WITH regard to the Salmond affair, a great deal is being made of the disclosure of communications involving the Scottish Government, accompanied by a direct criticism of the First Minister.
It would appear that the committee looking into the Salmond affair is prepared to overlook the law of the land and put the judgment of the Lord Advocate to one side. The committee chairwoman, Linda Fabiani, says that this has not been done lightly, so the view taken is that there are sufficient reasons for taking this step.
READ MORE: Alex Salmond inquiry demands Crown papers in unprecedented move
Can I ask that the same rigour be applied to the Westminster government over the four years of Brexit “negotiations”? Can we have public scrutiny of what exactly happened in the meetings that were more or less regular over the four years? Can it be explained to the general public how it has come about that our highly paid “negotiators” have reached what can only be described as a bourach of the first order? In the last few days I have read of problems with rotting fish, Fairtrade banana cultivation in Ghana in difficulties through tariffs, Les Halles at Rungis cancelling British orders for meat because of red tape, and delays and increases in the price of a bottle of wine. Also can we have some concrete information on what trade deals the UK actually has in place?
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While all this is going on, and we are only weeks into the so-called “deal”, Douglas Ross and Ruth Davidson have sent out two flyers, one of them A3 size, which contain not one policy aside from the opposition to independence. The same goes for Jackie Baillie, who appears to have nothing to say other than that the SNP “get on with the day job”, which is quite clearly what they are doing. I have not heard about Willie Rennie for a while. Not long ago Jo Swinson was trumpeting the claim that the Lib Dems were the party of Remain.
Being Unionist parties, I suppose all three feel that their day job is done by supporting the Westminster government. The fact of the matter is that the SNP are very much in the business of concentrating on the day job, seeking the only way out of this mess – and that is to have an independent Scotland.
Douglas Howkins
Broughty Ferry
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