I’m proud to be described as woke in a world lacking in empathy

Given that, can someone please explain to me why not only right-wing commentators but many of those generally deemed mainstream in the media speak in such a disparaging manner of those they consider to be woke? Being alert to social and racial injustice should clearly be the norm in any right-minded society. The “war on woke” brigade, however, have made it their mission to stamp us namby pamby, big cissy types (as they would see it) out. That is cancel culture at it’s absolute worst, which is ironic as the anti-woke lot are always banging on about cancel culture, but obviously in a very different way.

Andrew Tickell’s column in last week’s Sunday National about Priti Patel was excellent. He stated, “How do you become a ruthless, smirking enforcer of measures which – as Patel has herself recognised – would almost certainly have left her own parents standing at the port, awaiting expulsion from the UK? If you can bear to make a character study of it, it is a grimly interesting story in how empathy can be flensed from a person brimming with political ambition and identifying with the selfish and singular vision of their place in the world.”

READ MORE: Andrew Tickell: Priti Patel's relish for her job is both despicable and pitiful

One of the most important words that Andrew used, given the current “culture wars” that many consider the UK Government is responsible for, is empathy. As a proud fully fledged member of the woke club, I can’t help feeling empathy has been deliberately drained from much of our society, like sand from an old-fashioned egg timer. All this to benefit the political careers of Tory politicians, abetted by their chums in the media, whose moral fibre leave much to be desired, to say the very least! Surely Scotland can do much, much better than that!

Ivor Telfer
Dalgety Bay, Fife

I THINK some correspondents have been taking the National’s recent likening of Roberto Mancini to Robert the Bruce and so on a little too seriously.

This kind of pseudo-patriotic hype attends the talk about sport nowhere more than in England, where games against the French or the Germans regularly get associated with Agincourt, Trafalgar, the whole historical rivalry between France and England, or the Battle of Britain. The National was only mocking this instinctual English xenophobia by mimicking the way they use football to let it out.

England did great getting to the final, but I think it was right to hope they didn’t win, because it would have brought out their other instinct, their obsessive race superiorism. That was what made their behaviour so fanatical. At times it was like some hysterical Nazi rally. They were going to prove at last what they know, that their natural place is on top, uber alles.

If they’d won, their arrogance, contempt and self-deification would have been well beyond the Bell curve for years. God knows what the political effects might have been. Defeat hasn’t taught them anything. It can’t erase instinct. Now they’re talking about winning the World Cup.

READ MORE: Bitterness or banter? How the UK reacted to The National's Euro 2020 front page

I don’t think it’s wrong or petty to remember and celebrate Robert the Bruce, the man to whom Scotland and the Scots owe their very existence. You can’t devalue his memory without devaluing that. We should not “get over” him. Some years ago an Englishman wearing an SNP badge told me to my face his group was working to bring about the day when “there will no longer be anybody in Scotland who is identifiable as a Scot.” Another Englishman wearing an SNP badge indicated he agreed. Later a racist from Walthamstow told me the Scots should be destroyed. There are still some people like that moving among us, smiling toothily, offering their hands, covering the centuries-old hatred in them with geniality, as Walter Bower reported in the 1440’s. Any legitimate objection is just “anti-English”. Anti English what?

For some of them nothing on their side has changed. Nor, in response, should anything on ours.

Ian McQueen
Dumfries

WITH the present I would like to thank you and all esteemed citizens of Scotland that supported our soccer national team “gli Azzurri” so enthiusastically, last Sunday night.

I got excited in seeing Scots that used to fly the flag of Italy “il Tricolore” and exult over Italian victory, on the streets and in pubs.

I smiled so much, first at your newspaper cover representing our manager Roberto Mancini like National Scottish hero William Wallace and then for calling him Roberto The Bruce Mancini, in reference to the great King of Scots Robert I the Bruce, with your incredible suggestion of making Mr Mancini honorary Scotsman!!

And finally, I really enjoyed “It’s coming Rome” slogan, that has gone viral.

I would like to make a promise: I’ll support “Scotland naitional fitba team” every time it doesn’t play against italian team.

