AS the UK went to the polls, politics and the future for Britain were debated by columnists and contributors in the newspapers.

The Daily Express

Jon Yates, author of Fractured: Why our societies are coming apart and how we put them back together, said the people of Hartlepool might do the unthinkable and elect a Tory MP.

“They are fed up and want change. That’s why seven out of 10 of them voted to leave the EU,” he said. “More than almost anywhere in the country, children in Hartlepool choose to learn a trade, picking apprenticeships over university, vocational courses over A-levels. Has the government invested in their training, made sure they have the best teachers, equipment and facilities? Has it given them the time they need to be properly skilled?”

Far from it, he said. Their children are getting short changed.

“It’s time for a change.

“The Tories have taken us out of the EU. They’ve taken back control. It’s time to use that control to make things better.”

The Guardian

George Monbiot said he had long struggled to understand the ‘liberal enthusiasm’ for the UK.

“To me, it looks like a mechanism for frustrating progressive change and crushing political aspiration,” he said. “The number of people in the three devolved nations who are reaching the same conclusion is rising at astonishing speed.”

He said the three parties in Scotland favouring independence - the SNP, Greens and Alba - were on track to win a clear majority. Thirty nine per cent of people in Wales favour it too, he said, and Northern Ireland’s centenary this week ‘is almost certain to be its last’.

“I don’t believe England will address its manifold corruptions while our leaders can carry on like colonial viceroys, governing the four nations with ever decreasing consent. It seems to me that political regeneration is impossible without the breakup of the union. We will begin to be good only when we stop trying to be great.”

The Scotsman

The paper’s leader column said democratic debate in recenrt years has become ‘polluted by an alarming growth in conspiracy theories, deliberate misinformation by hostile dictatorships like Iran, China and Russia, and so-called ‘populist’ politicians eager to exploit the resulting chaos’.

“Thankfully in Scotland, the leaders of our main political parties may disagree, but none has sought to embrace the mendacious strategies of Donald Trump and his ilk, and all are signed up to the fundamentals of liberal democracy. By and large, the election campaign has been a model of civility.

“Now it is the people’s turn to play their starring role and remind any politicians who would be queens or kings just who is in charge.”