HAVING now seen the agenda for tomorrow’s SNP convention on independence in Dundee, I am glad I did not invest the £11.55 (£10 plus £1.55 booking fee) in a ticket. The agenda is clearly dominated by speeches and presentations from a very familiar selection of MPs and MSPs.
“Member contributions”, as they have been described, have been strictly limited to lunchtime “workshops” and two sessions in the afternoon – both shared with presentations by three MSPs and an MP.
Weather and legs permitting, I will probably join the AUOB march in Stirling. It is many decades since I last walked that route. In the 1970s and 1980s, many thousands attended.
Many of my friends from that period have since passed away. They did not live to see their dream of an independent Scotland. I will think of them tomorrow.
I never thought that in 2023 we would still be marching with Scotland still anchored to the ever-declining rest of the UK and with the opinion poll ratings of the current SNP declining, I cannot help but think recent events and policy decisions have unravelled many years of hard work by many past activists.
Will our grandchildren still be marching and holding conventions in another 50 years from now?
The First Minister’s latest independence paper calls for a constitution that includes our right as citizens to access healthcare which is free at the point of need. This is a noble aim, one of several in the paper.
However, for many, certainly of our older citizens, the point of need and the point of treatment are still far apart. I suspect most would prefer a paper on actually reducing current waiting lists rather than pious pledges in a possible post-independence constitution.
It is now some months since our ill-conceived and poorly presented referendum case was swiftly thrown out by the UK Supreme Court but it seems we are now to wait until October’s SNP conference in Aberdeen to learn the direction of the new yellow brick road (certainly not a dual carriageway) we are expected to follow to independence. By that time it will probably be less than a year to a UK General Election.
That part of the road will need to have a very steep upward gradient or many SNP MPs are going to find themselves looking for alternative employment.
Brian Lawson
Paisley
FIRSTLY, it’s important that we all recognise that the failure of the deposit return scheme was entirely the fault of Westminster.
I read this morning that the drinks industry are celebrating Fergus Ewing’s support. Greed always wins over the future of the planet. We can only assume Ewing has no progeny, or at least that he has no interest in their future.
I would much prefer to read that Scotland is forging ahead with a green policy to support the likes of Lorna Slater. My understanding is that she was a prime mover in tidal power and the development of the O2 generator.
How could it be that on the day after Ewing votes against Green policy, it is announced that Scotland’s tidal power capacity is “more than the rest of the world”?
The only hope for our climate is that Scotland shakes off the malignant Westminster shackles and that more Green policies are affected by our devolved government.
Tony Kime
Kelso
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