LISA Nandy, Keir Starmer and Rebecca Long-Bailey are caught in a vortex of confusion over Scotland. That is not surprising as they are basically carpet-baggers on the hunt for votes to propel them to lead English-Labour.
The indy2 question splits them. Keir Starmer warns against allying with the Tories again to protect the Union. It is amazing he does not mention Aberdeen Labour and its alliance with the Tories in the council there. He says Labour must not fall into a trap set by the SNP!
Rebecca Long-Bailey says she would not stand in the way of indyref2 if the request came. That is irrelevant, as Scots will in the end take matters into action independently.
READ MORE: Here's why Unionist parties are a driving force for indyref2
Lisa Nandy blabs about power to “the local authorities”, forgetting that there is a national dimension around Holyrood to be resolved.
The question of which powers is never touched upon, and the role of Westminster is sacrosanct in the eyes of Labour from England.
They all agree that the key to Labour is Scotland, in order to have lobby fodder for a Labour government. When Boris Johnson realises that no more Scots MPs at Westminster means total Tory hegemony in England, he will be for “Get indy2 done!”
The Scots Tory MPs are expendable to Cummings and co as their numbers were halved at last election. The other two Unionist branches are off the radar completely, the LibDems have become leaderless and silent.
The three hopefuls from Labour are caught in their own dilemma. Past experience shows that the English-dominant Commons voted down all positive measures to develop Holyrood, with Labour leading the action.
Labour has form at being untrustworthy and mendacious!
Their hold on reality post-December 2019 is slipping as they succumb to irrelevance and infighting.
Their next “Vow” will be to forget it all when the new Labour incumbent disappears into the Westminster alleyways.
Lisa Nandy is no doubt mugging up on Spain’s brutal tactics in Catalonia to fight “nationalism” here, the usual by-word used by Labour when it cannot think of anything else other than Westminster-centrism on steroids under the guise of faux federalism.
Time for the gang of three to pack their bags and go back over the Border.
John Edgar
Kilmaurs
IT’S good to know that the Scottish Government is to produce an alternative to GERS (‘Alternative to GERS’ to be set out despite Mackay exit, February 17) as despite the best efforts of Richard Murphy at Tax Research UK, Business for Scotland and The National’s Fact Check service, Unionist politicians and supporters get away with misleading claims on Scotland’s notional deficit unchallenged by TV presenters.
We need to get over the fact that £3 billion, a quarter of the GERS estimated paper exercise notional deficit, is down to Scotland being charged interest on debts run up by Westminster at a time when we were contributing a surplus to the UK Treasury in London through oil and gas revenues.
READ MORE: ‘Alternative GERS’ still to be set out despite Mackay quitting
A further £1bn could be saved on defence costs attributed to Scotland.
A Scottish Government could slash any deficit by taxing oil and gas companies at Norwegian levels. A recent report published by Platform and the PCS union showed that in the eight years to 2015 inclusive, UK Government receipts from taxation on petroleum exploration and production activities came to $65.6bn and the difference compared to Norway was a staggering $324bn. That’s some Union dividend we are getting.
Mary Thomas
Edinburgh
ELEANOR Yule’s fascinating essay about miserabilist culture (Hard men and wild roses, February 16) reminded me of my own experience with the BBC.
Back in the 1980s I got a contract for a radio drama I’d written (a psychic fiction piece about mental time travel). The producer sent it to London suggesting it was “good enough to be networked”. She told me that even if London rejected it she would still put it on for BBC Radio Scotland.
READ MORE: Beyond the Scottish Cringe, part three: Hard men and wild roses
London didn’t like the play. However, they said they liked my writing style and suggested I might write for them a different play on the subject of unemployment and deprivation.
The producer then told me that since London didn’t like the original play she wouldn’t put it on Radio Scotland after all. However, if I wrote a play about deprivation she would recommend it for broadcast.
In the end I expanded the original plot into a novel. There are publishers who are themselves based in Scotland and can see beyond the stereotypes. Argyll Publishing brought it out in 1994 under the title Everwinding Times.
Mary McCabe
Glasgow
WHAT with HS2 and the proposed bridge between Scotland and Ireland, our Prime Minister seems obsessed with transport and construction. So was Mussolini – “il Duce”. But I’m pretty sure that’s the only similarity between Boris Johnson and an extreme right-wing fascist dictator. Oh hold on...
Ann Marie Di Mambro
via email
I WAS amused to read Lorna Campbell’s suggestion (Website comments, February 15) that Adam Tomkins is being held in reserve for the constitutional fight against the SNP. We should tremble at the prospect of the professor unleashing his devastating intellectual acumen in the coming “showdown”. With enemies like these, who needs friends?
Joe Cowan
Balmedie
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