As long as Scotland is treated as a 'region', it cannot be a democracy

The clock ticks on, the hours add up, the days roll by and the dream of “democracy” for the people of Scotland takes yet another stride toward the far horizons.

It seems only now that our professional independence-advocating politicians have decided to emphasise the Scottish democratic deficit. For me it became obvious in 1987, when Labour took 50 of the then 72 Scottish Westminster seats and sat back and watched as Thatcher used Scotland as a testing ground for her reviled Poll Tax experiment!

In my younger days I had, like so many, been duped into thinking the “Mother of Parliaments” was the beacon of representative democracy, so I passed on to my children the need to go out and vote and be a part of the government process. I cautioned them, though, to be aware that all politicians lie! I told them to think otherwise is naïve. Consider it the currency they trade in. To deny such would be like saying a baker doesn’t get flour on his apron or that a sewer rat doesn’t smell of excrement!

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The duty, then, for those of us who enter the polling station, is to consider who is telling the most incredulous lies and balance them against those who may be erring toward truth. This philosophy worked well until my wife pointed out that if you live in Scotland and you don’t vote for an independence party, you may just as well not bother voting at all! After all, the only thing you are going to get is what the south-east of England has voted for because that’s the most populous region of Britain.

Remember too that the island of Britain is referred to as “this country” and Scotland, in this context, is just another English region. Given its “region” status, Scotland, which has never been a “democracy”, is never going to be one! Certainly not while we have the likes of Alister Jack, the current Colonial Viceroy for Scotland, underlining our subservient status by exercising his imperial privilege and blocking our laws, while seeing fit to ignore our elected representatives or explain his reasoning. Even to the most feeble intellect, his actions must be seen for what they are! Just a straightforward assault on the Scottish electorate, a denial of democracy with absolutely nothing to do with protecting women!

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Each day we see another report on the chicanery and duplicity of members of the Westminster junta and their supporters, be it the smirking ferret Sunak’s “I don’t need a seatbelt ‘cos the rules don’t apply to me”, messaging; the Boris Johnson loan that got the BBC chairman his job or the Nadhim Zahawi tax shenanigans.

This continues to emphasise the ever-increasing need for the people of Scotland to have a government for which the majority of the people of Scotland have voted and for that government to be conveniently located where, should the need arise, the people of Scotland can, metaphorically, take them by the throat and shake them when they are caught “at it”!

Please, please, as speedily as possible, deliver us from the pig pen that is the pernicious pit of perfidious mendacity called “Westminster” and serve up a modern, independent, genuine democracy!

Ned Larkin
Inverness

RATHER than attempting to place a block on legislation in the Scottish Parliament, the PM should unblock Westminster’s drain on our economy and clear out the mass of sleaze and sludge nearer home. While the River Thames flows past Westminster, the Cloaca Maxima runs through it.

James Stevenson
Auchterarder