HOW on earth can we use the song Scotland The Brave for our national sports anthem when half of our nation are too craven to stand on their own two feet and have to cling on for dear life to a bullying neighbour’s coat-tails?

It’s preposterous to use this song at the time being. I remember boasting about how great Scotland was in a bar in Zakynthos a few years back and the barman, a nice guy, said to me “until Scotland can make its own rules, have its own parliament and use the huge income which is stolen daily by your neighbours every single day from your North Sea, you cannot even call yourself a proper country.” Unfortunately he is absolutely correct.

Stuck in a straitjacket with no real powers, our elected representatives do what they can with the likes of free tuition, free bus travel for the under-22s, as much free child care as they are able provide, protection for tenants, equal pay rights, free prescriptions and the extra payments for children to try reduce the harm caused by Westminster – all little things that actually add up to a hell of a lot, and we should be hugely proud of their achievements in reality.

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Now let’s look at the harm that those too craven, or simply bigoted, caused by voting No in 2014: completely unnecessary and completely crooked huge energy price rises; huge fuel prices at the pumps; getting us dragged out of the EU against our will; the rape clause; billions stolen under the blanket of Covid; billions wasted on warships; continuation of our country being used as a nuclear warehouse; abject poverty; out-of-control and completely unnecessary huge mortgage rate hikes; seemingly never-ending strikes; being not being allowed to at least try resolve our drug deaths; not allowed our own state broadcaster; not allowed to hire workers from the EU – the list just goes on and on.

The anti-Scottish press up here drip-feed downright lies to our populace every single day whilst hiding the fact we have the best NHS stats, have had no strikes from health workers, have ten times better school standards, are open about the number of buildings using the usual cheap, money-saving nonsense from Westminster (this time the concrete in our schools), not covering the massive recent indy march on TV, the list is endless, but hey, what do they do? They only go and try blame not the real culprit, Westminster, but Holyrood, by constantly bringing on dim-witted clowns from theTory party so much so that you would think they had massive support up here when in reality this vile, crooked, loathed party have fewer members up here than the population of the wee Hebridean town of Stornoway.

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It’s quite simply disgusting the amount of airtime they get, and let’s not forget the anti-Scottish media up here are trying their damnedest to completely hide the fact that in front of our very eyes the warmongering Labour Party are literally morphing in to some hideous second Tory party.

The question must be asked, do these media outlets actually hate the Scots? All the time this ridiculous brainwashing and downright disgraceful attacks on our elected government is allowed to go on, the more they are culpable for the mess this country is in, where the only growth comes in the number of food banks, the number of suicides, the number of homeless, the number of drug and alcohol victims and the number of people having to leave this beautiful country to have a better life.

On a more positive note, with each passing week Kate Forbes sounds more and more like the actual leader we need while poor ol’ Humza is looking more out of his depth. Good on him for trying, but it really is time to step aside, unless the job means more to him than the country gaining its much overdue independence?

Iain K
Dunoon