SOME years ago, I bought Keir Hardie’s “From Serfdom to Socialism”, introduced and edited by John Callow.
The acknowledgements begin: “The idea for this reprint originated with Richard Leonard, the GMB’s Political Officer for Scotland and Chair of the Keir Hardie Society.
“Without his belief, enthusiasm and wide range of contacts, this book could never have existed in its current form ...”
I must say, when I read these words my estimation of Richard Leonard shot up. Yet it is a mystery to me that someone like him does not see the possibilities of an independent, socialist Scotland.
READ MORE: Richard Leonard humiliated in GERS clash with Nicola Sturgeon
You would think he’d realise, since the electoral defeat of Corbynism, that left-leaning politics is doomed in England, and will probably remain so as long as immigration is one of the main concerns of English voters.
Alastair McLeish
Edinburgh
WITH a clear majority now supporting independence, the Better Together brigade should stop denigrating Scotland, a nation rich in resources both human and material.
The incompetence of Boris Johnson’s government in dealing with Brexit and the coronavirus, along with the deception of the UK being led by the shady unelected Dominic Cummings, is intolerable.
This surely supports journalist Iain Macwhirter when he wrote: “If Scotland stays in the UK it will be hitching itself to a post-imperial Brexitania run by bandit capitalists who still think they are living in the days of Empire.”
While independence brings responsibility and commitment it also brings joy and the excitement of achieving our full potential in an explosion of progressive creativity.
Grant Frazer
Newtonmore
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