AN extraordinary tale of how one thing leads to another. I read in The National that Professor Elisa Morgera has become the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Climate Change and that she lives in Scotland.

Then I opened my post from the DVLA in Swansea. Of course we all bless the Welsh and wish Plaid Cymru a resounding win so that they can push for the independence of Wales. I half expect the letters from the DVLA to sound with a Welsh accent but sadly this letter “sounded” as if it came from a not-so-bright boy from a posh fee-paying school near Windsor.

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“Oh yar this will be a jolly fine wheeze for the old climate crisis, we’ll exempt electric cars and wee ones (and some really old ones because daddy’s got a stable full of them that he really can’t part with) from paying that beastly road fund tax and all those greenies will think we are wonderful. Then we will send all the owners of those vehicles a letter once a year telling them that the fee they have to pay is NIL but they have to register over the internet or by telephone or by writing back to the DVLA using a good old-fashioned envelope and stamp.”

I wonder if Professor Morgera could get a PhD student to work out what the carbon footprint is of sending out letters in what seems to me to be a nonsensical exercise.

Of course one thing leads to another. I need to service my wee car and have it MOT-ed by the end of the month, so I went to see my man at the garage. I have known him a long time and he is a good man and a great mechanic. I know that as far as I am concerned he thinks I am a great person too, apart from the fact that I support the idea of Scottish independence. He is a man loyal to King Charles, the Union and Rangers although not necessarily in that order.

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We got to speaking about the form from Swansea and we both agreed upon the ridiculous nature of it and then he said – and I am telling you if a slight breeze had sprung up it would have knocked me over, for he and I have oft times sparred over the constitutional question – he said … “I am so fed up with the way the Westminster government is carrying on. If there is an opportunity to vote again for an independent Scotland, I will. I like the new guy Humza, he speaks about a lot of different issues, not just independence, I think he is a good man.”

I am not one to be lost for words but I was at that moment. My question to you is: will one thing lead to another, and will you take a fresh look are the NOs in your circle ? They may have changed their minds. We will get independence as soon as enough of those NOs revise to YES.

Cher Bonfis
via email

AN intriguing report published this week made reference to the need for the Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) to modernise its premises and rename itself.

The report from UCL Policy Lab and Hertford College Oxford, involving leading diplomats, calls for “a renewed vision of UK foreign affairs”. The FCDO premises apparently have many portraits of towering figures from the UK’s colonial past.

The report gives an example of a senior Irish diplomat coming to a meeting about the UK Food and Nutrition Summit having to walk past a portrait of Lord Trevelyan, whose role during the Irish Potato famine was less than glorious!

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In the last couple of years, the narrative that has gained some traction among independence-supporting voters is that Scotland was effectively annexed by the Westminster government, and was and is increasingly treated like a colonial possession.

The Treaty of Union 1707 is currently being scrutinised very carefully by historians and researchers like Sara Salyers with a particular examination of its international links and impact. Sara and others are researching the ancient Scottish constitutional rules and laws including distinctively Scots practices such as the Common Good linked to Royal Burghs, eroded over time by ignorance and rapacious landlords,

Professor Alf Baird in his book Doun-Hauden (the Scots for Oppressed) has put forward the theory that the English ruling class with its Anglophone language, culture and settler ambitions has been swamping Scottish culture, Scots language and institutions much as it did in India and other colonial possessions.

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Interestingly, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, himself a product of the English public school system which produced so many colonial administrators, does not believe that the Foreign Office is “elitist” or should remove colonial-era paintings (of course they could leave the paintings and explain the imperial role played).

South Africa’s recent trip to the International Court of Justice, with its immaculately prepared case against Israeli warmongering, has demonstrated how quickly political narratives can be changed and international solidarity achieved.

As someone who has always been very curious about the detail of Foreign Office overseas exploits, it is particularly interesting that this report has emerged at this time.

Maggie Chetty
Glasgow