AS I write this, the outcome of the election is still unknown. I thought therefore it would be an opportune time to comment more generally on the election campaign.
From what I’ve seen on telly for weeks now, apart from the SNP, the Greens and to an extent Plaid Cymru, the other political parties and all of the media have been living in some sort of parallel universe.
For years now since the Tories came to power in 2010, we have learned about how so many folk, including a massive proportion in work, rely on food banks. Stories about mums not eating a meal as there was only enough for the bairns, then she discretely ate their leftovers. Decisions by families about whether to eat or put the heating on in freezing conditions.
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I specifically recall Paul Brand of ITV News doing admirable pieces for their news bulletins on the dire state of both cooncil hooses and those in the private rented sector. Anyone that saw these pieces involving ceilings falling into bedrooms, water pouring everywhere etc, couldn’t help wonder is this really the 21st century? More like the Dickensian 19th century!
Back to the election campaign and the media coverage. Did it reflect the foregoing? Did it hell! These stories were conveniently forgotten and brushed under the carpet. We had the grotesque scenario of Labour politicians (aye, supposed socialists!) having a real go at the SNP for having had the temerity to take just a teensy weensy bit more tax from the well-off to help those less fortunate than them.
After all these years of grinding, abject poverty (they give it the bland word “austerity” coz it doesn’t sound so horrendous) throughout the UK under the Tories, Starmer’s Labour Party, scared shitless by the Daily Mail et al, committed to no income tax or National Insurance rises on anyone. Aye, absolutely anyone!
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No even thaim living in hooses with enough rooms to sort out the hoosing crisis in a stroke, and with so many posh brand new German cars in their manicured drives, without them the economy of Germany would be in freefall! Such a grotesque contrast to a mum discretely devouring her bairns’ leftovers!
Seriously, it is a total fallacy that the general public are obsessed by wanting to pay less and less tax. The highly respected John Curtice, who currently serves as president of The British Polling Council, no less, stated on Newsnight this week: “What neither the Conservative Party nor the Labour Party have cottoned on to is that the public have not reacted to the expansion of the state in the way you are both imagining they are doing. At the moment at least, all the polling evidence suggests that the public are much more concerned about the state of the health service and public services than they are about the level of taxation.”
Well there you go! The media and the main political parties will most certainly have seen these polls, but must have studiously ignored them. Clearly only the SNP and the Greens have their ears to the ground and their policies reflect this.
As I write this, apparently the SNP and “Scottish” Labour are neck-and-neck in the opinion polls. Hopefully the SNP do manage to get over the line to avoid me waking up feeling like the Reverend IM Jolly on an extremely bad day!
Ivor Telfer
Dalgety Bay, Fife
YOUR article on the Dingwall hustings (Energy the burning issue at hustings in Highlands, Jul 2) presented a fair but incomplete picture. Candidates were faced with hostile questions framed by a small coterie of voters with a long track record of opposing onshore wind. Furthermore, a hard core of these voters inevitably oppose the pylon lines needed to carry much-needed clean power to more heavily populated parts. No doubt such critics would have opposed the hydro dams and power lines in the 1950s.
To say the hustings represented the wider community is not credible. Those asking the questions often like the views from their windows but care little for the electricity needs of others. UK governments, of all shades, have not provided local people with community benefits for hosting the proposed infrastructure. With a Scottish energy policy we could deliver a fair deal, proper consultation, agreed diversion from sensitive areas and a fair price for consumers.
Not many of those present at the Dingwall hustings want that.
Rob Gibson
Evanton, Ross-shire
A VERY good article by Mike Small on June 23 (Why vote?). I am in total agreement with its content.
What he says about mass movements, civil disobedience and withdrawal of consent are my thoughts entirely, though it has to be greater and more widespread and effective at grassroots level in order to overcome what he has written about British politics and illustrated in the boring and dismal election period (where even those with political interest say “they are all the same”, it shows we have a mountain to climb in order to change attitudes).
At my age my days of activism are well behind me and one of the few things I have left to me as an independence supporter is to vote for the SNP, the only party who can be the vanguard and be bolstered by a diverse mass movement within which there are many aims and desires struggled and fought for.
Bobby Brennan
Glasgow
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