IN SNP depute leadership hopeful Alyn Smith’s piece in the Sunday Herald, he warned against a rush to referendum and to avoid “machismo” and “clairvoyancy” in deliberations about indyref2. I’m still feeling angry that someone with his track record in the EU can make the point that as a European citizen of the past 40 years I can have my status rescinded by a government in London that I had no part in electing and who voted with a majority of my countrymen emphatically to stay in the EU.
He appears to be anxious to be “respectful” to the one million who voted to leave.
Fortunately, I’ve already committed my vote in the depute leadership campaign, but this tone of appeasement is probably a political blunder which may well reflect on his ambitions. I don’t need the help of a clairvoyant to see the future of Scotland’s renewable energy.
After all, with our eight per cent population share of the obscenity of Hinkley Point nuclear power station costing £30 billion over its lifetime, we could take back control of our power grid and be just like any other European country managing its power distribution without geographical penalty for the benefit of all our consumers and the disadvantage of private shareholders.
This would allow us to exploit fully the potential of our emerging renewable energy industry and be a significant player in the North Sea European super-grid. This is not something that’s available to Scots who might be “quite happy” with Brexit.
No clairvoyant is needed to highlight the pantomime farce of the Dukes of Westmonster marching their WMD up to the top of Coulport and marching them back down again every two months and at great risk to our main centres of population as highlighted by CND Scotland.
We owe Brian Quail and his young apprentice a debt of gratitude for graphically highlighting this nonsense in their protest at Stirling last week.
The removal of Trident from our country is not something that’s available to Scots who might be “quite happy” with Brexit as the issue is clearly a matter of “national security” and keeping the Jocks in their place.
In the mantra of the Brexiteers,
I and many of my fellow Scots would like to “take back control” of our land for the benefit of all and to use this huge resource for the equitable raising of revenue through an enlightened Land Tax to effectively penalise tax dodgers and speculators playing real time monopoly with our birthright in their efforts to minimise contributions to our national exchequer. Clearly this is not something that’s available to Scots who might be “quite happy” with Brexit.
And then there is the prospect of interminable Tory clowns trying their hand at government. After all, we’re led to believe Boris didn’t really want to win the referendum he was only after David Cameron’s job. Three months after the event, the new kids on the Westmonster block offer no clues as to what the Brexit future looks like and, given the abject failure of Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition, Alyn Smith invites us to believe Scots might be “quite happy” with Brexit.
I’m no apologist for all that’s done in the name of the EU, however, to offer the idea that we should cease to be European citizens in two years’ time at the behest of an alien government then reapply for European citizenship at some future unspecified date is insulting the intelligence of the Scottish remain voting electorate.
I can only suggest that those Scots who might be “quite happy” with Brexit, need to confront Derek Bateman’s proposition that: “We can either suffer helplessly as collateral damage from the mess created by the Union or trust ourselves to run the country and tidy up ourselves. Deference or dignity, you might say.”
Iain Bruce
Nairn
People choose the country they live in for more reasons than taxes
THE article by Michael Fry makes the assumption that if Scotland were to tax wealth, the wealthy would “remove themselves from Scotland” (Equality: Will it become just a broken dream? The National, Sep 29).
The “total tax wedge” paid by people in Belgium, Germany or France is one and a half times the wedge in the UK … and yet the Belgians, French and Germans do not leave their country en masse.
France has a wealth tax, the ISF, payable by the 342,000 people with assets of €1.3 million (approx. £1.12m) or more. Whilst it is true that a handful of high-profile figures such as Gerard Depardieu (actor) and Johnny Hallyday (rock star) moved out of France because of the ISF, the remaining 341,998 ISF taxpayers stayed behind.
They stay because they like the place, because their family lives there, because it’s their home … and because the tax pays for amenities they enjoy.
The same would be true in Scotland. People like living in Scotland, and they would stay. Scotland could safely introduce a wealth tax to redress the blight of the poverty gap.
Chris Carnie
Barcelona
WHAT’S the objective of the opposition at Holyrood ? At the moment it looks like the approach is to be obstructive rather than constructive.
For the second successive week, the Tory, Labour, LibDem and Green parties have combined to defeat the minority SNP Scottish Government.
Last week it was a motion condemning the Government for “undermining the principle of local accountability and autonomy”; this week they were asking that same government “to call in proposals, as set out by NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde, NHS Lanarkshire and NHS Lothian for ministerial decision”.
Last week more devolution, this week more centralisation.
It’s sadly reminiscent of 2007 when, what later became Better Together and the Greens demonstrated the power of their parliamentary majority by voting through the unrealistically costed Edinburgh trams project against the advice of the minority SNP Scottish Government.
What can we expect to see from BT+ in the coming weeks? Perhaps the revival of the Glasgow Airport rail link project (already the subject of a Labour motion) or an extension of the Edinburgh trams network to name but two of many possibilities.
There will be more examples of BT+ exerting their majority position of power without responsibility, to the detriment of those who had been promised much more if they cast their votes for an effective opposition.
We can only wait for the Scottish Budget with the prospect of BT+ forcing through amendments regardless of their cost.
John Jamieson
South Queensferry
THE Dubliners had a hit with a song called Seven Drunken Nights wherein a wife attempts to hide her adultery by fooling her perpetually drunk husband that what he sees is illusionary.
She tells him that a man in his bed is actually a baby her mother sent her.
His reply is that he has never seen a baby with whiskers. There is a Scottish version Hame Cam’ Oor Guidman at E’en where the wife tries to convince her drunken husband a uniform belongs to her cousin.
His reply: “‘Your cousin,’ quo he, ‘Aye cousin quo she’; ‘Blind as he may jibe me, I’ve sight enough tae see, Ye’re hidin Tories in the hoose, Without the leave o’ me.”
In the Scottish version it would appear hiding Tories is more shameful than adultery.
Jim McLean
London
INTERNATIONAL Blasphemy Rights Day today? (Letters, Sep 29). An excellent idea and all the very best for the organisation’s success. For my own part, I’d like to affirm that a united Labour Party is a complete myth.
Mike McGregor
Edinburgh
THE right to blaspheme is the bedrock of a free society and central to critical thinking. Anything else is totalitarianism, an attempt to control the minds of a country’s people. I plan to do a hell of a lot of it today.
Gudrun Proll
Perth
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