SENIOR Tories are “seething” at the latest distracting controversies – describing the former prime minister Boris Johnson as a “bad smell that doesn’t go away”, repeatedly reminding the electorate of the mismanagement, corruption and infighting of his administration.
The recent reluctance by the Cabinet Office to release Boris Johnson’s Covid WhatsApp messages is damning. The attempted cover-up is tantamount to admitting there are hugely damaging and embarrassing messages in the material.
Why were official government systems not used for communication? This yet again raises security issues, the reason Suella Braverman was forced to resign the first time by prime minister Lyn Truss. Private systems are not likely to be secure, or recorded properly.
READ MORE: UK Government launches legal battle to prevent release of Boris Johnson's WhatsApps
What else are the Tories hiding?
For the Cabinet Office to simultaneously refuse to disclose Boris Johnson’s messages claiming they were irrelevant to the Covid inquiry whist claiming not to even still have them raises incredulity and reinforces impressions of yet another Conservative cover-up.
How does the Cabinet Office know that the WhatsApp messages are irrelevant if it does not have them?
Only by letting the fresh breeze of public scrutiny in to blow away the musty, lingering, ghosts of Johnson and Truss can the Tory party heal and recover from the bruising and damaging years of incompetence, infighting and petty animosities!
Pete Milory
Trowbridge, Kent
I AM going to be as polite as I possibly can be in describing these people so hell-bent on trying to stop Scotland’s people from being allowed to shake off a truly abhorrent, failing, crooked government from another country.
Adam Tomkins is at best an irrelevant prat, Starmer is a snake, Sunak is at best absolutely useless on every level, Johnson’s a pathological liar, Sarwar an empty airhead who really should be wearing a blue rosette, Truss is and was completely detached from reality (remember “Fizz with Liz”?).
READ MORE: Senior Labour figures announce formation of 'radical' alliance
Cole-Hamilton is a stupid little irrelevant, posh nobody from the English Shires whose intellect is on a par with a pork pie; Ross is an anti-Scottish clown at best; Alister Jack is at best as thick as two short planks, and do you what is the saddest thing about all this?
With these Unionist parties being in absolute disarray and led by these absolute clowns, we now have the proverbial open goal regarding independence, and what do the SNP hierarchy do? They blatantly push and cajole their membership into choosing who is without doubt the worst possible candidate to be the new First Minister to lead our country, when we needed someone with intellect, substance, an air of authority and with vision, who would without doubt have managed to turn so many soft No voters into supporting indy!!!!!
We really have to question yet again, do the SNP really actually want independence?
It’s looking more and more like Salvo is the way, and with them only needing 100,000 why is it taking so long when this figure is only a fraction of the non-blinkered up here?
Iain K
Dunoon
I WISH to comment around some of the issues, to my mind, raised by letters in your May 31 edition.
“Salvo” sounds interesting, is the Scottish Government looking into it? I believe Margaret Thatcher in the Commons once said that if the SNP won a majority of Scottish MPs, Scotland could have its independence. We do not hear much about that now, although the once-in-a-generation line is often cited.
For those supporting independence and wishing to secure devolution and closer ties with the EU – for example improving access for the performing arts – I would suggest failing to vote is not a good choice.
READ MORE: Pro-independence Basque Country party achieve historic results in local elections
There are a number of political parties available, even though splitting the vote under the first-past-the-post system would reduce the number of pro-independence MPs elected. For this reason, the Scottish parliamentary elections may provide a more representative proxy plebiscite and also show how much effect an electoral system can have on results.
Westminster concerns over a Scottish block of MPs potentially having too much influence are already figuring in campaigning, which might suggest that Labour – very much in the mould of Tony Blair’s New Labour model – are not as sure of an overall majority as polling suggests. To my mind, reinstating Clause 4 would seem like a very attractive manifesto pledge, as it seems to offer a balance against the continuing trend in removing regulatory and employment protections. It states: “To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of common ownership and the means of production, distribution and exchange the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.”
Peter Gorrie
Edinburgh
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