YOU’VE got to hand it to the Conservatives. Just when you think they can’t get more amoral or depraved, they manage to achieve it. From the gold-medal mendacity of Johnson to the vacuous ethical deviance of Truss, Tory leaders embody the political and social cesspit that their governments represent.
And now, the present incumbent Mr Sunak has decided that anything his predecessors can do, he can outdo them in terms of inhumanity and insensitivity laced with a callous lack of genuine empathy.
READ MORE: Rishi Sunak responds after £1000 Rwanda bet backlash
In his interview with Piers Morgan – a narcissist not renowned for his compassion or altruism – Sunak displayed all his crass indifference to the sufferings of others by betting £1000 that his Rwanda flights carrying, as Stephen Flynn observed, some of the most vulnerable people on the planet, would be in place before the next election.
It is difficult to articulate just how offensive this bet between two very wealthy men cloistered in their own world of opulence and entitlement really is. Their breathtaking indifference to the lives of the people they dared to gamble about and their emotional derealisation about those living in poverty throughout the UK is truly abhorrent.
READ MORE: Rishi Sunak reported to sleaze watchdog over Piers Morgan Rwanda bet
Sunak has no understanding or sympathy with the plight of any person or group unfortunate enough to exist outside his exclusive class. His bet with the repugnant Morgan, his refusal to call for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza and his total obedience to United States’ hawkish policy in the Middle East generally shows him to be a supine and distasteful little man who genuinely believes that human life is cheap.
The Tories continue to wallow in the politics of the gutter with only their political doppelganger, the Labour Party, as a UK alternative. Why aren’t we independent yet?
Owen Kelly
Stirling
THE Labour Party are said to be worried about the possibility of losing seats in English constituencies with large Muslim populations so they are hoping to pick up votes in Scotland. Yet their words and actions precede them. Starmer tries to pretend he never said Israel had a right to block water and food supplies to Gaza. That’s like a high school friend berating me for letting someone know he’d voted for Trump the first time round. I said “Own it. We’re not in high school any more – you can’t bully me for telling the truth”. Starmer and his pusillanimous frontbench need to do the same.
Angela Rayner says it is “appalling” that former first minister Nicola Sturgeon deleted her WhatsApps. Yet neither of she nor Starmer offers a vision of what the people’s party would do differently.
READ MORE: George Kerevan: Labour have an eye on young voters - the SNP should beware
Cronyism? Rewarding big donors with the baubles of Empire? 40% of the House of Lords is packed with Labour has-beens. What a fitting testament, along with the inbred hereditary contingent, for a country in terminal decline.
I’ll tell you what’s appalling: not having the gumption to call for a ceasefire as thousands of Palestinians continue to suffer and die, whether pummelled with US weaponry “delivered” by aircraft using UK bases or starving as a result of Britain’s cowardly suspension of aid via the United Nations Relief and Works Agency. How heartening it was to see Scotland on a list, along with Belgium and Norway and Spain and Ireland, of countries that would not be “suspending” further aid. The values of the Scottish people are at odds with the unprincipled and vacuous careerists who are reassuring bankers that their obscene bonuses will not be taxed and unwilling to stand up to Biden, Blinken and the dogs of war.
As Michael Collins said: “Give us the future, we’ve had enough of your past, give us back our country, to grow in, to live in, to love.”
Marjorie Ellis Thompson
Edinburgh
IAN Murray confirmed on BBC’s Question Time from Glasgow what most of us already knew, that there is “no difference” in the stances of Anas Sarwar and Keir Starmer, even over Middle East policies, as neither politician is actually calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
Michael Shanks was elected on the basis he was his “own man”, with a rhetoric that echoed the weasel words of Anas Sarwar, but on arriving in Westminster he –immediately fell into line with Keir Starmer’s policy on Gaza by not backing an SNP motion calling for an immediate ceasefire.
READ MORE: Question Time came to Glasgow – but did we get any answers?
Blair, Sarwar, Starmer – which of these three “New” Labour Party politicians has abiding socialist principles? Answer: none of them. Which of these prominent Labour Party establishment stooges puts the interests of the people of Scotland ahead of their own personal ambitions and ahead of the interests of the UK’s most wealthy and influential individuals? Answer: none of them. Which of these Labour Party preachers of compassion puts fighting poverty and removing injustices, such as the “rape clause” and the “bedroom tax”, at the top of their agenda for government? Answer: none of them. Voters at the next General Election should not be fooled by imposters. The only serious path to a socially just society in Scotland is via independence.
The only route to achieving self-determination in the foreseeable future is via the SNP, hopefully strengthened through more consultative and transparent leadership under First Minister Humza Yousaf and a more emphatic commitment to independence through embracing good ideas and proposals of the wider Yes movement.
Stan Grodynski
Longniddry, East Lothian
I LISTENED to Sir Tom Hunter, the renowned businessman, say recently that Scotland was heading for a £30 billion deficit and Ireland was heading for a £60 billion surplus. Ireland and Scotland have similar populations and abilities, so that seemed odd to me. The only major differences I could think of are that one is independent and in the EU, and one isn’t.
George Archibald
West Linton
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