KEIR Starmer has dismissed a petition to the UK Government and Parliament calling for a General Election that has attracted more than two million signatures, saying, “That’s not how our system works.” He’s right. The people don’t matter.
Starmer has coddled corporate donors, reneged on manifesto pledges, and is now sticking it to the masses.
The petition has tapped into people’s intense anger after four months of Starmer’s regime.
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Cutting the Winter Fuel Payment and retaining the two-child benefit cap “saved” £1.5 billion and £2.5 billion per annum, respectively. That’s chump change. More pensioners will sicken and die this winter, burdening the NHS. Ending the benefit cap would have been the most cost-effective way to reduce child poverty.
Since 2022, the UK has pledged £12.8 billion to Ukraine and Starmer has promised another £3bn per annum for “as long as it takes.”
He’s ramping up defence spending from £54.2bn to £57.1bn, a real increase of 4.5%, and will spend 2.5% of GDP on the military, up from 2.3%.
He’s defending the genocidal Israeli regime. Since October 7 2023 the UK has granted more than 100 weapons export licences to the Zionist state.
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Starmer doesn’t care about the great unwashed public. A General Election won’t change things. The undemocratic voting system ensures Tweedledee will replace Tweedledum. People have no political rights – referendums and initiatives – to hold government to account.
This petition will get a parliamentary debate – nothing more.
Government controls Parliament, not vice versa. The party machinery controls the money, constituency nominations, and whips MPs to obey. If they don’t, it removes their voting rights.
The UK’s not a democracy but a feudal anachronism. It’s only a matter of time before the whole rotten edifice comes crashing down.
Leah Gunn Barrett
Edinburgh
THE difference between London and its Home Counties, and the rest of the UK – Scotland in particular – has become so great that some form of separation is now needed.
This has been highlighted for me not just by obvious BBC bias, but by a revealing remark from a journalist who chairs a debate programme on another prominent television news channel.
This person dismissed the possibility of a nuclear or other direct attack on Britain by Russia, on the basis that Russia has money in the London City banking system, and some of their oligarchs own property in Mayfair and elsewhere in London.
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RAF Fylingdales in Yorkshire, and RAF Lossiemouth in Scotland, plus the nuclear submarine base also in Scotland at Faslane, were all apparently unknown to him. These would be prime targets in any conflict.
Surely, at the very least, a Northern Alliance is now called for, to better represent those ignored by Westminster, and now that Scotland is no longer being run by the previous SNP leadership in the style of a colonial outpost, Scotland could lead this larger independence movement, while the UK Prime Minister wastes his time with risky financial talking shops such as COP29.
Malcolm Parkin
Kinnesswood
THE well-respected “senior” journalist Neal Ascherson has asked some rather uncomfortable questions of the SNP leadership in his essay in the Sunday National (Scotland needs ‘as if’ approach, Nov 24).
However what he failed to closely examine was the “essence of the class character” (K Marx) of the leadership of the SNP, wholly devoid of the term “radical”. The SNP leadership led by John Swinney are all solidly political centrists (even right-of-centre), proudly middle-class, middle- of -the- road, honest, dedicated souls without a radical bone in their collective bodies.
The leadership group consciousness would never entertain the term “confrontation”. It is not in the lexicon of their political ethos.
READ MORE: Inspiring essay by Neal Ascherson must serve as a rallying call
Yet, take a look at 2014 and view the only Yes-voting constituencies: Glasgow, Dundee and North Lanarkshire, all characterised by their chiefly working-class, even radical sensibilities.
The challenge for the SNP will be to create/restore that sense of angry, resolute “fire-in-the-belly” programme from a leadership lacking that political culture. Yes, they all want independence, but are sadly uncertain as to how to achieve it through the standard operating system determined by the Westminster system.
The lost, more radical voices within the SNP will need to be heard prior to 2026 if victory is to be given a chance.
Thom Cross
Carluke
IT’S good that The Ferret is once again showing up what’s wrong in the land (Capercaillie under threat from breeding of game birds, Nov 24) . It is an anomaly that the sporting land owners who are wailing about salmon farming’s effect on wild salmon stocks are blithe about “farmed” game birds being released close by capercaillie breeding areas!!
Jim Addison
Findochty
I FIND it hard to accept a bird that can see a hare a mile away can’t see a turbine blade (‘Wind turbine killed golden eagle’, Nov 25). Hopefully the investigators considered that it might have been poisoned and dumped at the site with its wing removed. Can a turbine blade cut off an eagle’s wing? It sounds dubious to me.
Bill Robertson
via email
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