AS the Tory wannabe leadership candidates tie themselves in knots trying to out-promise each other over who is going to deliver the best, biggest and “brilliantist” Brexit UK, my eyes were drawn to a desperate attempt by May to leave any kind of positive legacy.
After three years as PM, May is now scrabbling around to enact policies to spin her tenure more favourably. Climate change was where she settled this week. Perhaps the unseasonal weather in London brought it to mind.
Regardless, she promised a carbon-neutral future for the UK by 2050. A promise that she will not personally be able to deliver and which could be overturned by myriad politicians likely to lead the UK (should it survive as is, and I desperately hope not) over the next 30 years. Indeed, it is not impossible that her ambition could be overturned in the next couple of months.
Her promises are worth absolutely nothing, like the promises of those who aspire to take over her role. Verbal candyfloss to entice the voter their way in this moment. Promises which will not be upheld beyond the instant of their coronation.
So my despairing plea to the 160,000 who get to make this leadership decision is to put all promises aside and look at the character of the individual you would crown.
Iona Easton
Glasgow
I WAS very interested in Steve Arnott’s letter in yesterday’s National. I was hoping at last to find a good reason why we should not be a member of the EU. For those who oppose membership, I would have thought that even those who voted Leave in 2016 due to the lack of information would have by now realised the danger of trying to go it alone.
In all the correspondence on this subject not one person has stated clearly how Scotland would manage to exist and stand purely by itself in this modern, complicated world. Simply referring to Iceland, Norway and Switzerland is not an argument in itself given that we would have to start from scratch. We would have to train people to function in the foreign affairs department and to become negotiators, not to mention the time it normally takes to make trade deals.
Such problems are mitigated by membership of the EU, where Scotland has a good reputation and where there is a willingness to give any assistance where required.
Hugh McLean
Newton Mearns
I READ in The National repeated assertions that Leave/Yes voters feel that they are being ignored by Remain/Yes supporters, that their views are genuine/worthy, and that their votes may be withheld sufficiently to result in Scots collectively delivering a No vote.
As Remain/Yes supporter, I am of the opinion that such an approach, given the apparent demographics of Remain/No, Leave/No, Leave/Yes, will be likely to put independence on the back burner until 2050 or thereabouts.
The key to getting a substantive Yes vote would appear to largely depend upon new voters (mainly Remain) voting Yes, and Remain/No voters en masse switching to Yes. Whilst some Leave/Yes voters actively work to undermine the stated will of the people of Scotland to remain in the EU, independence simply will not happen.
Perhaps the Citizens’ Assembly being clearly involved in repeatedly determining how Scotland wants the EU to develop over the next decade, and this then going through both committee and the Scottish Government, over the next decade, might be sufficient for the majority of the Leave/Yes voters.
Perhaps the more substantive issues of race, gender, religious belief, currency, and economic dogma might also be dealt with in a similar way over the period of the next three parliaments. The No campaign will not rest idle though, and Vow2 has already been mooted by Mr Ed Davy(LibDem) as a way of removing sufficient support for Yes2, working alongside the more single-minded Leave/Yes campaigners.
Stephen Tingle
Greater Glasgow
HAMISH Kirk wonders whether Tory leadership/PM contender Rory Stewart might be “in the wrong party?” (Letters, June 12). A swatch at his voting record on social security matters will tell you that he’s absolutely where he belongs. In his unstinting support for the many cruel and corrosive benefit cuts and the concomitant erosion of the safety net, he’s indistinguishable from Boris et al. Ditto the way he dresses these things up as being fiscally responsible, with nary a reference to the human and social costs. Far from being fiscally sound, cutting the subsistence incomes of poor people sucks billions out of local economies and increases demands on the NHS, social services, the criminal justice system etc, which simply ends up costing more.
So, far from being “sensible”, in this respect at least he demonstrates the same idiotic adherence to Tory ideology as his fellow contenders.
Mo Maclean
Glasgow
HUNT’S refusal to cooperate with – in effect refusal to acknowledge – the First Minister’s visit to Brussels was a classic shot-in-the-foot job (Hunt called ‘childist and pathetic’ over refusal of Home Office support, June 12). He simply deployed toys-discarded-from-pram syndrome thereby vindicating the reason for Nicola going, ie, total lack of representation of Scotland’s interests by Unionists. One more step along the road as he hobbles back to the script writer!
Tom Gray
Braco
HAVE just finished taking part in the Great Brutish Breakfast Boak Off. My favourite meal ruined by five separate pictures of Bojo the Clown in the paper! Cuddly puppies or fluffy ducklings would be more palatable.
Bill Macbrayne
Dunoon
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