VICEROY Murray intones “It’s time for serious grown-up politics again.” Does he mean grown-up like his boss, sponger in chief Sir Keir, who accepted more than £100,000 in freebies for designer clothes, specs, concert and football tickets, holidays and a personal trainer, more than any other recent party leader? This from a man who just last month vowed to clean up politics after Tory cronyism and corruption.
READ MORE: Ian Murray humbled as he's forced to retract 'made up' claim against journalist
Does he mean the £4 million donation English Labour received before the General Election from Cayman Islands-based Quadrature Capital, a mega investor in fossil fuels, private health companies, weapons manufacturers and asset managers? Labour’s largest gift ever, it was strategically made during the one-week window between Sunak’s General Election announcement and the start of the “pre-poll reporting period” when all political donations over £11,180 must be published weekly rather quarterly. The May 28 gift was only revealed last week, two months after the election. No wonder Starmer, Reeves and Streeting are bringing back PFIs, continuing financial deregulation, and privatising the NHS. He who pays the piper calls the tune.
Does he mean how Sir Keir concealed his donors – Martin Taylor, Sir Trevor Chinn and Baron Waheed Alli – until after his 2020 leadership election?
READ MORE: I'm the Labour conference protester – here's what really happened
Does he mean English Labour’s proposed rule changes to prevent challengers from forcing a leadership vote that would secure the vain and greedy Starmer in his post, freeing him to inflict all the pain his donors demand on the long-suffering public for five years?
The Viceroy says he cares about a better and fairer Scotland. Is that why he voted to let our pensioners freeze and our children live in poverty? Or why he’s letting our industries die and our resources to be stolen?
This isn’t grown-up government. It’s naked colonial exploitation.
Wake up, Scotland.
Leah Gunn Barrett
Edinburgh
I LOVE reading The National, especially the analysis of the journalists and the letters pages. Sometimes, however, the perspective provided makes my heart sink. The article “New indy leaflet to be launched at SNP Day of Action” (Sep 21) is a case in point. Apparently the SNP are urging Scots to be “optimistic and hopeful” as they launch a new leaflet on independence. The leaflet will pledge cheaper energy prices and the removal of nuclear weapons from Scotland’s waters, an NHS free at the point of use, economic growth boosted by no longer being part of a “broken Westminster system”, and Scots always getting the government they vote for.
READ MORE: Statements from SNP leaders must be taken with a pinch of salt
Good grief, is this the best we can offer? It’s difficult to be optimistic and hopeful when there is no plan in place to get from where we are to where we need to be. Cheaper energy prices – how, when, and by how much, or is it just a soundbite that people will see through? The issues of nuclear weapons, Nato etc are post-indy considerations. An NHS free at the point of need is what we already have. I appreciate the universal service is under threat, but it’s not sexy to tell people to vote for indy so they can keep what they already have. Being part of a “broken Westminster system” has been evident for decades, yet if we are being honest, many people are anti-indy because they take comfort in being part of a bigger, more powerful state. That argument hasn’t won over enough hearts and minds before, so why would it do so now?
I’m not one to criticise without offering an alternative, so my five points in the leaflet would be:
1. Our top priority will always be ensuring our young people and older people are lifted out of poverty,
2. We value, and will always provide, free education and free healthcare to all our citizens,
3. We will rejoin the EU family,
4. We will withdraw from Westminster and not dignify the snouts-in-the-trough culture with our presence,
5. We will at all times respect democracy, elect our head of state, remove hereditary peers and appointed peers from lawmaking and government, and elect a second chamber to hold the government to account on behalf of the people.
More of the same just isn’t going to hack it. Without a substantial and radical change of thinking and direction we will continue on the road to nowhere. The best predictor of future performance is past behaviour. If the leadership of the SNP read The National letters pages, for goodness sake hear our pleas and give us something to shout from the rooftops! Not the same old same old.
Professor Alan Boyter
Strachur, Argyll
SURELY if Labour and Reform are trying to dictate which media are allowed to attend their events, the media can defend themselves (Investigative news outlet ‘barred’ from Labour conference, Sep 21), (Journalist ‘blocked’ from ‘free speech loving’ Reform UK’s conference, Sep 21). Why don’t the whole collective of TV, radio and newspapers boycott the events, leading to a total news blackout? They’d soon change their minds if they were losing the oxygen that is exposure of their ideas and plans.
Steve Cunningham
Aberdeen
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