Who do you blame for the rise in Tory support in Scotland? – Donald, Ayrshire
POLITICS is beyond the point where you can spin blame on to anybody but the electorate. Accordingly, I’d like to apologise on behalf of Scotland for some particularly stupid members of our population voting Tory. There is no excuse for it. Voting Conservative in Scotland is like ants voting for insecticide. I’d normally advocate Scots wearing pink berets, but a lot of us deserve to be sporting dunce caps after this General Election.
Frankly, the results north of the Border were so embarrassing that they made me think that we’d been hacked by the Russians. I mean, I could understand – and to some extent defend – a Scottish swing to Labour due to the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, but I cannot explain or justify Tories winning seats from the SNP. If Unionists insisted on voting for a pro-UK party in Scotland, they should have done the semi-responsible thing and backed Kezia Dugdale’s calamitous crew. At least there’s a chance that Big Jez can mould them into something resembling an effective political party in a few years.
That being said, the SNP must shoulder some responsibility for Conservative gains. By perhaps taking a few of their “safe” seats for granted, the SNP gave the Scottish Tories free reign to drive home the same lowest-common-denominator gibberish they’ve been spewing since 2014: that nationalists should stop talking about independence and “focus on the day job”. Perhaps there’s some degree of truth to what Ruth Davidson and her small army of loyal snotboys have been saying, but it would be terribly self-indulgent of Tories to claim their success was a result of positive campaigning. Their entire mantra was about stopping indyref 2, and I honestly cannot understand how this objective led to our electorate backing the Conservatives in the numbers that they did.
How stopping a single independence referendum – a standalone vote – was worth granting years of Tory government for is beyond me. The worst indyref2 would’ve been was a single democratic vote, which Unionists could have voted No in. Instead, we’ve now got potentially unremitting Tory rule. Some Unionists have literally endorsed the rape clause, the wrecking of the NHS and Brexit simply because they find indyref 2 a bit annoying. Unionists opted to endorse every cruel thing that the Tories have ever done, or seek to do, just because they couldn’t be bothered voting No again.
However, I suspect that in the same way lots of Leave voters quickly realised that they’d done a stupid with Brexit, Tory backers in Scotland will soon realise the error of their ways. In fact, many already have, as their boneheaded choice has, in part, led to a possible Conservative/DUP alliance!
Do you think the expected Tory-DUP alliance will cause a moral dilemma for Ruth Davidson? – Sheamus, Perth
I’M sure you’ll share my bemusement that the Tories have sought to strike a deal with possibly the only party more toxic than their own. Among other bigotries, the Democratic Unionist Party are opposed to abortion, gay marriage (and homosexuality in general), climate change and women’s rights. They also support the death penalty. In essence, they are to British politics what the Westboro Baptist Church is to American society. And now the Tories are actively seeking their support in order to form a government. Suddenly, it’s not so much “strong and stable” but “fragile and desperate”.
It’s hugely ironic that the Tories, having spent the majority of their election campaign attempting to slander Jeremy Corbyn for his supposed associations with former members of the IRA, are now actively seeking a political deal with the reverse extreme in Northern Ireland. Indeed, this undesirable collation of chaos could be a classic case of karma for the Conservatives. After all, the Tories fought a steadfastly British nationalist campaign, so have they really got the right to complain now that they have ended up in bed with the DUP?
Nowhere was the Conservative crusade more drenched in Union Jacks than Scotland, and although Ruth Davidson might’ve created somewhat of a Tory resurgence above the Border, Theresa May has callously rewarded her by shacking up with folk who consider Ruth’s sexuality an abomination. Should this despicable DUP deal go through, Davidson may find herself asking if she really belongs to a party who are willing to align themselves with the homophobic, misogynistic and monolithic DUP, and whether the lure of power means more to her than her principles.
The Prime Minister might’ve given an assurance that gay rights won’t be brought under threat in Scotland, England or Wales, but it hardly seems right that the Tories are effectively guaranteeing the continued oppression of gay people in Northern Ireland.
It might be advisable for Ruth Davidson to go it alone and fight for what she believes in, rather than be told what to say and what to do by a crude sectarian government.
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