I WROTE this letter on September 1, the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of World War Two. Today, Monday, the BBC is airing a three-part documentary titled: The rise of The Nazis, documenting how in four short years Germany went from a liberal society to a fascist dictatorship. This began with Adolf Hitler removing the ability of the German legislature to lay down laws on behalf of the people, and instead giving himself full dictatorial powers.
Boris Johnson, the UK’s unelected Prime Minister, has recently prorogued the Westminster Parliament for an unprecedented five weeks on the pretext of preparing his new government’s Queen’s Speech, but I suspect the real reason is to curtail the sovereignty of our democratic parliament to make decisions on our behalf. This, to me, smacks of a similar action by the aforesaid Hitler, when through a national referendum held on August 19 1934 he confirmed himself as fuhrer (leader) of Germany.
The Nazis constantly denigrate and blamed the Jews, along with the communists and other groups they could use as useful targets, for the ills of the nation. Compare this to the senior Brexiteers of today, blaming all our problems on “Johnny foreigner”, as proven by the prejudice shown to all immigrants, EU or not, by the Home Office since the 2016 referendum.
The inflammatory dictatorial racist rhetoric of Farage and company is further proof. But it doesn’t stop there because the Tory party as a whole has been shown to be Islamophibic, with a tendency to put the blame for the state of the UK on all immigrants, legal or not.
In short, the parallels between Hitler’s Germany in the late 1930s and Johnson’s UK of today seem to be closer than liberal-minded people may realise.
Steve Brooker
Inverness
I HAVE always been wary of big numbers being used by politicians. They are always used to impress without in any way resolving issues.
So again we see this when Johnson announces amongst his diversionary tactic that he is going to put an extra £7 billion into education. Very commendable, one might think. However, as this is being done as part of his diversionary tactics to take attention off Brexit it is necessary to look at this gift horse a little bit more closely.
The present education budget for 2020 is just short of £92bn. Johnson’s gift is for that figure to be £98.8bn by 2023. This equates to an annual rise of just over 2% per year . While any rise in spending on our children’s future is to be welcomed, a 2% rise in hardly earth-shattering. Indeed it is not even keeping pace with inflation.
So what makes the best headline – “ £7 billion increase in education”, or “2% increase over the next three years”? They are exactly the same figure . I am quite sure which one Johnson’s puppet master Dominic Cumming will be insisting he uses.
George Kay
Burntisland
FIRST Fluffy got “cashiered” from his Governor General post of the troublesome Scots colony, then “Colonel” Davidson resigned her commission as staff officer, Government Forces (North Britain), to “spend more time with her family”. I just love euphemisms!
Ms Davidson has shown her true mettle. Whilst she was happy to parry swords with the First Minister, in ensuring that Scots are kept in perpetual bondage to Westminster, in harsh reality she hasn’t the moral courage or integrity to stand up to a psychopathic liar and charlatan operating out of London.
A Paper Tiger in the great British tradition of Harry Flashman. All bravado, whilst always taking the coward’s way out (harsh? I don’t think so? Ms Davidson has been receiving her MSP salary under false pretences as far as I can see).
I can assure the “Colonel” that if England and her satellite client states crash out of the EU on Halloween, many more people in the whole of “Fortress Britain”
will have no other choice but to “spend more time with their family and loved ones”, but this will be called “unemployment”! They will then most likely be part of the current Tory great sociological (another euphemism for IDEOLOGICAL) experiment called Universal Credit.
I do hope that her political career is at an end, as Scotland is in need of people who will fight its corner at all times and at all costs.
Not someone who runs off home to stick the tea on when it gets difficult.
Sandy Allan
Newburgh, Ellon
ANENT the Scottish Tories’ chances of finding someone who can adequately fill Ruth Davidson’s TA boots. There may be ersatz vacuousness aplenty on the Tory benches at Holyrood, but it’s doubtful they will find someone who also possesses the faux gravitas and the PR pizzazz essential to maintaining the “style over substance” success they’ve enjoyed in recent years.
Mo Maclean
Glasgow
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