IT’S always interesting to read Pat Kane’s articles and his ideas on democracy and his piece in Saturday’s National was no exception (Progressive policy ideas are now more necessary because of Covid, April 17). He argues that building security and individual resilience is not just about “alleviating economic need”.
To put this another way, it is more than just putting our marks on a ballot paper and then sitting back for the next four or five years while professional politicians and governments get on with the day job, or don’t, depending on your viewpoint.
READ MORE: Pat Kane: Covid pandemic has put progressive policy ideas into the mainstream
Kane argues that we need to develop our capacity for learning, relationships, exploration of what it is to be human in the wider world, and then says that “this won’t happen overnight”. I couldn’t agree more, but how do you create a system in which all people do engage. Darren McGarvey has said that if you believed a system was rigged against you, why would you engage?
In the same edition Martin Hannan quotes George Gunn saying “I think the problem in Scotland is that democracy in Scotland has become a professional thing”. Again, I agree, it isolates so-called ordinary people from the political process.
Some years ago I submitted a suggestion to the Scottish Government’s e-submission process about the possibility of a national suggestion box. It was briefly debated in a committee in which Iain Gray was a member. I don’t remember the full make-up of the rest of the panel but do recall his slightly dismissive attitude towards my suggestion by arguing that the e-submissions were exactly a national suggestion box, so there was not a need for an additional system. A female member of the same panel did admit however that the Scottish Government had to find other ways the public could engage with politics and democracy. Since then, we have had the creation of the Citizens’ Assembly, so we’ve moved forward somewhat.
In a later letter to the e-submission process I suggested that not many people actually submit or indeed even know about this system. Or that those that do submit proposals are not really a cross-section of all of the people.
My thoughts on a National Suggestion Box were based on the principle that there are thousands more, likely millions, of creative people living in Scotland who have no meaningful conduit to present their ideas to the government or indeed the wider public.
I still believe that some of those ideas could be breath-taking in their scope and if a system was created, maybe even beginning in school, we could generate a meaningful, politically and democratically engaged citizenship.
Alan Hind
Old Kilpatrick
I WAS surprised and not a little irritated that the sad demise of Prince Philip inspired some Conservative MPs to propose that a new Royal Yacht should be commissioned and named after the late Prince. The estimated cost would be £190 million. Scotland would be asked to pay a share.
I seem to recall that an almost bankrupted Great Britain acquiesced to a new Royal Yacht being built in the early 1950s. Any adverse opinion – and there was some – was soon silenced by the fact that the proposed ship was designed so that it could be almost instantly converted to a hospital ship to support our military servicemen should the need for one ever arise.
The one and only time a dedicated hospital ship was needed during the Britannia’s lifetime was when the Falklands War took place. The Royal Yacht was hastily deemed unsuitable and the SS Uganda was leased to do the job at no little expense.
The elegant but ageing yacht became too expensive to maintain as a pleasure cruiser and was decommissioned in 1997. I recall seeing her predecessor, HMY Victoria and Albert III, being broken up in a shipyard in Rhu on the Gairloch in 1956 and thinking then that such an elegant vessel ought to be preserved for posterity.
Prince Philip’s opinion on the fate of the Britannia was that it should not be preserved but towed out to mid-ocean and scuttled. His opinion was ignored and we all know now that it was laudably saved and is the most popular tourist attraction in Scotland, where it is moored at Leith.
Prince Philip was keen to preserve the dining table from the yacht. This was arranged and a replacement installed. He also requested that the “Captains’s Launch” should have its engine removed so that no-one was tempted to use it.
The armed services no longer have a medical capability to cover the medical needs in a campaign (Commons Defence Select Committee opinion), so a dual-role ship cannot now be justified.
Scotland should therefore be permitted to opt out of contributing towards the cost of a replacement royal yacht.
Prince Philip will be remembered for many years for his delightful, spontaneous and monumental clangers. A stone with some of his sayings inscribed on it would be a more fitting tribute.
Dr Lindsay Neil
Selkirk
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