LISTENING on Tuesday night to Suella Braverman, what horrified me as much as the sheer cruelty of the Tories currently in power was their total inability to think of more than one subject at a time, in isolation from anything that might be connected.
Such is the enthusiasm for making desperate folk, searching only for a place of safety, suffer as much as possible for as long as possible, that she made clear that this was her dearest wish (Suella Braverman: It would be my ‘dream’ to see asylum seeker flight to Rwanda, thenational.scot, Oct 4).
Has she ever imagined herself in their position, and what she might be driven to do? Does she really think that someone can see his home bombed to rubble and all services destroyed in a war zone, some of his family murdered in front of him, and them calmly gather all the necessary documentation from among the rubble and wait patiently for our sclerotic bureaucracy to grant him asylum by a legal route?
Now consider the recent dire predictions on the state of the NHS. Difficulties in getting GP appointments, excessive waiting times and the rest of that catalogue of massive staff shortages – worse, even, in England than in Scotland, and the prospect of years before new doctors, nurses and others are trained to fill the vacancies.
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So now, having chosen to leave the EU and sent thousands of fully trained workers back to Europe, they suddenly decide to start looking around the world for recruits to fill the gap! Yet they cannot join the dots and see the solution staring them in the face.
Amongst the thousands reaching our shores could well be a large enough number of fully qualified doctors, nurses, care workers, teachers, and other trained professionals to fill all the vacancies fast. But because they are desperate enough to seek safety by an unauthorised route, our new Home Secretary ignores this opportunity to benefit our own economy and services and is delighted to have the chance to make them suffer even more.
I myself know some Ukrainians who have been here for only about three months and are already working and helping to fill gaps in social work etc.
Why is plain logic so foreign to these Tories and to what depths of cruelty – and international law-breaking – will they not be happy to sink?
L McGregor
Falkirk
I HAVE little doubt that it would be impossible to have everyone in the indy movement in perfect agreement as suggested in Laura Pollocks’s article (Christian Yessers urges message of positivity, Sep 30). All movements and indeed parties are coalitions of groups with different shades of opinion. However this does not mean that we should suggest that any of the key issues will be “decided later”.
Of course there is no way to predict what the next “Black Swan” event, such as pandemic or war, will be or when it may force us to adapt our position. Voters are, however, entitled to understand what they are voting for, with respect to the central issues at the very least, when such a significant change is being suggested.
There may be differences of opinion on, for example, currency, pensions, Nato or the EU; but the voters cannot be expected to simply leave the important decisions to some non-defined process which we will sort out later.
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They must know what the manifesto for independence is before the vote, and those responsible for said content must be able to explain it. We have no excuse for not having these answers ... we’ve had eight years since the last indy referendum to know what we intend to do.
Don’t be surprised if the “son of Better Together” knocks holes in the case for independency if we still don’t have an answer for currency, and don’t whinge if they say “you’ve had eight years to work this out” if we are still floundering on this ... or any of the other big issues.
Its long past time to decide, so let’s get this into concrete ASAP. Once the manifesto for indy is set we can all judge whether or not to support it or whether we are happy to be subjected to a version of Trussonomics for another couple of decades.
Gus McSkimming
Ayrshire
THE SNP is closely monitoring the Labour resurgence in England, which is completely different from the situation in Scotland.
Sir Keir Starmer is trying to put clear water between the Labour and Tory parties in England; this is impossible in Scotland where the Labour, Tory and LibDem parties are all bobbing about in the same murky water.
Voters deserting the Tories in England have nowhere else to go; in Scotland they have already made that choice.
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Scottish voters with first-hand experience of government by all three parties, and various combinations of them, in Westminster, Holyrood and town halls, have switched to the SNP and Scottish Green Party.
The latest opinion polls show few signs of a Labour revival in Scotland so the SNP probably has no reason to be worried, however they are certainly not complacent.
John Jamieson
South Queensferry
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