DOUGLAS Ross is calling for the Health Secretary Jeanne Freeman to resign, saying she has broken the Ministerial Code because she gave too much information about vaccine supply on the Scottish Government’s website.
In the meantime Victoria Prentis, the UK fisheries minister, is backed by Boris and presumably DRoss (since he has not said a word against her) even though she admitted to a parliamentary committee she was too busy at Christmas to read the new regulations in the Brexit deal for fisheries.
READ MORE: Tories accuse Jeane Freeman of breaching ministerial code over secret jag row
So he is calling for one person to resign for giving too much information while the other person who admitted to not doing her job is backed. It’s the old Tory way – do as I say, not as I do.
I just hope the fishermen who were promised the world have learned a lesson, and this will be reflected in their vote in May. Never mind, though – Rees-Mogg says the fish are happier now they are British.
Winifred McCartney
Paisley
THE publication of the “transition” paper on Scotland’s security in Friday’s National couldn’t have come at a more appropriate time (Trident removal critical to security of indy Scotland, January 15).
This paper, promoted by the Scottish Independence Convention and written by Isobel Lindsay, highlights that we have to look at all the current and future threats facing Scotland. It’s not about simply a case of getting a share of the UK’s mismatched defence forces but a deeper examination of the actual threats that an independent Scotland would face.
READ MORE: Trident removal critical to security of independent Scotland
Included amongst these would be pandemics and cyber crime. We are all well aware of the impact the current Covid pandemic is having both in Scotland and elsewhere across the globe but the recent news about the cyber attack on the Scottish Environment Protection Agency seems to stress the need for a security review as advocated by Isobel Lindsay.
It’s more of this type of analysis and planning we need to make the transition to independence. As the paper highlights, we already have some powers under devolution which we could use to prepare Scotland for this transition, and the sooner we start this process the smoother will be our transition to regaining our independence.
Cllr Kenny MacLaren
Paisley
A GOOD appraisal of Scottish Labour’s travails by Gerry Hassan in yesterday’s Sunday National (The problem is Scottish Labour, not the leader, January 17).
Labour’s entrenched tribal hatred of the SNP (largely reciprocated – despite or because both parties in recent years have actually espoused very similar managerial, neo-liberal politics) has blinded even decent left-wingers such as Neil Findlay MSP to the radical opportunities that Scottish independence could open up. To be fair, he and a few colleagues have at least now recognised the democratic argument for a further referendum.
READ MORE: Gerry Hassan: The problem is Scottish Labour itself, not whoever's in charge
Unfortunately, I cannot see the voluntary establishment of an Independent Labour Party here – especially with that loaded word in its title! – while we remain in the UK. The single best thing that could happen for Scottish Labour is actually Scottish independence: once this is a fait accompli, they no longer have to take sides in that debate and could set about creating in Scotland a genuinely left-radical party in the best traditions of the Labour movement.
Scotland needs such a party to represent the natural political home of many – most of whom in the meantime have joined (or will at least vote for with varying levels of enthusiasm) the SNP as the vehicle for independence.
Almost paradoxically, independence achieved will be something of a problem for SNP members and politicians. Long bound together only by the idea of independence as an un-met aspiration, the reality could force them to decide what kind of politics their party actually represents, or whether they can all remain in the same party at all.
“Bring it on” indeed!
Cathy Watkins
West Calder
WHEN the leaders of the oppositions parties in Scotland are told by their paymasters down south to jump, the only question they should be asking is “how high?” Jackson Carlaw and Richard Leonard forgot to ask the all-important question and paid the price.
Labour can turn over the poison chalice to any number of hopeful luminaries but in the end they’ll fall by the wayside like all the rest. The problem is in their policies, not the leadership. Even if Labour in Scotland embraced the right for Scotland to decide its own future, it would have to stand on its own two feet. It has revealed again what we all know to be true – you can be the leader of an opposition party in Scotland as long as you like, providing you don’t diverge from London central office thinking.
If Monica Lennon becomes leader with a pledge to diverge from London and embrace not independence but the right to hold a referendum, the fortunes of the Labour party in Scotland would change. It would be hard without London money, but it could be the beginning of a fledgling new party that might have a big appeal after independence.
Mike Herd
Highland
I REFER to the letter from James Dippie (January 17) regarding the introduction of neonicitinoids in farming insecticides despite them being a danger to our ecosystems, and ultimately human health. The human digestive system system has evolved over millions of years, but since the end of the Second World War it has been blasted by chemicals which have changed our digestive systems, and NOT for the better.
READ MORE: Letters, January 17
The introduction of neonicitinoids is just the latest attack on human, animal and plant life by big pharma. Unless we fight back we, and the animals and plants that feed us, have no chance of survival. We MUST stop them before it is too late.
Margaret Forbes
Kilmacolm
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