AS Ruth Davidson departs, we have been subjected to the predictable media lovefest for their Union Standard Bearer in Chief. As the Union press bemoan the hole now created in the Union’s defence by her departure they entirely miss the point.
It is because there is no Union defence that Davidson has departed.
Davidson is a consummate opportunist. She has had a compliant media in Scotland and the personality to exploit it, but what future did she ever elucidate for Scotland except more of the same? What ground-breaking policies did she propose to make Scotland a better place for the people who live here?
Davidson could read the runes. She had a choice to make. Go out in sainthood in the eyes of the Unionist media, or risk exposing that she really was a one-trick pony and disappear into obscurity.
On her return post-maternity leave, Brexit had not been delivered by Theresa May and therefore she was returning to the eye of the storm with little ammunition in a Remain-voting country.
Johnson may have been the icing on the cake for Davidson, with regard to the challenges of her position, but I see few signs of principle in this decision. I see a politically smart individual who knows when to dump a losing hand and leave with her fabled reputation intact.
I see a politician who knows her own seat in Holyrood may be in play in the next Scottish election. I see only vintage Ruth Davidson.
I Easton
Glasgow
COUP and counter-coup! We are so much better together with our English cousins enjoying this spectacle of politics in the Mother of Parliaments while we wait for our pensions at 75.
However there is one of Cameron’s promises still unkept – you know, the one about cutting the cost of politics by getting rid of 50 of these nonentities that are Westminster MPs. All that time wasted going home at 4pm because the government, MPs and civil service were totally paralysed by Brexit. All the work has been done, the Boundary Commissions have reported, all they needed was to have a debate and approve.
Of course they couldn’t, and wouldn’t, it would mean 50 of their peers would have their pension accrual cut short, their subsidised bar bills taken away, their entitlement to expenses and its concomitant patronage removed and, oh yes, they would be out of a job.
The relevance to coup and counter-coup is that the new constituencies, given the fluid nature of voting intentions down south, would mean it would be a “brave” PM to call, or an equally “brave” Leader of the Opposition to force, a General Election. With no get-out-of-jail card in a General Election, today’s Commons would have to get on with their job and take back control.
But then again, we don’t expect MPs to do their job; its no wonder that the UK has a productivity problem, the tone is set from the top.
Randall Foggie
Kirkcaldy
THERE really only was a binary choice in 2016 – “No Deal Leave” or “Remain”. Either you stay in the protectionist EU, or you trade tariff-free as a grouping of coastal and inland tax haven freeport under WTO rules, trading as “Great Britain”.
The Tory/Ukip/Brexit Party duly put out various statements to make sure that UK citizens misunderstood just how hard it would be, to simply ignore any future demands from the EU, massively reduce the number of “not real British” in the UK, and to switch to an unregulated free-market economy.
We now know that ex-PM May’s “hostile environment” is now embedded in UK governance, and that a significant minority indeed seek “not real British” UK citizens to be “sent back”. The Scottish Government has understandably not sought to inflame matters further, and quietly suggested that Scotland would welcome migrants generally, especially from England.
It is not clear what powers Scotland can use to provide a safe haven or business environment for those seeking to move to the safety of Scotland, but it would now appear that the more appropriate Section 30 Plan A is being undermined fatally by events in the rUK, even if Article 50 was now revoked.
With the power to provide a safe haven goes the responsibility for a hard border. So now it’s Scotland’s turn to decide just how porous such a border can be, given that Scotland seeks to diverge from UK/EU-style governance and simultaneously the rUK seeks to diverge from UK/EU governance in the diametrically opposite direction.
So, Scotland is now faced with a binary choice: YES2 for rule by a nation state within the EU with a hard border, or NO2 for rule by the sponsors of the Tory/Ukip/Brexit Party, with no protection from the UK Parliament or the Parliament of Scotland.
Stephen Tingle
Greater Glasgow
AS she has on on many previous occasions, Lesley Riddoch calls it right (Time for SNP leadership to be bold, August 29).
I am currently cruising in the Mediterranean and missed the hot news from Boris and co due to internet difficulties. In the sunshine, I am almost in tears. How dare this man, the dictator, who is controlling his fellow Brexiteers to the point of their blindness?
The people of Scotland must resist this, but will Jackson Carlaw and his merry band of Scottish Tory MPs now stand up for their country where Ruth Davidson failed? To be clear: STAND UP FOR THEIR COUNTRY – not an unelected UK Prime Minister. The country would be pleased if they did! But will they? It only needs a few of them to change the dynamics. Will they be brave or are they FEART as Lesley Riddoch would say?
Alex Thomson
Coldstream
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