Infected blood scandal and cover-up can’t be seen as isolated incident

My sympathy goes to all those afflicted by government failure in all that transpired.

However, if this was an isolated instance of government irresponsibility to the point of political denial and cover-up we may somehow, terrible as it is, deal with where we are now, compensate as best we possibly can and move on.

READ MORE: John Swinney apologises to Scottish victims of infected blood scandal

But of course, this isn’t an isolated incident, merely the latest of many examples of how down the years Britain has failed its citizens repeatedly.

There was the injustice of Bloody Sunday, the Birmingham six, and the Guildford four, who were forced to campaign over many years in the face of officialdom’s intransigence for the government to acknowledge the failures in law and process that deprived them of much of their lives when the police put them in the frame and crafted the case to secure convictions, at the expense of truth, justice and apprehension of the actual perpetrators.

There was the struggle of those who were killed and bereaved in the Hillsborough disaster. And the too many years of seeking the justice of those responsible for the policing failures being held to account.

READ MORE: Compensation for infected blood victims by end of year, Government says

There is the 30-year struggle for justice by the subpostmasters abused by the Post Office’s flawed Horizon system, and the managers who knew the system’s flaws and yet still prosecuted those postmasters to debt, penury, loss of homes and even death through the despair of the injustice inflicted on them.

These are not isolated cases. They are a pattern of state abuse by individual politicians who were elected supposedly to deal fairly with and protect us. They are cases where government officials closed ranks to protect themselves, and those responsible for the most heinous incompetence, and avoidance of being held to account for their deliberate misdeeds.

READ MORE: 'Worst treatment disaster in NHS history': What is the contaminated blood scandal?

The infected blood scandal is just the latest in a long litany of examples that show Britain’s Westminster political system has lost its way. And with both major parties inseparable in their stoic defence of the process, the only certainty is there will be no change. Westminster will delay process, deny facts and obfuscate to demean victims and protect the incompetence and wrongdoings of those who hold positions of influence and power. For sure, responsibility, culpability and accountability are not in the British government system’s justice vocabulary.

It’s claimed that Labour are 10 points ahead of the SNP in the polls. I just wonder what these voters think casting their ballot for Labour will gain for them?

Do they really want more of the last 14 years of austerity policies, food banks, child poverty, more tax increases, poorer public services and the secretive responsibility and denial of incompetent, devious and financially promiscuous government, all a certainty as Labour strives to regain red wall support?

Let’s hope not. Because if they vote Labour, then it is me and mine they will be dragging down.

And they will be ensuring that this appalling infected blood scandal, like all of the others highlighted, will not be the last.

Jim Taylor
Edinburgh

YESTERDAY the normally insipid leader of the Labour Party said something that was undeniably true. Following the government statement on the contaminated blood products scandal and cover-up, he looked up at the public gallery and said “politics has failed you” to the campaigners who were at last being heard.

Even the neutered and bland BBC implied that after the Post Office Fujitsu imbroglio and the Hillsborough disgrace, this was beginning to look like a pattern or a norm and there was something seriously wrong.

READ MORE: Infected blood scandal involved 'pervasive' cover up, inquiry finds

Of course the BBC and mainstream media are themselves part of the problem as they long ago lost any pretence of holding the political class to account, instead fraternising with them and forgetting what their profession is meant to be about. Is it any wonder that voter disaffection is rampant?

Meanwhile the International Criminal Court (ICC) issues an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, and his enablers – Biden, most of the EU, with the honourable exception of Ireland, Spain and one or two others – and of course our own discredited leaders squeal in outrage; having utterly failed to rein Israel in after eight months of bloody carnage.

Just one political leader had the vision, guts and courage to call for Netanyahu’s arrest 48 hours before the ICC did. That leader was Alex Salmond, still standing up for Scotland and for what is right, despite the efforts of lesser politicians and indeed the craven and contemptible “chattering classes” to finish him off.

Our democracy may not appear to be as fragile as that of the US but it is entirely possible that huge Conservative losses will herald the return of Farage, Johnson and other populists. We can only hope Scotland will resist being dragged down with the rest of the failed, compromised UK.

Marjorie Ellis Thompson
Edinburgh

I’M requesting that The National show a clear example of factual reporting by differentiating between MSPs who’ve been ELECTED by the voters, and LIST MSPs who are only in our parliament courtesy of internal negotiation in their respective parties. To pretend their voices/opinions carry equal weight to ELECTED MSPs is misleading the electorate, most whom are not au fait with the current voting system. Does anyone have objections to this? If so, I’d like to hear what they are.

Barry Stewart
Blantyre