RISHI Sunak is lauded by the media for a PMQ session that wasn’t that of her predecessor, who set the bar so low that anyone could have exceeded it. What I observed, however, was a PM who deflected answers in a Johnsonesque manner by responding to Ian Blackford’s questioning of the lamentable appointment of serial ministerial-code-breaker Suella Braverman to the Home Secretary post by attacking Scotland’s record on police numbers and violent crime.
At the very least he did not tell the whole truth.The number of police officers in England and Wales per 100,000 of population is 228, in Scotland it is 316, and the average across 32 European nations is 357. When you have one of the worst rates in the world an increase is hardly something to bring to the public’s attention, but the negative impression was left out there, so distorted point duly made and a false impression of Scotland’s actually praiseworthy record – in this as in so many other areas – was cemented.
READ MORE: FACT CHECK: Rishi Sunak claims Scottish crime on the rise during PMQs
As for violent crime, England and Wales saw an increase to 2.1 million in 2021/22 with homicides increasing by 140 to 710. Scotland had a reduction in such crimes to 53, the lowest since 1976. Even in recorded crime per 1,000 of population, England and Wales was 77.6 compared to Scotland’s 45.1, a decrease from a high of 72.5 in 2008/09.
From my perspective this was more of the “same old” from our latest iteration of a PM, and hardly someone who has brought a new level of integrity into the post.
Was I naive enough to think otherwise? No, but is it the least one could ask to have a fact-check strap line across the promulgation of these distortions in those media outlets that broadcast them?
Angus Macdonald
Aberfeldy
I NEED someone to explain to me what is “new” and “exciting” in Rishi Sunak’s Cabinet of failures and has-beens that will” take the UK forward” and “steady the ship”.
If this was a retread tyre, rather than a retread Cabinet, it would fall its MoT.
Yet we have all the usual media suspects pandering, “Give Rishi time to turn things around”, yet the Tory party has had 12 years at the helm and nothing has yet been “turned around”; it has only got worse for those at the bottom, the economic glory promised by the self same party never emerged and has now reached a low not known since the “Three Day” week of the 1970s and heading for a depression of a type not seen in the UK since the early 1930s.
READ MORE: FM lists four things Rishi Sunak must do in first letter to PM – read it in full
In any other walk of life the Tory party would now be in the hands of the liquidators as a failed company, bankrupt and bereft of ideas with a product that has failed its purchasers’ needs and expectations, purchasers who are now looking for a refund.
If the Tory party was a dog you would seriously think of having it “put down”, such is its decrepitude and incontinence.
Yet we, the Scottish electorate, have to thole more Tory bletherers, in a UK Government we never elected, claiming they have a mandate to screw us over while denying us the political mandate secured by the Greens and SNP at the last Holyrood elections.
Rishi Sunak’s “You’ll have had your referendum” answer to the Scots is a denial of the democratic will of the people of Scotland and cannot be allowed to rest.
Something has to give and it will not be the Scottish people.
Peter Thomson
via email
RISHI Sunak may have provided the solution to the problem described in David Pratt’s article on Thursday on how "Global Britain" remains a title in search of a plot as Sir Gavin Williamson is back as a minister without portfolio, the perfect post for a minister with no proven talent.
As Defence Secretary Williamson endlessly promoted “Global Britain”, extending its “lethality” east of Suez and west into the Caribbean, from the North Sea to the South Pacific.
READ MORE: A Boris Johnson Cabinet without the Prime Liar - The REAL Scottish Politics
A rewrite updating his many speeches could become the plot for a full-scale production on the world stage – if anyone can be found to foot the enormous costs of bringing it to the global audience.
John Jamieson
South Queensferry
AS the third Prime Minister of the year took to the dispatch box at PMQs on Wednesday, more of the same old Conservative rhetoric became evident! Against the backdrop of the country in economic crisis as a result of an incompetent Conservative government and with the cost of living sparling out of control, it took the SNP Leader at Westminster Ian Blackford MP to bring proceedings down to earth and into focus.
Mr Blackford called for an inflation-matched increase to benefits, benefits that received only a 3.1% increase this year when inflation is running at over 10%! The Conservative arrogance came forth from the new PM as he claimed the Conservatives are the party of compassion, always looking after the vulnerable. I must admit, not a description of the Conservative Party I recognise and for those dependant on benefits – many through no fault of their own – a rather insulting suggestion.
Catriona C Clark
Falkirk
MISS Trust refuses to apologise for trashing the economy and says better times are ahead! Of course, she means for herself as she’ll be entitled to an ex-PM’s allowance of £115,000 per year. Meanwhile, richer sooner says difficult decisions lie ahead. Might I suggest that the easiest one would be to cancel that windfall and those of other revolving-door Cabinet ministers who are entitled to pay-offs from the gravy train funded by our taxes.
Steve Cunningham
Aberdeen
NOW that Boris Johnson has proved he can pull out, perhaps he should have done it more often in the past.
Richard Easson
Dornoch
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