Don’t rest easy about not living in the US – we have Nigel Farage

My fear is that Trump’s win will embolden the extreme right-wing Tories under Badenoch and her side-kick Patel and the even more extreme Reform UK. By the end of the parliament, it’s entirely possible millions of low-income folk – particularly in England – will become disillusioned by Starmer’s government as they won’t have experienced a significant increase in their living standards. That seems to have been a big factor in Trump’s victory.

This could drive many into the arms of Farage and his chums with others returning to the Tories. A dreaded cocktail which could produce a Tory/Reform UK coalition government. In other words, a total disaster for Scotland!

Apart from the fact that the most powerful Western nation in the world is again being ruled by someone most aptly described by Janey, bless her soul, there are practical consequences for Scotland. Apparently the possibility of tariffs as high as 20% will have a really significant detrimental affect on oor very ain Scotch whisky industry, affecting loads of jobs. Other Scottish exporters to the US will of course be affected too.

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So for aw thaim Tories and Reform supporters in Scotland that think the sun shines out of “The Donald’s” derriere, I dinnae think the Scotch whisky industry and many more Scottish exporters to the US will be amused by your pathetic hero worship of the man.

Returning to Janey’s assessment of the man in one immortal, naughty four-letter word, I could add quite a few Tory and Reform UK politicians to aptly fit this description. Well done Janey, as always you cut through the crap and bullshit and say it as it should be said. Rest in peace, hen!

Ivor Telfer

Dalgety Bay, Fife

DEMOCRATS were rightly positive about the amount of enthusiasm surrounding, for example, activists door-knocking. What they failed to realise was that Elon Musk was “already in the house”, intimately and 24/7.

Put aside the ongoing problem of the sane-washing of mad situations and people by the legacy media, the only genuinely truly unpleasant shock about the outcome of the US election is that half of voters in the US love that yummy misogyny just as much as the racism. And they got it in bucket-loads from MAGA.

This is not just the post-truth world, it’s one of post-empathy. Difficult for decent folk to comprehend ...

Amanda Baker

Edinburgh

IRELAND is expanding its ferry service to France from Rosslare to Cherbourg from two to five return sailings per week and has 10 ferry routes connecting it to France, UK, Belgium, Spain and the Netherlands.

Why doesn’t Scotland have any ferries to Europe? We used to have regular sailings to Norway and the Netherlands. Reinstating a ferry service would alleviate the Brexit hammer-blow dealt to Scottish exports and revitalise tourism.

It’s because our ports, once owned by the burghs, were sold off to offshore private equity funds under the Tories. These guys aren’t interested in investing in Scotland’s underdeveloped Victorian-era ports to attract international shipping, but only want to extract profits for their shareholders and pad their offshore bank accounts. And the two so-called freeports, at the Firth of Forth and Inverness and Cromarty Firth, are additional roadblocks erected by Westminster with Holyrood’s connivance to thwart Scotland’s development and steal its resources.

(Image: Fraser Bremner/Scottish Parliament)

And London is loathe to facilitate links between its Scottish colony and the continent, preferring to control, limit and make Scottish exports more expensive via English ports. When an EU member, the UK withheld financial support for international shipping despite the EU programme, Motorway of the Sea, that would have subsidised it. More recently, plans to link Rosyth and Dunkirk were abandoned because Westminster wouldn’t provide any money.

It’s outrageous that Scotland, surrounded by seas, has no maritime strategy, just as it’s outrageous that the UK is openly stealing our renewable energy resources and leaving Scots in the cold. The Scottish administration – it isn’t a government – needs to grow a spine and stand up for Scotland. It could start by enacting the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) into Scots law, which would give the Scottish People the political rights to exercise their sovereignty and the power to end the Union.

Leah Gunn Barrett

Edinburgh

I NORMALLY read Seven Days from cover to cover, starting with Ruth Wishart’s article, but on Sunday I was struck by Robin McKelvie’s article on inter-railing in Europe. His description of scooting “across northern Italy at speeds faster than any Scottish train” got me thinking of a visit to Italy in 1989.

At short notice, my family had to be near Padua. As a result, we stayed in a village near the city. In the morning, each day, we would take a bus from the village to Padua. It would take us right to the railway station, with no more than 50 metres to walk to the ticket office, and from there we would take a train to Venice. Fast it was, taking less than 45 minutes from Padua to Venice. Such that we spent five days in that wonderful city, travelling there each day by the same means. This was truly integrated travel, but of course the town ran the buses and the country ran the trains. Something we will never be able to do since Thatcher privatised buses in the 1980s .

