ON Monday Scottish Labour Party were silent regardless of the damage their Westminster Leader Sir Keir Starmer was inflicting on them, silent regardless of the insulting comments to thousands who tried to earn a living during the 1980 when Margaret Thatcher was in power.
From personal experience, I suffered two redundancies, my husband experienced six redundancies, we experienced our mortgage doubling overnight due to massive increases in the mortgage rates, reaching 18% at one point. Mrs Thatcher ripped the industrial heartlands out of Scotland; no more manufacturing.
READ MORE: Anas Sarwar defends Keir Starmer but slams Margaret Thatcher’s legacy
Then there was the “poll tax” from Mrs Thatcher – let’s experiment with this new tax and inflict it on Scotland first, causing riots in the streets. But the final straw came with the sale of council housing, a scenario which has ultimately cost our councils millions, exacerbating homelessness and now seeing our councils buying back in an effort to increase social housing stock. Thankfully, under the SNP government in Holyrood this outrageous act of social and financial vandalism to our housing stock was overturned and the sale of council housing halted.
Just a few examples of Margaret Thatcher’s legacy in Scotland, a legacy we have all paid dearly for and a legacy still sending rumbles throughout town halls, yet Scottish Labour were silent on Sir Keir Starmer’s words of praise for former PM Margaret Thatcher.
Catriona C Clark
Falkirk
IN the Sunday National Ruth Wishart wrote, “It’s a lazy social media trope to call Starmer a red Tory” (Dec 3). This has gobsmacked me.
Correspondents to The National have been calling it for a long while – that Starmer is a tory in Labour’s clothing.
Indeed, I recently wrote that Starmer as Labour leader is Thatcher’s crowning achievement and legacy. Because with him as her disciple, she has achieved the ultimate Tory mission – to shift UK politics to the right, the destruction of the notion of the common good society and, through the financial assault of those unfortunate to be sick and on benefits or state pension, the reduction of financial burden to the state of those who are no longer deemed profitable units of production for the capital-owning wealthy oligarch masters the Tories serve.
READ MORE: Keir Starmer denies he's taking UK to 'Thatcherite future'
I’d like to think there will be copious calls for Starmer’s removal as leader. I suspect there won’t be – which means all his sycophantic colleagues on the Commons benches are no better than him, have no real Labour values, and are occupying their seats under false pretences (can’t get my head around why Starmer’s alleged Labour is being bankrolled by working people).
As for the SNP, if they don’t sing out loudly from the rooftops and spell it out to those in the Scottish electorate being seduced to vote for Starmer’s crew what a vote for red-tory Labour really means, then the party doesn’t deserve the office it holds and voters will reap the blighted harvest of the seeds they’ll have sown, and drag down those of us who know independence is the only real way to a better Scotland.
READ MORE: Alex Salmond furiously attacks Anas Sarwar amid Thatcher row
We need a major press campaign please, an attack on both blue and red Tory leaders at PMQs (eg, does the right honourable Prime Minister agree with me there is not a hair’s breadth difference between his policies, aims and objectives and those of the Leader of the Opposition and his party?), a disparaging attack during FMQs on the red-tory Labour Scottish branch office manager, and every elected SNP and indy-supporting representative to leaflet their constituency with the advice (dire warning) that a vote for Labour is not only a vote for Tory, but a vote for the continuation of the last 13 years of austerity misery – which Starmer has now just revealed to them himself.
In thrusting forward to appeal to red-wall former Labour voters, hasn’t Starmer left his rearguard open to attack and abandoned to defeat? Let’s inflict that defeat on him in Scotland.
Heaven help us if Scots don’t get, or refuse to accept, the clear message Starmer has just sent us.
Jim Taylor
Edinburgh
IT was so encouraging to read the comments that followed your front page story on Monday (“Scottish Labour silent as Keir Starmer praises Margaret Thatcher”). It really is beyond belief that anyone would now vote for the Labour Party. It’s certainly beyond belief that anyone would vote for the wretched Tories. One comment referred to there being “already several left parties in Scotland”. So at the next General Election vote for the SNP, or Alba, or Green – anything but the two English parties that dominate the BBC and the English press. Independence is the only hope for Scotland, and neither Labour nor Tories will ever sanction it.
Tony Kime
Kelso
I THINK the wit of Groucho Marx provided an excellent campaign slogan for Keir Starmer’s election campaign: “If you don’t like my principles ... well, I have others!”
WJ Graham
East Kilbride
DOES no-one remember that two weeks after moving into Downing Street, Tony Blair had Margaret Thatcher round for tea?
Richard Easson
Dornoch
IN his article in The National on Monday Chris McEleny explains why Alba believe that “It’s time to offer the prospect of progress on Scottish independence” and how this can be achieved.
Assuming that it all goes according to Alba’s plan, the referendum takes place next year and a substantial majority agree that they believe that the powers of our Holyrood parliament should be extended to include the right to legislate for and negotiate independence, what happens next?
John Jamieson
South Queensferry
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