WE live in strange times. The opposition parties in Scotland – the Tories, Labour and last but not least the LibDems – are in an unenviable, juxtaposed, existential dilemma, although they are seemingly ignorant of it.

The “Labour Together” review of the party’s performance last December does not inspire confidence for the future. The party’s English base is slipping,but its Scottish branch has been in crisis for years and is now a risible rump on the political scrapheap. Obviously, being in UK Labour Together has not helped it at all, and its role in Better Together in 2014 and the Union-Vow reduced it to the bottom!

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The Tories in Scotland are in the doldrums, useless as the official opposition in Holyrood, and, ironically, the main party in England is making so many U-turns in the Covid-19 pandemic that it is becoming a joke south of the Border. As Johnson spaffs millions away on new vanity projects (as he did as London mayor), might well built two new Britannia yachts, and has just abandoned his own hame-spun tracing app, Tories north and south are in choppy waters, with Jackson Carlaw struggling to keep afloat.

The LibDems are a party operating under the radar in a long dureé, waiting for a new leader after the last one lost her seat in December after claiming she was en route to be PM! Delusion knows no bounds when you are a LibDem!

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It seems that the Better Together parties, those staunch British Unionists, are floundering. Their common denominator is that they are British and Together, but not exactly better for it here in Scotland.

The dilemma for Labour, or rather Labour in England, is that there is no other party available to be the English opposition! It seems the English are stuck with the Tories no matter what, and by extension Scotland, if it remains in the Union, is at the mercy of English parties which we have not voted into government at Westminster for at least ten years. We also voted to remain in the EU!

The UK parties here, ardent Westminsterites, are in a dilemma. Their UK leaders are not having a good day, and in Scotland they are reduced to shriveled-up remnants as a result of quaffing from the UK poisoned chalice.

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uxtaposed in status and position, they might want to reorientate themselves towards an independent Holyrood and Scotland, both for their own survival and indeed self-respect!

Alistair Carmichael certainly knows how he is now seen, having been dismissed ignominiously by his former Better Together “friends”, even after doing the nasty work for them and telling lies along the way for them!

The Unionists are at a critical juncture here. They either reorientate, or they will perish totally like the former Marxists in Eastern Europe when the gulf between the population and them widened dramatically.

John Edgar
Kilmaurs

I READ with mounting incredulity the report prepared by the Labour party trying to explain its electoral collapse. It doesn’t seem to understand that its monumental defeat was caused by the relentless assault by all the media on its dangerous socialist leader (and sadly his ineffectiveness in supporting his positions).

I was exhilarated, however, to see that they have determined to gather their dispirited troops in Scotland behind a campaign to refuse their Scots the democratic right to decide how and by whom they are governed. Ya beauty! Goodbye Labour.

David McEwan Hill
Sandbank. Argyll

THE second round of US-UK trade talks has just started. And by the end of them, the Westminster government could well have signed up to allow the US to flood our supermarket shelves with chlorinated chicken. Leaked documents have revealed that the government is backtracking on its promise to ban chlorinated chicken during these talks. It means they’re leaving the door open to food from the US that violates our high food and animal welfare standards.

In the US, thousands of chickens live in enormous “mega-sheds”, surrounded by their own faeces and even blinded by noxious gases. In order to make them safe to eat, the chickens have to be sprayed with chlorine. With our government backtracking, chlorinated chicken is just one example of the kind of food that could be flooding our supermarkets if Westminster sign a trade deal with Trump.

Scotland could avoid this and keep our already strict standards. But only if Scotland becomes independent from the rest of the UK and we are able to make our own rules.

Peter Swain
Dunbar

AFTER reading the Scottish Police Federation’s ridiculous claim assigning equal blame to both protest groups in George Square, one must raise huge doubts regarding the expected impartiality of such an official police body, especially when it is in direct contrast to the measured comments of the Assistant Chief Constable.

My immediate thoughts centre on the official representation of the SPF on this matter, and who would be issuing such an opinion based on the observed aggression of known Unionist thugs – deja vu for the police who must know the identity of many of these people!

I’d expect the Scottish Government to similarly scrutinise this odd response from a police body whilst also condemning the BBC’s very poor and inaccurate report on these disgraceful incidents in George Square. Note the BBC has form when it comes to reporting on these serial Unionist/BritNat offenders and has a habit of providing a “both sides” treatment, thereby diluting serious scrutiny and criticism of the aforementioned perpetrators of violence, who have been doing this with impunity for years.

Bernie Japs
Edinburgh