AT this time when Scots are striving to regain the independence that promises to modernise Scotland and free itself from the burden of the structures of the past, isn’t it counter-intuitive for Hamish MacPherson to argue for the return to the system of royal burghs based on a discredited feudal system founded on royal patronage, overbearing diktat and privilege (Bring back our royal burghs!, March 19)?
When MacPherson espouses some pride in “tradition”, how does that fit with an outward-looking country whose best interests lie in divesting itself of the very control mechanisms that have held us back for centuries, resulting in an inefficient social structure prejudiced by privilege and acting as a bar to the very equality essential for a modern, forward-thinking society?
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Aren’t articles like this unhelpful in the struggle for independence from the very occupying power and feudal system that instituted them, and confusing for those who would also seek to use such specious argument as a crutch to avoid the hard questions about the status quo and the need to evolve a society based on equality and opportunity?
Scotland is a small country. We’re a’ Jock Tamson’s bairns. There’s little difference between any of us, our needs and interests are substantially the same. And where there are local specifics they can easily be addressed locally within the Scottish collective.
We can no longer afford Wheatley’s version of local government. In the intervening years there have been massive improvements in the very technology that could afford real economies of scale. We are ignoring the financial advantages such technology offers.
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Devolution (indy) never needed to stop in Edinburgh. For example, and just a suggestion, there’s no reason why legal services couldn’t remain there, with human resources and payroll in Glasgow, licensing in Inverness, social care in Dundee, housing from Perth, economic development in Aberdeen, other functions within the Highlands and islands etc.
Smaller local offices could deal with specific local issues, and the corporate labour force could be freed to spread around the country with operational cost savings, lower-cost housing for staff and more economic activity benefits for the regions.
Of course the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities would resist such change, but it’s long overdue to bring Scotland an efficient local government structure we can afford despite such vested interest.
So, rather than giving Unionists the crutch of a discredited and failed feudalistic system of burghs from the past, let’s think about an independent Scotland designing a modern, cost-effective system to take the nation forward into the global world, where prosperity is built on sensible thinking outside the box, not historically within it.
Jim Taylor
Edinburgh
THE propaganda newsprints have been tripping over themselves to offer up thanks that Kate Windsor Sax-Coburg-Gotha has been photographed in public and smiling.
According to one particularly servile rag, it was the picture the world had been waiting for. The editor at that one allowed themselves a little over-the-top grandstanding.
The world is far to busy dealing with rising sea levels, wildly fluctuating weather systems, countless wars, hunger, starvation and torture to be much concerned with how one extremely privileged person is doing. Even on a localised level, not that many people within the UK are overly concerned as to what that family are doing, the magic having been rubbed from their image many years ago. Once that was gone, what was there left?
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Of more concern to the people in the UK is the democratic deficit now being run out of Downing Street. Three out of four countries are told what they should be doing whilst the fourth does as it wishes.
Three out of four countries are continually told how pathetic they would be if left in charge of their own affairs. All three countries having suffered the brutality of the fourth when London wanted to enforce its indoctrination.
What are these “British values” Sunak wants to protect?
What are the benefits of Union?
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Why is it that in the modern era Sunak could, with the flick of a pen, shut down the devolved assemblies?
Why is it in the modern era that the elite still attempt to bluff and bluster the plebs into thinking what a grand land it is?
We really cannot afford to be tied to London any longer, for it is a rapidly sinking ship.
It is now beyond vital that, at the upcoming General Election, we voters here in Scotland send the message to London that enough is enough.
The excesses of a bloated pyramid scheme and London-centric policy doctrine have been the ruin of many on this archipelago, and now it is the ruin of the elite.
Our future is bright.
Independence is right.
Cliff Purvis
Veterans For Scottish Independence 2.0
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