LET me say firstly that I cannot use the word gammon without it throwing up visions of David Cameron at his Bullingdon Club induction.
I do, however, believe that the words we use should be chosen carefully and should be used in context.
I am one of the many people who believed that the “Tory Scum Out” banner was the right thing at the right time in the right place at the Glasgow AUOB march.
My reason for this is simply that Glasgow is at war with the Conservative party and it’s a war in which many people have actually died. How many have died within months of being forced to work when unfit? How many people are sanctioned or have to leave their families so that they can survive? HUNDREDS. These are lives destroyed forever and a four-letter word on a banner lets us make the point about our national disgust.
That said, AUOB will be in the border shire of Dumfries in a fortnight and I believe that the same banner would be detrimental to the Yes movement as a whole because they have a different demographic where there are actually more Tory Yes voters than anywhere else in the country, and they will be left to pay the price after we have all left to return to our council estates afterwards.
With Brexit, rural communities are going to be absolutely hammered. Farmers who have had it easy with EU subsidies are already having 90% of them held back to subsidise English megafarms. These are people who can be tempted even if only through their necessity to survive.
So the message here is that if you don’t want gammon, don’t sign up for a pig in a poke.
Bring your voices to Dumfries. We are looking like we may be able to enlarge the town by 25% that day. They will know we are there.
Dave Llewellyn
Edinburgh
FOR what it’s worth, I thought the UK’s entry into the Eurovision song contest at the weekend was excellent. Storm was a very well written song, and SuRie performed it spectacularly – despite the interruption. I might have even been inclined to vote for it, however Eurovision’s rules dictate that you can only vote for competing countries outside the one you live in.
The problem with the UK in Eurovision is perception. The state itself doesn’t have the best reputation amongst the international community, and ill feeling across Europe is only exacerbated by a process called Brexit that must itself look incredibly bizarre to our neighbours.
On top of all of this, as one of the biggest contributors to the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), the UK has an automatic place in the Eurovision final.
Unlike the majority of other competing countries, the UK doesn’t have to go through the laborious process of competing in semi-finals, but queue-jumps to the live final no matter the quality of the act.
An example of how this system doesn’t work can be found in 2003’s UK entry, Cry Baby by Jemini. An automatic place in the live final, yet coming in last place and scoring “nul points”.
The EBU needs to have a serious word with itself about this system, but one obvious way to break the cycle of UK resentment in Eurovision would be for each individual nation to participate separately.
Scotland is rich in musical talent that could showcase the diversity of our culture across the world – not to mention our relationship with our international neighbours, now further deepened since the UK Government began a Brexit process that Scotland didn’t want.
Had Scotland competed as an independent contestant in this year’s Eurovision Song Contest, I’ve no doubt we’d have given Israel, Cyprus and Germany a run for their money.
And since the UK would have been a separate competing country, EBU rules would have allowed me to vote for SuRie and her fantastic song Storm.
Lee Robb
Stirling
SO Stirling Tory MP Stephen Kerr wants to replace the Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland Offices with the “Department for the Union” (Tory MP calls for Mundell’s job to be scrapped, May 17)? This seems to be a calculated insult denying the identities of each of these countries.
Why not just be done with it and call it the Great British Office?
Alasdair Kane
via text
I WAS interested to read in your Clarifications and Corrections panel that the Greens wanted you to point out that they are not in a “loose alliance” with the SNP but have in fact voted more often with Labour and the LibDems than they have with the SNP.
I hope all SNP supporters who give second preference votes to the Greens remember this when it comes to the next elections.
Brian Lawson
Paisley
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