crisis, it is hard to see what the game plan is now for Scotland, either at Westminster or Holyrood.
Julia Pannell
Friockheim, Tayside
WHAT a spiffing idea our Englandshire government has come up with: HALF PRICE RAIL! Wow, so people can stop worrying about eating or heating – they can just hop on a train for a trip somewhere whilst their bairns are in school; and pensioners can just take off and damn the consequences. If ever there was an instant cure for the cost-of-living crisis, this is it.
What next, I ask myself; oh, yes, “let them eat cake” does ring a bell.
Rosemarie Hogg
Cromarty
READER Jim Butchart takes umbrage at Matthew Lindsay’s assertion that Rangers would benefit from the introduction of VAR (Letters, Apr 18) and asserts there is a “pro-Rangers refereeing endemic in the Scottish game.”
I’m not a Rangers or Celtic fan, preferring to spend my money watching a “wee” team. My perception is that whenever a “wee” team plays a “big” team, the “big” team generally gets the benefit of the doubt. Mr Butchart may recall a match a few years ago when my team, Clyde, beat Celtic 2–1 in a Scottish Cup tie. Gordon Strachan, the Celtic manager, had the good grace to say it was 2–1 going on 4– 1. We had two goals disallowed for offside. TV replays showed they were not. We did get a penalty when one of our players was pulled back when through on goal. It had to be a sending-off ... not when you are playing Celtic, apparently. (To be fair to Celtic, the “offender” was substituted at half-time and has never been seen since.)
Mr Butchart claims to speak for the majority of fans. He doesn’t say which fans he included in his survey. I have many friends who support Rangers or Celtic. Generally, they claim that referees are biased towards the “other lot”. In spite of my rant above, I actually believe that whilst referees do get things wrong, over a season it balances out for and against teams.
Douglas Morton
Lanark
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