I HAVE been reading about this brainwashing exercise called One Britain One Nation Day since it first came to the public attention on Wednesday morning and have made comments online in a news forum.
Some little Englanders don’t seem to be very pleased that education is a devolved matter to Scotland and Wales. I have even come in for criticism because I stated that the United Kingdom isn’t one country but three separate countries and a province. They of course have the temerity to say that Scottish education is lagging behind that of England!
However, as education is a devolved issue and Shirley-Anne Somerville is the Scottish Education Secretary, why does the media (including this paper unfortunately) refer to Gavin Williamson as being the Secretary of State for Education as if he was covering the whole of the United Kingdom? His effective remit is for England and not Scotland, and as your paper also pointed out in another article on the same subject on Thursday, education in Wales is also a devolved matter.
READ MORE: Wales team expertly taunts Tories over One Britain One Nation Day
This also goes for a number of other ministerial positions in Boris Johnson’s Cabinet – they are not UK or British ministers but only ministers for England, and should they not be referred to as such in the media as English ministers?
I of course can see where the problem arises as any money they spend has a direct bearing on what is then allocated via the Barnett Formula, but they still do not make decisions for Scotland and Wales.
If we want to get independence, then it is about time we started to make clear to people that a lot of these Westminster Cabinet positions are only English ministers!
Alexander Potts
Kilmarnock
I WOULDN’T be surprised if it has escaped your readers’ notice but the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has once again overwhelmingly voted in favour of Cuba’s resolution demanding the end of the US blockade despite the apparent change of president.
Some 184 countries voted in favour, and only two against (US and Israel), while three countries abstained (Colombia, Brazil and Ukraine).
So even Tory Britain was maybe too embarrassed to back the continued vicious and illegal blockade.
This was the 29th vote on the blockade, but the first under the administration of Joe Biden.
Although the new US president said that he would reverse some of the 243 new measures and measures introduced against Cuba by Donald Trump, there has been no change of policy since his election in January 2021.
Norman Lockhart
Innerleithen
IT is absolutely unforgivable that a supermarket giant is ready to torpedo the chances of survival of Scots charity Saheliya (Charity in £350k buy-out struggle against Tesco). We in Scotland don’t have to put up with such high-handed behaviour. A call for an immediate boycott of Tesco, with all the attendant publicity, would give them pause for thought. Why not send them an unambiguous message right now?
James Stevenson
Auchterarder
GREAT strides have been made to protect the rights of the living, but those of the dying have been left behind with current laws that are inhumane, undemocratic and abuse every citizen’s rights.
It is time for Scotland to join with compassionate democracies such as New Zealand in reforming the law to allow choice of safeguarded medical assistance in dying for the mentally competent, terminally ill.
The proposals are in addition to investment in excellent palliative care, not instead of it, and those opposed should not dictate their individual choices in death on others.
READ MORE: Holyrood to consider bill on assisted dying in Scotland as MSP lodges proposals
Of course, safeguards are necessary – and the proposals provide robust ones. But objections on the basis that putting the work into enforcing those safeguards will take effort is lazy law-making.
It condemns too many dying people to futilely torturous deaths, despite every palliative care possible, against their confirmed choice.
Many are too ill to protest or sadly have already passed. It is time their voices and the testimonies of their traumatised loved ones were heard. The choices of the dying matter.
Caroline Brocklehurst
Giffnock
IT is not a bill on assisted dying that we need. It is palliative treatment that does not have a limit dictated by the level that might hasten death, a limit which left a relative of mine in unbearable agony for two or three days.
All that does is extend unbearable suffering for a few days longer. The Hippocratic Oath, so often quoted as a duty to preserve life, does not include “and to refuse to alleviate suffering”. When death is imminent anyway, hastening it slightly is surely an acceptable side effect of alleviating suffering.
P Davidson
Falkirk
SOME of your correspondents (Letters, June 23) seem to be unkind in their views of Michael Fry.
I find him the most stimulating and funny of your regular contributors. It is like having a pet dinosaur in the garden – risky for the roses but an endless source of fun.
His view that “clever people tend to earn more than stupid people ...” is so counter to my own working experience that I consider it worthy of a major prize for satirical comedy (Why we should not weep that bastion of socialism has bitten the dust, June 22).
Please keep him; life would be so much duller without him.
Richard W Russell
Bowmore, Isle of Islay
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