On returning from Venice, buses at the rail station awaited passengers and took them (and us) to their destination.

On such a bus, we witnessed how Italians deal with a pickpocket. He was thrown headlong off the bus by the passengers (it was stationary at a stop at the time).

Paul Gillon

Leven, Fife

OCTOBER 31 represented a watershed for Germany’s women, the last day they had rights and the last day they were safe. The following day, when Germany’s Selbstbestimmungsgesetz – self-ID law – went live, they were pitched back to the 15th century.

The law was supported by the SPD, Greens and FDP, plus predictably Die Linke. It was rejected by the CDU/CSU, Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance and the AfD. The second and third readings and vote were passed on a Friday afternoon in April 2024, with suspiciously many legislators absent. Many commentators feel that Germany’s law is the worst ever self-ID law, and it has quite some competition.

It allows simple declaration by any man that he is a woman, without any checks or reviews, gender may be changed once a year, and the gender entry “diverse” requires no certificates. Non-binary is allowed, elevating this term which means little to the status of unchallengeable fact.

Parents determine the “gender” entry of their baby children, but from the age of five upwards, children should declare to the registrar that they agree to a change made by parents to the gender entry. Children can determine their own gender from 14, with parental consent. Adults with mental disabilities could have their “gender” changed by carers.

It is forbidden to disclose the sex and former name of a person, with possible fines of up to €10,000. Female quotas are now cancelled and single-sex spaces can only be maintained in individual cases, meaning women’s prisons have been de facto abolished, with men already opting to change gender to go to a female prison, then change back on release.

Sports categories are decided at club level rather than by the ruling association, with the possibility that a club refusing to admit a male to female sports could be sued via the German General Equal Treatment Act.

Particular problems are emerging: • Changing the “gender” (sex) of babies and young children could lend itself to child trafficking and abuse. Female genital mutilation could be hidden by parents changing a child’s “gender”, because although FGM is forbidden, circumcision of boys is allowed; • Disclosure of the previous name or sex of a man who has changed his gender identity may lead to prosecution; • Men are not able to avoid conscription, unless they think far enough in advance of a possible conflict to change gender, which is allowed; • People with dual nationality may be a man in one country and a woman in another; • Criminals may use this law to change their identity, and sex-based statistics no longer exist. The aim is to completely abolish sex as a legal category.

The only real recourse for German feminist groups is to the courts, which they are planning, citing a legal opinion that the Self-ID Act is unconstitutional in several respects.

Scotland took on and beat the aggressive plans for self-ID here, but the hard truth is that without the section 35 block, Scotland’s women would also be back in the 15th century. Every week, a new eye-roll moment emerges, from NHS staff being called “transphobic” for not sharing a changing room with a trans-identifying male to children being “indoctrinated” in gender ideology in school. Our institutions have been taken over, from universities to schools, the NHS to the police, and trade unions accuse women of being transphobic, despite 70% of their members being women!

The way things got so bad is simple. First, language was changed, how women describe ourselves and how trans-identifying males demanded we refer to them. The biological truth that there are only two sexes was declared to be a lie, and the lie became the truth. Describing truthful events became a crime. “Gender” replaced “sex” as the basis of legal rights. Women who spoke out were threatened with losing livelihoods or being disciplined at work, or were attacked at rallies. One of the most dangerous takeovers has been of the police, even in Scotland, where the force is more concerned with virtue-signalling than solving crimes.

Most importantly, governments went under the radar and misled people as to what was proposed. By the time we realised, it was almost too late. Women are tired of the fight, but won’t give up. Most people think gender identity is nonsense and want women’s rights protected. Since its inception, the Independence for Scotland Party has fought for women’s rights to safe spaces and clear laws, as well as improving laws which still overlook women in too many ways, like city planning which compromises women’s (and men’s) safety when out alone in city centres, and fighting to get the medical profession to recognise that women, with a different build from men, react to drugs and treatments differently.

It is tempting to say the fight is won here. We had a lucky escape, but Germany has shown us that we still need to be vigilant.

Julia Pannell

Friockheim, Tayside