CLIMATE change is an existential threat to everyone on the planet. The COP26 summit in Glasgow is a serious attempt to avert cataclysmic damage.
Yet all the lying, fraudulent clown Boris Johnson can think about is using it to “save” the rotten, crumbling UK Union. Leaked documents show the Tories are more concerned with sidelining Nicola Sturgeon than they are with saving the planet. This is utterly preposterous, vindictive and bizarre. It reeks of the backward-looking, folksy, Empire-nostalgic provincialism that has come to define British Unionism.
Boris Johnson is an utter embarrassment. He has made the Tories a despised international laughing stock.
READ MORE: Scotland set to host series of high-profile talks in run-up to COP26
The man is an imbecile. He had no plan for Brexit, no plan for Covid-19, no plan for an economic recovery, no plan to tackle the supply chain crisis and he has no plan to tackle climate change. He doesn’t require a plan to stop a Scottish independence referendum as the Holyrood government has no intention of holding one.
This is a man so devoid of anything other than personal aggrandisement that he compared Covid-19 to the flu. He allegedly said “let the bodies pile high” when faced with mass death.
He is a narcissist with an entitlement that was driven into him at Eton. The public school-educated Hooray Henrys are social Darwinists with no sense of empathy, solidarity or common cause with what they see as the “lower orders”. Boris Johnson is a fantasist who sees himself as some sort of Churchill. His imaginary fable of a post-Brexit rebuilding of the British empire is doing real damage to real people.
Boris Johnson has no democratic mandate in Scotland. Large protests need to be held at COP26 to remind the world of this come November.
Alan Hinnrichs
Dundee
AFRAID that the blond buffoon will be upstaged by Nicola Sturgeon and independence supporters, and that the Union flag will be outnumbered by Saltires, neurotic advisors at No 10 are reportedly plotting to marginalise Nicola Sturgeon’s involvement at the COP26 summit.
Such is Boris Johnson’s fragile self-confidence in his ability as Prime Minister that he sees Nicola Sturgeon’s competence in office as very real threat to his vacuous, egocentric posturing.
In 2019 Johnson said of the future COP26, “I don’t want to see Nicola Sturgeon anywhere near it.” I bet he didn’t, because he knows from experience that Nicola Sturgeon is a formidable political adversary. Since then, the vacillating Johnson has recanted and has made yet another of his infamous U- turns. He now says that there will be a role for Nicola Sturgeon at the Glasgow summit.
READ MORE: Calls to delay COP26 amid fears world's poorest nations will be excluded
Ever the showman, Johnson is not a team player because, in his mind, it’s all about him. Boris Johnson is most engaged and exercised when it comes to arranging photo opportunities and soundbites.
One thing is for sure, Johnson will move heaven and earth to ensure the limelight stays on him. Sturgeon’s promised role at the summit will probably be as minimal as possible, a sideshow of a sideshow. Johnson’s long-suffering advisors will do everything possible to prevent bumbling Boris from sharing a stage with a confident and assured Nicola Sturgeon.
Sandy Gordon
Edinburgh
AS we all look on with horror at current events in Afghanistan, and consider the potential consequences of the Taliban’s takeover of the country, veteran correspondent John Pilger reminds us that Afghanistan was not always like this.
He tells us that in 1978 a popular liberation movement led by the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan overthrew the previous dictatorship, “in an immensely popular revolution.”
When they seized power, life expectancy was 35, one in three children died in infancy, and 90% of the population was illiterate.
The new government introduced free medical care, a mass literacy campaign, and equal rights for women and minorities.
READ MORE: Face Parliament for shameful handling of Afghanistan crisis, Boris Johnson told
By the late 80s, health and life expectancy had improved dramatically, every girl could go to school, half of all university students were women, as were 40% of doctors and 70% of teachers, and women were free to go where they wanted, and wear what they liked.
It sounds good, but in the big political picture the new regime was backed by the Soviet Union, which displeased the US and their allies, including the UK, who set about undermining the popular government.
This eventually led, Pilger tells us, with various turns and twists, to the shocking situation we see nightly on our TV screens.
I’m no historian, but politics can be a very dirty business, and it’s always the poor people who suffer the collateral damage.
Les Mackay
Dundee
I HAVEN’T been out the village for more than a year and hadn’t met my brother for more than two years so I grabbed the chance to meet up with him in Glasgow for the football. I had a great time meeting up with Tartan Army friends from all over Scotland and England (Perth, Manchester, Shetland to name a few) that I had met before at previous games. It’s an incredible, passionate, loyal community.
Being born and brought up in Glasgow, I visited some auld haunts. But what really surprised me was how few people were following virus advice and how little was done to police it in the pubs. The buses were packed and few wore masks.
The virus is clearly going to come back with a vengeance before things get better. Nicola may have to tighten things yet again. We are certainly not out of the woods yet.
Robin MacLean
Fort Augustus
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