HAS Suella Braverman started another hate campaign? First it was immigration where she eventually considered all migrants coming to the UK as people not wanted by the UK.
Her inclusion of the ordinary person in the street as being of the same warped mind as herself is insulting as much as being obviously so untrue.
With the failure of all immigration control policies by all the Tory administrations for the past decade and more, Braverman has now turned her own “hate campaign” to crowds protesting on streets. More specifically, those recent protesters in support of the people of Gaza who are currently being blown to pieces by the tanks and field artillery of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) as well as those from the jet fighter air-support planes.
When using one-ton bombs with a 3000-degree incineration temperature, nothing would survive within a fairly wide parameter of the explosion area.
It’s no wonder the Israeli leadership can claim to have killed a Hamas leader along with mebby a few Hamas rebel fighters, while ignoring the many more Gazan citizens who were also killed because they were within the explosion parameter – in their homes – being bombed out of existence.
While Netanyahu continues to ignore his so-called “collateral damage” of the people of Gaza, the rest of the world is taking note. Some countries are withdrawing their ambassadors. Hundreds of thousands of people marched through London and elsewhere in the UK in condemnation of the apparent senseless bombing of Gaza. Meanwhile, the UK Government and Labour opposition leaders maintain support for Israel amid growing numbers of their party members who oppose the leadership support.
Suella Braverman should also take note, but I have my doubts she would even think about what she says in public.
Alan Magnus-Bennett
Fife
RECENTLY, an international team of prominent scientists warned that climate change poses an “existential threat” to life on earth, in an assessment of this year’s avalanche of heat records and weather extremes that they said are hitting more ferociously than expected. Surely having Green politicians in power at such a time can only be a good thing!
I was extremely disappointed but not surprised to find that recently Lorna Slater said that independence wasn’t a “red line” which would prevent the Scottish Greens from potentially doing a deal with Scottish Labour in the future.
Humza Yousaf’s decision to freeze council tax next year might have been the last straw for the Greens. Not consulting them beforehand wouldn’t have helped. I stress, though, that I’ve always supported Humza personally, and still do. Also, my heart goes out to him, his wife Nadia El-Nakla and her family in Gaza at this horrendous time.
I’m one of those ex-Labour voters from many moons ago who deserted them in their droves for the SNP and I loathe regressive taxes, such as the council tax. I acknowledge the SNP have had council tax freezes before but they never sat well with me then. With widespread abject poverty nowadays, not allowing cooncils to make folk in ginormous hooses pay more to help those less fortunate than them is a clear no-no for me. It’s no a time tae help thaim that dinnae need it!
Let’s face it, ever since the Bute House Agreement, many within the independence movement and the SNP (not so much the Government) have made Green politicians feel about as welcome as the proverbial obnoxious odour in a lift or a spacesuit! As someone who supports both the SNP government and the Greens, I’ve always found that very disappointing.
Sometimes life is not complicated but very simple. I reckon most folk don’t go through life without at least one person making them feel unwelcome at some point. When that happens, it comes tae the point when there’s nae point in banging yer heid against a brick wa’, so it’s time tae bugger off and find new pals!
Finally, a plea to the high-heid yins in the SNP! What happens if the Greens do get it together with Scottish Labour and the SNP veer to the right? Where do we independence-supporting, lefty, liberal, progressive, woke, genuinely environmentally aware with a genuine social conscience types go? Answers on a postcard, please!
Ivor Telfer
Dalgety Bay, Fife
IN the first decade of the 19th century, aircraft were made of bamboo, wire and fabric. At the end of the First World War, a Scottish-built airship flew the Atlantic both ways carrying a full crew and a cat. Twenty years later, the Spitfire was in production. By the end of the Second World War, jet planes took to the sky leading to the shrinking of the globe. This technological explosion was fuelled by oil. In this century, we must undo the damage we have caused and stop oil.
Peter Thomson examines, light-heartedly in The National (Wednesday, November 1), what would happen if we did stop it. I find this too serious a matter not to comment.
Firstly, he talks of the blood bag and drip question. These vital but small bags are a tiny percentage of petrochemical production. This would, in a common-sense world, be allowed to carry on until another technique could be developed.
