I WAS dismayed to read Tuesday’s Kathleen Nutt article (Cherry urges FM to step in over online abuse, December 1), as well as Kevin Mckenna’s piece (No room for bullies in the SNP? Why I’m not sure).
It should go without saying that online abuse should be condemned in the strongest possible terms. I am left puzzled, however, that so many column inches would be given to this topic without even an attempt at explaining to readers what the proposed reforms would actually do, and why Joanna Cherry has become such a divisive figure in this matter.
READ MORE: Joanna Cherry urges Nicola Sturgeon to intervene as SNP row intensifies
It reminds me of Fox News, who managed to cover the Black Lives Matter protests without even discussing police brutality or systemic racism in America. Instead, they fixed their cameras on isolated and unrepresentative episodes of looting, then pushed democrats to defend it or denounce it.
Similarly, denouncing abuse may be necessary, but if the conversation never gets around to why the peaceful majority of critics and activists were there in the first place there is a very serious disservice being done to readers, civic discourse and our transgender fellow citizens who deserve fair treatment in the media.
By omitting the reasons for the Gender Recognition Act, and the reasons many consider Joanna Cherry to have acted in an incendiary way online, you risk escalating the already alarmingly real amount of animosity towards transgender citizens by virtue of withholding pertinent information.
READ MORE: Kevin McKenna: Joanna Cherry needs to examine 'Trumpian' behaviours in the SNP
The lack of clarity in Kathleen Nutt’s piece is regrettable, but with the added venom in McKenna’s it becomes borderline dangerous. If Kevin McKenna is so concerned about Trumpian behaviour closer to home, perhaps he should refrain from encouraging politicians to sue parliamentary colleagues over signing a letter they disagree with.
The column is purporting to be anti-bullying and yet here McKenna uses language like “an open sewer running through the party”, “cowards”, and “hit them where it hurts them most”.
If Kevin doesn’t want to see Trumpian politics in Scotland then he’d de-escalate his rhetoric and leave trivial lawsuits meant to silence critics to Rudy Giuliani.
McKenna conveniently leaps over a glaringly obvious question: why did so many prominent, distinguished women feel the need to sign such a letter defending trans rights in the first place?
Mark Chambers
via email
WELL-WRITTEN, Kevin McKenna (The SNP’s woke team have been defeated – here’s what that means, December 2). Indeed the SNP needed a reminder that our main aim is independence and that to achieve it we are RADICAL in our actions and policies.
In 1965, we few in SNP were regarded as radical to the extent that our opponents thought of us as the “lunatic fringe" in politics. I did not canvas for a conservative party, indeed was threatened with arrest at a public meeting at the Eastern School in Broughty Ferry for insisting on questions being answered by the then Baillie Gilles. Police were called.
READ MORE: Kevin McKenna: The SNP’s woke team have been defeated – here’s what that means
The aim then was INDEPENDENCE and it is worth reminding ourselves that we are still radical and that our aim is the same. We are getting closer to our goal nowadays, so let’s stick together and thank Joanna Cherry for offering us another radical option.
In a metaphorical war we must use all the weapons in our armoury and remind Alyn Smith that he has not been defeated, rather that the party has moved on with more vigorous weaponry. His efforts, and those of Alex Salmond and Alex Neil, are welcomed into the final fray.
All for one!!!
Doug Drever
Dundee
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