LIKE Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Sunak before him, Mr Starmer’s portrait will find a place of honour in the hall of fame of UK prime ministers who were instrumental in waking up that vital demographic of Scottish citizens hitherto interested but unconvinced of the case for Scottish self-determination to the point when they begin to join the more than 50% already fully and consistently convinced.
His party’s manifest dishonesty about their agenda with regard to austerity, investment in public services and pensioner and child health, added to their two-tier policing and complicity in the genocide in Gaza that has been revealed in their early weeks in office, are harbingers of the coming definitive end of Scotland’s brief nostalgic retreat into the hands of a Lino ( Labour in name only) party which their grandparents would not recognise.
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The broader Scottish independence movement both popular and party political needs, as never before, to convene “under one banner” to rescue the fate of our children and grandchildren from Britannia sinking beneath the waves in cultural and economic disarray.
Sadly for all our brothers and sisters in the constituent nations of the “Disunited Kingdom”, we all have shared in the economic failure, gross inequality, deteriorating life expectancy and mental illness tsunami that successive neoliberal colonising UK governments have subjected us to.
However we must all share the blame for allowing ourselves to sleepwalk into the “black hole” by failing to hold incompetent and sometimes corrupt politicians to account both at Holyrood and Westminster. The blaming must stop and taking of responsibility much begin in earnest before it is too late.
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I believe that we can do this in 2026, and our solidarity and resolve as Scottish citizens must strengthen with every passing month. I further believe that Starmer’s principles and practice before 2026 will increasingly prompt a national refrain of “enough is enough” and the soft “Nos” will finally take the advice of eminent international economists, post-colonial reformers and the “still small voice” of truth within, urging Scots of all political stripes to reject Westminster and take the first step to to reforming the social, cultural and economic fortunes of the peoples of the British Isles. The first step is Scottish secession. I feel sure Keir Hardie would agree!
Andrew Docherty
Selkirk
AN excellent article by George Kerevan in Monday’s National on the plethora of pro-indy parties (Increasing number of indy parties is confusing voters and wasting energy, Aug 26). May I just point out that not all these parties have indy as their top priority: the Scottish Libertarians, for example, and arguably also the Greens.
George Morton
Rosyth
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MY late father-in-law lived in Malaysia. When visiting, I was often struck by the way that the people discussed transport. Their government has tried to tackle the problems with the transport network and, when they do, they talk about the “first and last mile.”
Getting to public transportation and getting to your destination is often hobbled by that first and last mile and boy, is that true in Scotland.
Last week, the Scottish Government ended its peak-time rail fare experiment. On the one hand, it had failed to meet the success criteria: it wanted a 10% increase, uptake was only 6.8%.
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25 years ago, I studied a unit called The Economics of Transport. Economists were stressing the need for an integrated transport policy which would allow for buses to tessellate with rail; for effective park-and-ride schemes, for congestion zones – a quarter of a century ago.
In essence, solutions to the first and last mile.
What we got was further fragmentation, further privatisation, a relentless march of higher prices and worse services.
The Scottish Government has taken ScotRail and the Caledonian Sleeper back under its wing and is making tentative toddles towards sorting things.
But the government will continue to fail to meet its climate targets if it does not make long-term choices, invest in them and leave them to play out over the long term.
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Transport infrastructure investment, with the multiplier effect of jobs in manufacturing, staffing and providing these systems, is inherently good for an economy.
But it is not a quick fix. And the Scottish Government is not able to do long-term planning because of the short-termism imposed by Westminster: no borrowing powers on international money markets, no guarantee of stability in the block grant, a requirement to balance the budget annually.
Sartre said “hell is other people”. Public transport involves sharing a confined compartment with those other people, so public transport must be cheaper, more reliable, more frequent and less attractive than a hermetically sealed box of your own company.
We’re not there yet, and last week we moved further away.
Peter Newman
Edderton
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