Regarding materials generally, when I first went to school, all my clothes were wool, my shoes and bag were leather and they were stitched together by thread made in the world’s biggest thread factory in Paisley (and washing dried by the wind). The sheep that clad me roamed the Scottish hills where now forward-looking farmers are integrating tree-planting around water courses and stock grazing into a new landscape.
There is nothing to suggest that this landscape cannot feed us in the future. Regarding Peter’s fear of cityscapes crumbling, I can definitely remember going about Edinburgh in absolute safety many years before antibiotics were commonplace, along streets that were much tidier, in air that was cleaner, despite the smell of horses.
The most radical unwinding is the end of the private car. At the time I speak of, there were few cars. Buses, trams and trains supplied a rapid, local service (though modern high-speed trains are better, particularly abroad). If the car and the plane go, oil goes too. So does air pollution, and for example rubber pollution by land spoliation and particulates, and the constant, wasteful replacement of the ephemeral vehicles themselves. As for planes which, like cars, have appeared for a brief century, they will disappear in the next.
The slogan is that Scotland can do it, by being first into the future.
Iain WD Forde
Scotlandwell
INDELIBLE name on the child’s hand, beneath the rain of death unceasing; much, much too young to understand, the bombing, or the reason.
A mother cries, a father wails, as thirst and hunger take their toll; while a population walk on trails, survival is their only goal.
Rubble now where homes would stand, the air is filled with flying lead; another name on another hand, on the corpse of a child now dead.
Dear God, where now humanity, is there no more love to share; this is a war of hate and insanity, yet who at Westminster cares.
The silence is a pure disgrace, but for sure we shan’t forget; no ceasefire sought from that place, one day you shall regret.
Another child, an indelible pen, one more innocent dead and gone; graves for thousand of women and men, and a war that cannot be won.
George Robertson
Edinburgh
THE UK Covid Inquiry has hardly got under way and already we have learned that during the pandemic, the Scots (and Welsh and Northern Irish) were treated as inferiors by the UK Government. Surely evidence enough that remaining in this Union poses a serious threat to our health?
John Jamieson South Queensferry WHY is the BBC’s Reporting Scotland not reporting major news stories emanating from the UK Covid Inquiry involving UK Government ministers but seems focused on WhatsApp messages of Scottish Government ministers that may have little relevance to decisions made about the Covid pandemic?
Why is this apparent political bias permitted to continue – or is there simply a shortage of reporters available to cover events in England in spite of there seemingly always being reporters available in England to additionally cover news stories in Scotland (especially when the latter stories do not apparently reflect positively on the Scottish Government)?
Why are the families of thousands of Scots who perhaps died unnecessarily because of the gross incompetence of Boris Johnson and his cronies being denied the full truth by our public broadcaster?
Why are significant divisions within the Labour Party over the Israel-Palestine conflict not highlighted in BBC news programmes while relatively minor issues arising within the SNP are given prominence?
Why are the roles of the US and the UK in delivering advanced weapons – that have in the past few weeks killed nearly 10,000 innocent civilians – not questioned?
Why are all the families of those who have died throughout this conflict being denied objective reporting and analyses which could not only aid in delivering appropriate justice for all but help to bring about a genuine “two-state solution”?
Why is the pivotal role of Alister Jack as Secretary of State for Scotland (who apparently has still not submitted his requested witness statement) not been questioned with regard to decisions made at Westminster during the pandemic that had disastrous consequences for thousands of families in Scotland?
Why are we subjected to gossiping about what might have been contained in private social media messages while there have been no stories about how poorly the UK and Scotland were prepared for a pandemic and why tens of billions of pounds were wasted on unusable PPE and a malfunctioning Test\Track\Trace system (never mind written-off fraud)?
Who at the BBC will be held to account for its role in sustaining the rule of a prime minister who was clearly not fit to run a government and who through his gross incompetence may have cost tens of thousands of people their lives?
How can the publicly funded BBC Scotland news directors and staff hold their heads high when collectively they continue to fail the Scottish public?
Stan Grodynski
Longniddry, East Lothian
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