I NOTE an interesting article from Andrew McKie ("Devolution was a revolution, it was not a natural evolution", The Herald, June 10). After serving in the armed forces, I came to the conclusion that only independence would meet Scotland’s need for growth (check how bad it was across the 20th century, when direct rule was in force), and our wish for an egalitarian society.
I regard the UK electorate as a mixed bunch with regard to Scotland; English/British nationalists; Unionists; Scottish nationalists. Politicians are much the same, though overwhelmingly the first two (given demography). It’s obvious that people in England have little interest in an English parliament – they think they already have a thousand-year-old one. Scots have agitated for Home Rule for more than a century, and all polling in the last decade has Scots favouring by around three to one the so-called Devo Max option, but that is not on offer, nor will it be.
The Tory candidates for Prime Minister are all getting lots of airtime, not least in Scotland (I doubt if they are any different from the run of the population over drug experimentation: it’s the hypocrisy that sticks in the craw). While the NUJ in Northern Ireland complain they are denied access to Karen Bradley, journalists at the BBC in Scotland have access to these candidates for PM, but don’t ask any questions. Aren’t they allowed? Why is there no Scottish Tory standing? How much time have any of these candidates spent in Scotland?
When the Tory candidates say they will “not allow” Scots to have a say in their own future, where are the obvious follow-up questions? Scotland is to be ruled by a Prime Minister elected by, at most, 200,000 members (it could be about half this number) of the Conservative Party: polling has shown these people don’t actually care (over 75 per cent) about Scottish independence or Irish unification, as long as Brexit proceeds. Should that not elicit questions about the legitimacy of their authority over Scotland?
GR Weir,
Ochiltree.
ON June 18 the BBC will indulge us all in an evening of time travel as we are all transported to a time before universal suffrage. Our televisions will beam “Our Next UK Prime Minister into our living rooms, a grand Victorian misadventure in which 0.35 per cent of the voting age population will be allowed to find the information they need prior to answering that most vexing and consequential question, who shall be our next Prime Minister?
I don’t wish to dwell upon the social atavism that is manifesting itself in this charade, nor even upon the irony of this coming at a time when we are "taking back control". What I do wish to urge you all to do is submit questions to the BBC beseeching the candidates to explain if it is defensible that a total of 160,000 people, and no more, should have their say on the tone and direction of the greatest constitutional change of the last 40 years? Herald readers have a range of views on the correct direction for the nation. What we all have, however, is an earnest desire to express our individual will and to see that our voices are counted and valued.
Iain Lawson,
Symington.
THE members of the Conservative Party will forfeit any claim to be patriots by installing that meretricious chancer Boris Johnson in 10 Downing Street.
John W. Elliott, Bishopton.
IT seems SNP MP Joanna Cherry is positioning herself as the Boris Johnson of the SNP (MP says she is a 'potential leadership figure' for SNP", The Herald, June 10). Their timescales may differ but it's increasingly apparent she's as determined to be First Minister as he is Prime Minister.
He believes he can succeed where Theresa May failed. He suggests he can get a hard Brexit through the majority soft-Brexit House of Commons, though it's unclear how – and the Commons has voted against a No Deal. She believes she can deliver where Nicola Sturgeon is failing. She implies she can secure indyref2 on an ambitious timescale, somehow magically circumventing the need for Downing St's agreement.
Both pander to the hard core of their parties – and both may well prove to be stronger on rhetoric than implementation.
Martin Redfern,
Edinburgh EH10.
IAN M Bill (Letters, June 10) makes a good case for David Cameron to be awarded the accolade of the UK's worst Prime Minister in living memory, but although we've a bunch of beauties to choose from, surely the worst of all must be the man who sent our soldiers into battle on a lie, devastated Iraq, destabilised the Middle East and made the rest of the world a more dangerous place. I keep hoping that Tony Blair will finally lose all touch with reality and vote LibDem, as that would guarantee his expulsion from the Labour Party which apparently considers voting for another party a more heinous crime than plunging the UK into an illegal war.
Ruth Marr,
Stirling.
IF Ian M Bill thinks that David Cameron has been our worst Prime Minister in living memory, who am I to disagree? If he is opening some kind of all-comers competition, then may I nominate David Mundell, Secretary of State for Scotland, for Olympic Gold as quite the most ineffectual politician of any party in 21st-century Scotland? In support of my nomination, I pose the question: what is Mr Mundell for?
Gordon Casely, Crathes.
NOW that the majority of the candidates in the Tory leadership election have confessed to past illegal drug use, a troubling question arises: was the "war on drugs" a hoax? This is all the more so given that the majority of MPs come out of the same metropolitan socially liberal milieu, and will have similar histories of drug taking.
For many years the "war on drugs" was used as the principal justification for any number of intrusive and deeply illiberal measures in both policing and financial regulation. Legal duties were placed on every banker, lawyer and accountant in the country to spy on their clients and to inform the authorities of anything "suspicious".
And yet at the same time, the drug trade has not gone into decline. The stabbings which disfigure London and other major cities and end so many young lives prematurely confirm that the drug business is well worth fighting over.
Also, while we have been supposedly fighting this "war on drugs" for decades, the police have retreated from the streets and sentences for serious crime have plummeted.
If our MPs believed that drugs should be legal, why didn’t they say so, and if they didn’t, why did they take them? It is high time for a clear out of the hypocritical MPs of all parties.
Otto Inglis,
Edinburgh EH4.
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