WELL here we go again. More powers to the people of Scotland on the promise we behave ourselves and forget about all this nonsense about independence.
Deja vu hardly covers it, but it certainly is a repetition of the mad dash of David Cameron et al to the north country with their precious “Vow” of more powers if we behaved ourselves and stopped all the nonsense about independence and voted No. Obviously then a Section 30 had been granted, making the indyref1 vote legal, thus 45% of us voted Yes.
READ MORE: Senior figure says EU 'won't threaten to block Scotland' as Tory 'trick' fails
As soon as the vote was declared, Cameron declared English votes for English Laws thus eliminating the Vow and all it entailed. Westminster has continued ever since to ignore Scotland, tell lies to us and now take us out of Europe with the Tories’ precious Brexit.
Scotland has had to put up with six years of this Tory nonsensical government, unable to retain a competent leadership and unable to deliver any form of Brexit agreement with the EU. It has delivered instead what it always wanted, namely a clean break with an Australian-style agreement, being no agreement whatsoever.
Johnson thinks he can deliver more power to the Scottish Government, hoping to sufficiently persuade it to forget about independence yet again. This Westminster Tory leader has shown the world his stupidity of the first degree, so far as governing a country is concerned. He now thinks he is clever enough to persuade Scotland to forgot this nonsense yet again about independence. Ha! He has stupidly ànd obviously forgotten about the 2014 Vow. But Scotland has not!
Bring it on, Johnson, and see what kind of a response you will receive. As has already been suggested to your colleague Michael Gove, awa hame and bile yer heid.
Alan Magnus-Bennett
Fife
THE revelation of the internal memorandum of the Tory party revealing their strategy to “deal with” the surging support for Scottish independence is not new.
I have indicated previously that the Tory hierarchy under the instigation of Cummings have for some time been identifying a strategy to stop dead in its tracks the likelihood of a Section 30 ever being granted.
They may have their Tory grandees and right-wing British nationalist-supprting industrialists cooking up a PLAN to derail independence but when the cat is let out of the bag, eg Andrew Bowie’s rather clear message –“the UK Government is back in Scotland you better get used to it” – then it is clear that subtlety will NOT be the order of the day. It is going to be a crude instrument that will attack the SNP and the Yes movement at every opportunity.
READ MORE: Tories branded 'delusional' over EU plot in leaked indyref2 dirty trick campaign
We need to remind ourselves that the Tories only require to show that there is no overwhelming support for a referendum in Scotland. They do not have to win a massive increase in seats in Holyrood, but just enough to ensure the SNP either achieve just enough to get a constituency-seat win of 65 or fail to get a majority. Even less than 50% of the aggregate vote may be enough for them to indicate no to a Section 30.
Between now and the Holyrood election, get ready for the “too wee, too poor” mantra onslaught manifesting itself in a variety of forms from the British nationalists. It has started already. The independence and Yes movement has to remain united and stop allowing divisiveness among its ranks to undermine our clear message to the Scottish people that achieving independence now is a clear imperative for our nation.
Remaining in a UK which is disunited, in disarray and moving in a political and economic direction which Scotland cannot support and in which we are constantly maligned and ignored just cannot be sustained by our nation.
There will be nothing sophisticated about the Tory onslaught on our independence aspirations. It will be a blunt instrument indeed.
Dan Wood
Kirriemuir
PARDONNEZ-MOI! I’m a little confused. Although figuring out on Tuesday that the Word Wheel solution was raconteur, initially I thought this was verboten. Am I not correct in thinking this is a French word?
Clearly the rules are that no plurals, foreign words or proper nouns are allowed, yet raconteur is permissible. What next ... Zeitgeist? Esperanza (hope not!)
Whilst I am all for the Auld Alliance (now more than ever!), I do think a little claret (eh?) is needed here. If we were going to be sticky about this, then surely anything but the Scots Gaelic is foreign.
I’m no great lover of entomology (for that would be the study of insects), but I do know my beetles from my beatles ( see an old person for musical ref).
A tout a l’heure!
Dave King
Glasgow
THE National on Saturday, in the sports section, devoted five pages to a football match to be played between Celtic and Rangers. Were there no other games in Scotland that day? Remember, the title of your paper is “The National”, covering all of the country.
Roy Carcary
via email
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