WITH moribund Alister Jack retaining his grace-and-favour position as the redundant Scottish Secretary (Alister Jack stays as Scottish Secretary at helm of ‘zombie’ department, Sep 7), should we be surprised?

Truss’s assembled Cabinet has transpired to be little more than just a bunch of her favoured cronies from the same old talentless Tory crew that have spent the last 12 years trashing Britain and its economy, squeezing the poor and disadvantaged while feeding largesse to the richest in society who need it least.

Hasn’t the Tories’ ship hit the iceberg and Truss replaced the captain to better shuffle the deckchairs around the deck in the hope of bringing some degree of comfort as the icy cold water of failed Tory economics submerges us all?

Truss says she’s going to fix hospitals, schools, roads and broadband, and build homes. Isn’t this the same Tory tosh we’ve been told so many times, which even a complete nincompoop would only state as a new incoming government rather than embarrassing your own party for its own incompetence and policy failures during the last 12 years of Tory administration? They’ve been taking us for fools, smugly lying to us all the while that everything on the Tory ship is great, while we clearly know it’s not. Let’s not discard our lifejackets yet!

However, isn’t the biggest farce Truss being allowed to lie without being challenged by the media? She stated categorically, “With our allies we will stand up for freedom and democracy around the world …” She supports freedom and democracy for all – but in the most crass of contradictions, not for Scotland.

We are being denied democratic expression of the wishes of Scots through referendum about regaining our independence from the UK. No freedom to regain the dignity of free nationhood to steer our own ship on the vastly different course of Truss’s UK sinking ship. Ukraine has the right to independence, but not the colony of Scotland.

We already know Truss is an intellectual lightweight, a political sponge absorbing the views of those who influence her. She supported her parents’ left-wing ideology when growing up, even joining the LibDems and advocating abolition of the monarchy (wonder what the Queen thought of that at their Balmoral meeting?), and then flip-flopped to her extreme right-wing mantra when she met and married her Tory-supporting LSE economics lecturer husband. Will anything she claims or any policy she makes settle long enough to take effect?

The only thing we can be sure of with the Tories in office is that it matters not who is in control of them. None of them are credible enough to throw the trajectory of Scotland’s independence off course.

When around only 68,000 Tory supporters are allowed to select the Prime Minister for 68,000,000 Britons then democracy has truly deserted us, with only the illusion remaining.

If real democracy is the imperative for Scots then the only way to achieve that is through independence. Perhaps that’s the one thing Truss will inadvertently deliver.

Let’s get it done!

Jim Taylor
Edinburgh

IT speaks volumes for the ability of the Scottish Tory MPs that, whilst they found one to be Scottish Secretary, not one of them was considered for wider office.

Ian Richmond
via email

WITNESSING the litter on our streets during the bin strikes, I recalled in 2010 that the SNP annual conference passed by acclaim a resolution to introduce compulsory refundable deposits on all containers, including bottles, cans, cups, cartons and pokes. The scheme would have been policed by barcodes and the suggested deposit would have been 50p per item. Even if the miscreant litter-dropper could afford to lose 50p, there would have been a ready income-producing source for those picking it up.

Just as legislation on minimum pricing of alcohol was approved on public health grounds, likewise this proposal was. Furthermore the scheme could have gone some way to redress the balance between shops and online retailers, whose delivery packaging verges on the outrageous.

Twelve years later, as the Scottish Government struggles to introduce its much more modest scheme due to HMRC intransigence over the issue of VAT, I’m forced to conclude that had our government implemented SNP policy on this matter when there was a much more cooperative UK Government, the visual and environmental consequences of the recent disputes would have been less significant.

I’m not aware of any attempt by our government to speak to the party members who proposed and supported the original resolution.

I hope that as the party’s policy development committee gains a higher profile, party policy will be given urgent and considered attention by our government, and that at annual conference it provides members with a report on what steps have been taken to implement resolutions which were passed at the previous conference.

Graeme McCormick
Arden