PRIME Minister Johnson would do worse this week than remembering William T Sherman’s quote after the battle of Vicksburg during the American Civil War, when describing the change in public opinion towards Ulysses S Grant, and that is “vox populi, vox humbug”.
For Johnson and his Cabinet of overly promoted town hall clerks may well think that they still ride the popular support that had them form government! But this is not the time of that election, and far too many deaths have occurred through inept actions – with some actions, such as the awarding of contracts, done in what can only be thought of as dubious circumstances.
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We do not have now, nor were we ever going to have, a Downing Street Cabinet capable of making decisions of state. I doubt that there are 24 moveable vertebrae between the lot of them, such has been their spineless approach to the pandemic.
In times of great national crisis this archipelago has produced men and women able to rise and deliver leadership and skill sets of great merit, and probably for the first time in recorded history the former has been absent and the second wasted.
Not once in this crisis have I heard anything from the PM, nor from other ministers who appear when Johnson goes absent, that would inspire. Not once have I heard a speech from any of them that has had me saying: “you know what, I do not like your party nor your day-to-day politics but what you say makes sense so I will back you in this crisis”!
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When the people expected control they got rudderless careering in unpredicted directions. When the people expected calm they got buffoonery. When the people wanted clear vision they got something amounting to a vagueness of mist. When people where told that we were all in it together, it became clear protection started at the top and trickled down slowly.
Downing Street, when compared to Bute House, has been an exercise in clownish delivery, overly complex graphs and U-turn central on a weekly basis. The question now is, do we want more of the same here in Scotland? Do we really think that the UK Government, regardless of who controls it, is as good as we should expect?
Are we, the voters of 2014 and the thousands of those newly registered since then, seriously going to leave Scotland in thrall to that regime south of the Rio Tweed? How dammed will our generations be if that is what our as yet unborn have to live through?
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Surely now every rational voter here in Scotland can now see that the establishment is nothing more than hypocrisy dressed up in a very poor veil to resemble democracy. We have never clamoured for federalism in this archipelago, nor in my opinion should we do so now. We know the establishment promises are not worth the oxygen that is wasted on them.
The lapdogs of the establishment here in Scotland are already regurgitating the same old, same old story lines, and with each so easily batted away they become more and more vile in their accusations.
They are predictable and dangerous but not invincible. Stay focused in these days of pestilence and we shall win. We shall overcome their manipulation and we shall have an independent, socially just Scotland.
Our future is bright, independence is right.
Cliff Purvis
Veterans for Scottish Independence 2.0
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