THE House of Commons has decided Margaret Ferrier’s fate – a 30-day suspension. I have never met Ms Ferrier and what she did during the Covid crisis was at best foolish. How this suspension assists her constituents is difficult to comprehend. 14 SNP MPs voted in favour of the suspension, including SNP deputy House of Commons leader Mhairi Black. Clearly concepts of loyalty and friendship are a thing of the past.
I understand the SNP have even registered and are prepared to spend money on promoting the recall petition in conjunction with the various Unionist parties. Given the current state of the SNP and its leadership, past and present, I would have thought that taking their pitchforks and their burning torches to Rutherglen and Hamilton West to try and unseat their former colleague is not the greatest idea in the world.
READ MORE: Recall petition for Margaret Ferrier to run from June 20
Even in very practical political terms, it will be difficult for the SNP to retain the seat. I do not envy the eventual SNP candidate. If the SNP, in cooperation with the assorted Unionist parties, are now successful, a by-election will have to be held despite the fact that a UK General Election is probably only about a year in the future.
The taxpayer will have to bear the cost of organising the by-election and the SNP and its members will have to spend many thousands of pounds, when money is apparently in short supply, to fight an election campaign which, given the circumstances, they may well not win. Is it too late for common sense to prevail?
John Baird
Largs
NOW that SNP MP Ms Ferrier has been suspended for 30 days for breaking Covid restrictions, how soon can we expect the same, or a more severe penalty, for Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, both of whom committed several more serious breaches and received a stiffer penalty from the courts?
P Davidson
Falkirk
IT was interesting to read the article proclaiming that BBC Scotland is politically biased against independence and the SNP (Report ‘shows BBC Scotland agenda’, Jun 6). I can exclusively also reveal that water is wet and the Tories are liars!
To be fair to Professor John Robertson, he has been studying the output of BBC Scotland for a number of years and his research consistently highlights the political bias of the BBC in Scotland. So what can we do about it?
READ MORE: Ian Blackford to step down as MP at next election
The first thing to mention is that Scotland has the highest rates of people refusing to buy a TV licence (which funds the BBC) – maybe more people could consider this and simply starve the BBC of funds? After all, you wouldn’t knowingly buy a newspaper which you knew was consistently lying to you – yet in the case of the BBC the only option is to ditch the TV licence. It’s perfectly legal to do so and to be honest you don’t miss their output much, if at all.
I gave up on the BBC years ago and one of the first things I did was turn off Good Moaning Scotland – I would wonder why I woke up angry every morning – and I’m sure the anti-Scottish, anti-independence rhetoric of the alleged journalists on that show was behind this. I now wake up to the sound of Planet Rock Radio (other music stations are available) and what a difference, no more bad moods in the morning!
The BBC is simply a propaganda outlet for the British state, it should never be trusted to tell the truth – mainly because it has a history of lying to save the British state.
Cllr Kenny MacLaren
Paisley
The BBC just keep letting the Tories and Unionists away with factually incorrect remarks when discussing independence. It may be a small point, but something that continually annoys me happened again when Martin Geissler interviewed Alister Jack on the BBC on Sunday. In response to a question, Mr Jack said that Mr Swinney of the SNP wanted to break up the United Kingdom.
No, Mr Swinney wants Scotland to become independent. This happens constantly and is never corrected.
Incidentally, no-one is doing a better job of breaking up the United Kingdom than you Mr Jack and your Tory government policies. Keep it up.
I Archibald
Edinburgh
HUMZA Yousaf needs to get real. Without Scotland, rUK is in an extremely difficult situation. Scottish independence is fraught with economic disaster for our once mighty southern neighbour.
Would rUK still be a member of the G7 with Scotland’s exports gone? Would rUK be able to deploy its present nuclear deterrent without its bases in Scotland? rUK would have no control over Scotland’s oil and gas revenues or taxation.
Scotland, not Westminster, would decide how to go forward with wind, solar and tidal renewables, connection charges, production of hydrogen, carbon capture, and pumped storage development. Scotland has no need of nuclear power nor a radioactive waste repository no-one in England wants.
READ MORE: Adam Smith is the greatest economist of all time. But was he right?
rUK Unionists are prepared to enforce continuation of their precious Union by any means, including imposing cobbled-together Westminster laws and political and economic thuggery. The economic and political position Westminster finds itself in is entirely down to Little Englanders, both politicians and those that elected them. They should not be allowed to drag Scotland down with them.
A reality check is necessary with the leadership of the SNP. This disjointed independence movement is entirely down to them. Communal action of all independence actors is required to defeat this collective Unionist harangue. 50,000 SNP members did not leave the leading party of independence without good reason. More of this “continuity” will only confirm the impression that the present SNP leadership are behaving like fifth columnists.
Bob Cotton
via email
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