For what concerns me, Scots will always be welcome in Italy. Honor to Scotland/Alba.

Luigi
Italy

I AM writing from Rome and I want to tell you that the Italian victory can be a good omen for your INDEPENDENCE, and that the date of 11 July which coincidentally (but not so much) coincides with the birth of Robert I Bruce in 1274.

July 11 will be a date to remember, even for you.

We hope so. Thank you.

Francesco Dragonetti
Rome, Italy

ONE does not need to share all Michael Fry’s political views to agree with him that now is indeed the time for the SNP and Scottish Government to commit to creating a Scottish pound supported by its own central bank as soon as possible after independence (Why it’s time for Scotland to have another look at its economic future, Jul 13).

Not only would this ensure that a future Scottish Government could plan to manage the economy with all the policy levers of a normal independent country at its disposal from the outset, but the ability to borrow from its own central bank through Quantitative Easing (as the UK Government and other countries with their own currencies are presently doing on an unprecedented scale) would demolish many of the simplistic claims made by unionists in relation to estimates of Scotland’s likely inherited public sector deficit.

An early decision on future currency is needed to allow time prior to IndyRef2 for a concerted education campaign aimed at changing uninformed public opinion on the supposed merits of retaining the £ sterling.

John Randall via email MID-JULY is not what you would call the high point of political activity in the course of the year but aspects of Holyrood are emerging which cause some anxiety.

The names of the Scottish Government’s new economic advisers have just been announced including some who are not pro-independence. Well, no surprises here as we have already had banker Andrew Smith, of the Growth Commission and Benny Higgins, the Duke of Buccleugh’s agent, in the team!

But two points in the discussion were striking. The new team of advisers are preparing a ten-year economic plan. How can we plan for that amount of time when pre independence economic planning will be very different from post Indy planning? Or is it yet another sign that there is to rush to look beyond the present constitutional status quo?

The other point which struck quite forcibly was in response to The Ferret’s research on high paid Scottish quango executives.The Scottish government’s response to questions was the old nineties mantra “You need to pay the rate to get the best”. So there we have it. Where we thought we had a government that espoused different values from Westminster, it transpires that we don’t. What a naive bunch of Yessers we have been. While I had no anticipation that we would be storming the Palace of Holyrood, I did think we would not be embracing the same old capitalist values that have created poverty and misery for many.

What a spectacle to see the defaced mural of Marcus Rashford covered by messages of love and support including the six-year-old’s “Thank you for our dinners”. A young black footballer who uses his celebrity to campaign for child poverty pitted against a Prime Minister who lives his life in a constant battle to deny his past racist metaphors and lies.

And a Scottish First Minister who seems to be feart to take him on!

We need to move forward with speed because the Westminster Government has not been waiting for Covid to be over.

Maggie Chetty
Glasgow

I WAS intrigued by the caption on the centre page photograph on Monday, which was taken by Graham Sutherland, whom I know from way back in Edinburgh. Graham seems to have used a terminology which would have been used by Invernesians a long time ago, calling the bridge from which he took the photograph the “New Bridge”.

I guessed from where the photograph had been taken, and this evening I went to the bridge in question and took my own photograph (see attached). The light is different, but it’s the same view. It was taken from Ness Bridge.

Invernesians in general no longer call it the “New Bridge” because there are now two other bridges newer than Ness Bridge.

These are Friars Bridge (a dual carriageway road bridge) and the railway bridge (the newest of the three - it replacing the old railway bridge which was washed away when the river was in flood-spate in February 1989. Here are the dates on which each of these bridges was opened:- Ness Bridge – September 1961 Friars Bridge – December 1986 New railway bridge – May 1990 So you see, Graham’s “New Bridge” is 60 years old.

Keith Scammell Inverness I WAS brought up on Mull in a Gaelic-speaking family and although I have lived off the island for some time I have made a point of visiting it every year on my birthday.

I am unable to go this year as every slot for a car space on the ferry has been taken by tourists.

Not that the Scottish Government, Calmac or the tourist lobbby are interested in doing anything about the adverse effects of uncontrolled tourism as it creates an illusion of prosperity.

Ronald McNeill
Strachur