DURING the last few days Kenny MacAskill, Angus Robertson and Alex Salmond have spoken up as strong, savvy men with important things to say on several issues and demonstrated that honest and compassionate leadership is alive and well in the SNP.
In contrast, at PMQ’s this week in Westminster the manner of George Osborne’s response to Angus Robertson’s question regarding the plight of the Brain family was downright tawdry and yet again showed what a nasty, inept character he is.
Hats off to Alex Salmond when he described Osborne as an ignoramus. I wonder if David Cameron secretly shares this view and will ensure that Osborne gets lots of opportunities to show his true colours in events like PMQs, thus demonstrating his lack of decent, appropriate leadership skills and diminishing his chances of ever becoming Prime Minister.
Anne Thomson Address supplied
IF we had the most devolved parliament in the world, as Cameron keeps saying, then families like the Brains wouldn’t have had to suffer the trauma and suffering imposed on them by this right-wing, out-of-touch Tory Government. It’s left to the Scottish Government to minimise the blows to our Scottish steel, gas and oil industry – that’s why we need independence, and soon, from outdated Westminster.
Stevie, Motherwell via text
AFTER watching Question Time on Thursday night and seeing the heated and right-wing debate over immigration, it is clear there is some divide between Scottish and southern English political points of view.
I believe most of the Scottish electorate don’t have the same concerns of “public services on their knees” or “foreigners stealing our jobs” because of immigration, unlike our southern neighbours – we’re more “austerity is the route of the problem”.
The hand-picked BBC audience seem to reflect the scare headlines of the tabloids, and the xenophobic undertones that were prominent in the discussion makes me ashamed to be associated with being “British”. With immigration being one of the main, and if not only, argument striking a chord with the southern electorate, the political ideology could not be further from what we feel, express or desire in Scotland.
This type of behaviour, alongside voting in a Tory Government, should strengthen the message to centre/left Unionists that we will never achieve “our” types of politics within the Union.
Brian Finlay Rutherglen
I CAN hardly believe that The Kicker wrote that “the vast majority of the Rangers support on Saturday conducted themselves well” (Club statement by Rangers is a threat to justice, The National, May 26).
After the game, maybe, but they spent a lot of time during it singing about being “up to their knees in Fenian blood,” as a deliberate provocation of the Hibs fans. I thought the SFA had decided to sanction clubs for singing sectarian hate songs? Rangers should be banned from Europe for that alone.
And Mark Warburton has been talking like an arrogant British supremacist for the entire season if not longer. No wonder some Hibs fans wanted to take the chance to put Rangers in their place in their own way too.
Rangers don’t have a leg to stand on. Making them out to be innocent is blind at best, blinkered for dubious reasons at worst.
Ian McQueen Address supplied
PATRICK Harvie identifies the ongoing problems but gives no solutions! (Transport is a public health concern, The National,
May 27). I share his concern. Air pollution at the levels recorded in various places in Scotland require immediate emergency action as well as a long-term plan.
There appears to be no evidence of either.
I propose to the councils scratching their collective heads over this pressing problem that simple, short-term solutions are at hand.
On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, vehicles with an odd-number registration would be allowed entry to a defined pollution zone.
Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays the even numbered vehicles gain entry.
The police, emergency services and doctors would be excepted, as would motorcyclists and electric vehicles.
Introduce a fine of £1000 for cheaters and surround the protected zone of concern with ticket booths for all vehicles to buy tickets for their empty seats.
The tickets would only be valid for the day they were purchased and could not be purchased earlier. A vehicle without a ticket on their windscreen would be fined £1000. The price of the ticket should pay for the booths, signage and people employed to operate the system.
This way, pollution will be cut dramatically and instantly, employment would go up, revenue would go up, use of public transport would go up.
These are all positives, all are possible right now, you don’t have to wait another 13 years, Patrick.
The moment the pollution level falls below the danger level, give the two categories of vehicles an extra day each, say all vehicles to be granted entry on a Monday and a Thursday but retain the empty seat tickets and fines.
The days of irresponsibility towards life threatening pollution must stop now. Don’t just talk about it.
Christopher Bruce Taynuilt
Sign of the times at site of Hardie’s birthplace
I ENJOYED reading your article on James Kier Hardie (Scotland Back in the Day: Labour have lost touch with Keir Hardie roots, The National, May 24).
However I would like to point out that James Kier Hardie was born in the tiny Hamlet of Legbrannock, which is between Newhouse and my childhood village of Holytown.
Sadly the small miners’ row cottage so familiar to me in my youth, which once proudly displaced a plaque on its wall indicating the place of his birth, has been demolished and replaced by a modern bungalow.
A rather plain sign now marks the spot.
Ian Moncur Alyth, Perthshire
THE pain of reading this, of seeing what Labour are now.
Times have changed, but Labour did not change with them, and effectively became Tories in Hardie’s clothing.
If they simply realised that Scotland could work better socially on its own, then their support for the SNP would turn things around. They appear too dumb to do that though.
Labour is not Hardie’s vision.
Bert Logan via thenational.scot
Letters II: Daughter of socialist pioneer should be proud of his legacy
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