THE hills are alive with the sound of protest. In the last few days there has been an avalanche of rightful indignation about our ancient nation’s status being reduced in Labour’s new world to that of an English city council.
Much of the ire of individual comments on social media platforms and in the pages of The National has been directed towards our First Minister, with demands that he should have refused to be part of the Edinburgh meeting of the Council of the Regions and Nations. Who knows, they may eventually be proved to have been right in such demands, but we Scots do seem to have a terrible habit of leaping into an affray before considering all the possibilities of both negative and positive outcomes.
READ MORE: The First Minister shouldn’t have gone to Keir Starmer’s meeting
With the advantage of hindsight it is not perhaps quite as despairingly negative as it was at first glance. The day started with a private meeting between the UK Prime Minister and Scotland’s First Minister, who apparently took the opportunity to make representations on behalf of Scotland’s cities and councils, made clear his thoughts on the betrayal of Scotland’s Acorn Project for carbon capture, has emphasised that he will not as First Minister be dealing with any “envoy to the nations” but intends to have a direct relationship with the PM only.
Next came a meeting between the PM and all three First Ministers, where once again Mr Swinney could contribute. Finally the English cities and regions representatives were added to the aforesaid three FMs and PM to create a third meeting where our FM could presumably get his voice heard again. This is the bit that still rankles for me, but the first two meetings of the day should upset no-one in Scotland. And who can object to our FM’s declaration that what matters to him more than anything else is whether people living in Scotland can see a better future, a brighter future? Sometimes one might have to sup with the devil if it benefits our nation.
The cities and regions fiasco may not be much of an issue if held in London, Cardiff or Belfast, so why not just dump it when in Edinburgh and let the PM prove to Scots that his word can be trusted on Scottish issues? Then there should be no reason why the hills shouldn’t
return to some semblance of peace and quiet.
Angus J Stewart
South Queensferry
READ MORE: John Swinney says he 'won't be dealing with envoys' snubbing Sue Gray
“WE have been terribly let down by the SNP for far too long” – the excellent long letter of October 6 by Iain K of Dunoon sums up the feelings of most disillusioned independence supporters. “Bring in a leadership team with backbone” was another cutting criticism.
Obviously our political hierarchy ignore or don’t read such comments, when we see John Swinney have the urine extracted from him and his nation as he attends Starmer’s first council of nations with the envoy for the regions, recently sacked Sue Gray, and English mayors. NB – NO Scottish cities included.
Change nappies at dawn. How wet can you get? Don’t be pampered!
Sandy Coghill
Isle of Skye
READ MORE: Family of eight in refugee camp killed in Israeli air strike in Gaza
AT a recent meeting of our Ayrshire Global Justice Now group, the need to suspend all arms sales to Israel was supported by those present.
There is mounting evidence from the United Nations, charitable organisations and numerous media outlets that Israel is breaching international law by the way it is conducting its wars on Gaza and Lebanon.
Margaret Thatcher surprisingly implemented a full embargo on arms sales to Israel after it committed violations of international law during its 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
Surely it is now time for the new Labour government to take similar action to stop the current killing and suffering being experienced by the Scottish people.
Arthur West
Irvine
I AM no fan of the BBC, as far as I’m concerned I agree with John Pilger’s statement that the BBC is the most refined propaganda service in the world. So I’m not often surprised by the so-called reporting by the BBC, but the news update service they provide for Amazon Echo devices did raise an eyebrow or two.
I’m not sure if its a reflection on the poor standard of journalism from the BBC or their contempt for their audience, but in covering the launch of the memoirs of Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalany, the BBC announcer claimed that Navalny had written his memoirs before his death! Well it would be difficult for him to write them after he had died.
Cllr Kenny MacLaren
Paisley
SATURDAY’S front-page headline in the Daily Mail was “Charles: I Won’t Stop Australia Ditching The Crown”.
What on earth would give even the Daily Mail or its befuddled readership the idea that Charlie had any right to obstruct any decision of the sovereign people of Australia in the first place?
The headline encapsulates pretty much everything that’s wrong with this deluded, post-imperial UK.
Cameron Crawford
Rothesay
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