THE latest sleaze revelations from Westminster should come as no real surprise to anyone. SNP MP Pete Wishart has written to the Metropolitan Police asking them to investigate the apparent link between donations to the Tory party and appointments to the House of Lords.
Westminster leader Ian Blackford has written to the other opposition party leaders to “urge Parliament to unite against the Tory cash for honours scandal”. The eventual outcome of either of these letters may result in some short term reduction in the opinion poll ratings of the UK Tory party. At best Boris will resign and be replaced by another Tory from their never ending production line of soulless politicians.
Whatever the outcome, neither letter will have any real longterm effect on the current Unionist support in Scotland and by the next Scottish Parliament elections in 2026 the current situation will be long forgotten. There is now almost an expectation among the Scottish public that most UK Westminster politicians have at least two jobs and several consultancy positions. The public are becoming immune to the whole mess.
EXPLAINED: A guide to this week's endless Tory sleaze allegations
Instead of writing letters to London-based Unionist parties and London’s police force perhaps some more SNP effort could be devoted to trying to educate and convince those union supporting folks back home that their best interests would be served by leaving the Westminster political cesspit behind by voting for Scottish independence – and long before 2026.
Surely it is not the job of the SNP to waste its time writing letters to UK Unionist organisations in the forlorn hope they will somehow fix the broken Westminster system?
Iain Wilson
Stirling
THE many corruption scandals in Westminster are so blatant that our Scottish MPs should be ensuring that they leave that den of iniquity lest they become tainted, although that may have already happened because Pete Wishart is doing more to destroy other indy MPs than he is the Tories, he is so vociferously against Alba that I heard someone say: “If they don’t remove his batteries indy will be doomed”.
We were so near to independence but I fear we are going backwards, I think lots of us accept now that Nicola Sturgeon is not the person to lead us in our quest for self determination, there have been too many lost opportunities for it to be coincidence. We have a great grassroots Yes campaign but if we don’t have a leader we will never reach our goal. Unfortunately we have seen recently that Nicola Sturgeon does more to promote herself rather than independence which is a pity because we put such faith in her. No one person is more important than our goal of independence, so Nicola, hand over the reins.
Rosemary Smith
East Kilbride
JUST watched the Prime Minister’s speech in Glasgow on Wednesday. He, more and more, reminds me of a student at a debating competition who has just revealed the motion that he has to support!
Peter Barjonas
Latheronwheel
IT is interesting to note that some of the press are reporting that Andrew Bowie, MP for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, has announced that he will resign as vice-chair of the Tory party, they believe, as a matter of conscience over the recent sleaze scandal. Mr Bowie may well be resigning as a protest against the tide of corruption and malfeasance that he is currently witness to in his own party or perhaps to try and preserve his wafer-thin majority in his constituency, however, with the Scottish Conservatives things are often not what they seem to be.
READ MORE: The mystery around Andrew Bowie's resignation as vice-chair of the Tory party
When Scottish Conservative leader, Douglas Ross, resigned his post as Parliamentary Under- Secretary of State for Scotland in May 2020, it was ostensibly due to his disgust at the actions of Dominic Cummings, the Prime Minister’s adviser,when he flouted lockdown rules.
Within three months Mr Ross, aided and abetted by the conniving Ruth Davidson, had manufactured the resignation of Jackson Carlaw to achieve a virtually unopposed leadership election victory for the MP for Moray. According to a variety of Tory-friendly sources it would appear that Douglas Ross’ performance as leader in Scotland has not inspired much confidence in London and that some members of the Cabinet believe a new broom is needed to attract voters and take the fight for the Union to the SNP. In short, though it would appear at face value that Andrew Bowie is resigning his post due to a principled stance, it may well be the case that this most enthusiastic of Union Jack waving, Westminster sycophants is being groomed for the top Tory post in Scotland and that his football flag waving colleague will be heading into political oblivion. Watch this space.
Owen Kelly
Stirling
OH dear oh dear. Poor Mr Johnson has to make himself scarce yet again from his Westminster accusers. This time back to Glasgow, uninvited of course, to deliver one of his famous political stand up comedy speeches. On the other hand, he must have been bloody annoyed that, after absconding from his face-up in Westminster on Tuesday to visit a hospital, his nemesis, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, chaired a COP26 meeting alongside Nancy Pelosi and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the latest delegates from the American government.
How very dare she appear on stage when Johnson swore to keep her away from the COP26 altogether!
So, he does his Westminster disappearing act once again to pay Scotland another visit. At least he travelled by train this time for his day trip to Glasgow.
Alan Magnus-Bennett
Fife
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel