MEMBERS of the Tory party – the party of the rich, the party of austerity, the party of the “hostile environment” and the Windrush scandal, the party that hates human rights and lawyers who give everyone the benefit of the law, the party that passed laws designed to enable them to deport first and hear appeals after, the party that “dreams” of trafficking desperate refugees to Rwanda – are upset that Nicola Sturgeon said she “detests” Tories.

This is the party which is waging war against “woke” culture and which stood with the racists who jeered England’s footballers when they “took the knee”, the party looking to privatise the NHS, the party which fought against feeding poor kids in school holidays, the party whose government partied while 130,000 died of coronavirus, the party that’s told the poor, disabled and pensioners that the answer to rocketing fuel bills from profiteering providers is to wear jumpers, sleep next to pet dogs and use less energy.

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This is the party that passed legislation criminalising the Roma community and which talks about “freedom” in Ukraine while taking away the right to protest in the UK, the party whose previous leader described Black people as “piccaninnies” with “watermelon smiles” and who described gay men as “tank-topped bum boys” and who mocked Muslim women who wear the burqa as “letter boxes” and “bank robbers”.

This is the party whose current leader thinks British workers are “lazy” and tells them to “graft” and who voted 48 times in favour of cuts to welfare benefits and now wants to cut £18 billion from public services.

The hypocritical Tories wrote the book on divisive and dangerous politics. They are detested for a reason. Tories deserve neither respect nor courtesy.

Sasha Simic
London

MANY viewers who watched Nicola Sturgeon’s competent responses to Laura Kuenssberg in spite of the 29 interruptions reported in The National on Monday might have missed Trevor Phillips, who was standing in for Sophy Ridge on Sky on Sunday morning, interviewing Angus Robertson.

The video of that interview is worth watching, especially by aspiring politicians, as an exercise in how to deal politely and calmly with the negative attitude of a poorly prepared interviewer.

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After setting the tone with some initial discussion over the status of the casual conversation between the Prime Minister and First Minister at the Queen’s funeral, the interview moved on with only enough time to cover three subjects: Scottish income tax, the Covid inquiry and a de facto referendum election.

Trevor Phillips began by claiming that Scots would be paying more income tax than others in the UK after April. Angus Robertson’s gentle reminder that he had inadvertently omitted to say that a majority of Scots currently pay less tax than elsewhere in the UK resulted in Trevor Phillips interrupting with an imitation of Jim Trott’s “No, no, no, no, no...” that didn’t faze Angus Robertson in the slightest.

In fact Trevor Phillips’s earpiece must have been red hot as Angus Robertson was then allowed an interruption-free time to explain in some detail how, unlike the UK Government, the Scottish Government was studying expert analysis before deciding on any tax changes.

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The interviewer then showed that he knew even less about independent inquiries than Scottish taxation when he asked what the Scottish Government would do following the resignations of the chairwoman and several other legal members of the Scottish Covid inquiry team.

Angus Robertson had to explain that as this is an independent inquiry the separate Scottish judiciary are responsible for appointing the legal personnel; although he sympathised with people waiting on a report, the Scottish Government could not intervene and assistance would be willingly given if requested by the committee.

In spite of numerous interruptions, Angus Robertson rapidly dismissed a final allegation that a de facto referendum election would be an arrogant act by the SNP, explaining that it would be a last resort if the UK Government continued to ignore the democratic will of Scots who returned a majority of MSPs in Holyrood with manifesto commitments to hold an independence referendum.

John Jamieson
South Queensferry

IN his column, “Let’s learn from past without mythologising it” (Oct 8), Michael Russell tells a story of how he was scared of the late Ian Hamilton because of an unexplained role that Michael played in the 1997 selections for the first ever elections to the Scottish Parliament in 1999. Michael then states that “In the end, he [Ian Hamilton] didn’t stand for that parliament.”

This is not the case. Ian Hamilton was the SNP candidate for the Greenock and Inverclyde election in 1999. Sadly, however, he was not elected.

Christopher McEleny
Greenock

SHONA Craven’s column “Nanny State? As PM, Poppins would be practically perfect” (Oct 11) got me thinking. Long ago I learned that economic theory was premised on rational choices being made by informed consumers. So why would a market fundamentalist PM object to informing consumers?

Of course, the premise is idealistic. Consumers are often not rational, and a cynic might suggest that the entire PR industry is based on hoodwinking the public. You could say the same about Tory political campaigning, so perhaps Truss’s attitude is not so surprising.

Robert Moffat
Penicuik