I COULD try to write a letter on the failed union that clasps Scotland to its shrivelled Union-Jacked bosom. But can I just take a few lines to focus on the person possibly going to be the next leader of the Tory party, Olukemi Olufunto Adegoke Badenoch?
To challenge the mispronunciation of her name (I have to do that regularly with mine) by announcing “there’s no bad in Badenoch” was way up there on the chutzpah scale. And it’s that ballsy-ness that just might get her over the line.
We know that Tory Party voting members have their own form when making mistakes as they come to anoint their next leader. They have tended in the recent past to go for style over substance: a very pleasing vacuous individual, but this time there’s a very hard edge under that chutzpah.
READ MORE: Kemi Badenoch rows with BBC Scotland presenter over 'voluntary union'
Badenoch told GB news on October 24 that “we should be deporting more than we do now” and that staffers in the Home Office “want to look after people, to help them. We need to make sure those people work in charities, not in the Home Office.” OK, it was GB News, so she was pitching accordingly, but be warned, charities. Should she ever get power, then Ms Badenoch will be looking at your work very carefully.
And as for us? She said she’d “rather see migration to Scotland from within the UK”. And how would be achieved? Voluntary? With what sort of inducements? Free land, free housing? Surely she’s not considering forced migration!
Or was she just being a paler shade of Lee Anderson with his jibe last year saying asylum seekers should be sent to the Orkney Islands? How very colonial!
And please, before you say that’s too extreme, just think about the rise of the far right here and abroad. So with her as possible Tory leader, previewing what the next Tory onslaught would be like in government as she sits opposite Starmer, I am beginning to be more angry and more frustrated and the seeming inability of Scotland to extricate itself from that grubby embrace which passes as a voluntary union. Both parties regard Scotland (if not openly) as a resource-rich backwater, their bank of last resort to be raided when the need arises.
READ MORE: 'Turned down a peerage twice': JK Rowling rejects Kemi Badenoch's Lords offer
To their shared unease, we natives are still a bit ballsy, with undiminished designs on independence, the arrogance to seek power such as over immigration, or the choosing to mitigate some, if not all, of their smash-and-grabs on our people. It’s that constant needling, our never going away, that so frustrates Westminster.
Those 2026 elections are months away. Lose in 2026 and we have lost.
Hoping folks will vote for independence won’t cut it, so where is the leadership we need? A leadership prepared to lead with messages, visions, hope of a better future. Prepared to look across the landscape, political, social, business, finance, grassroots, for unity in the common goal. Leadership, dare I say, a bit more ballsy.
Selma Rahman
Edinburgh
ROBERT Jenrick has a brass neck to tell the Commonwealth countries that they owe Britain.
The empire plundered their natural resources, enslaved their peoples and set in place boundaries agreed with other European countries that ignored the indigenous peoples and their territories (Former colonies ‘owe gratitude’ to Britain for empire, Jenrick says, Oct 30). The “wealth” of the UK is based on the untrammelled stripping of raw materials from Africa, India and the Americas, until the colonists revolted in 1775, to drive our industrialisation and the impoverishment of the working classes in Britain itself.
This trait of the London-centric upper class is still in evidence as they “buy” estates in the Caribbean, South Africa and Scotland where the wholesale pillaging of natural resources still goes on.
When the people of Scotland realise that they are the victims of English buccaneers, perhaps they will decide to give them short shrift and stand on the de facto sovereignty that is theirs.
David Neilson
Dumfries
READING Shona Craven’s piece on “catfishing” in Tuesday’s National was interesting, if only because I too received the exact same email concerning a government “living expenses subsidy scheme” (Don’t be too confident a catfish couldn’t trick you, Oct 29). However, I was also aware of the probability of it being a scam and so immediately deleted it.
The whole article of Shona Craven’s discussion is a warning to others to read carefully such information that involves the offer of free cash payments that might come our way within the social media availability we use.
And for heaven’s sake, DO NOT be tempted to open any attached link, regardless of how much it appears attractively genuine.
Alan Magnus-Bennett
Fife
WHY don’t we have elections at Halloween? It’s bewitching, it’s a lot of magic, smoke and mirrors. A lot of masquerading. And we find out whether it’s going to be trick or treat.
Geoff Moore
Alness, Highland
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here