The Scottish Government continues to come under for its Hate Crime Act. So much so that one reader said yesterday that he felt embarrassed to be considered a Scot.

Read that letter here 👈

Today, however, one of our correspondents hits back with a blast at the Conservative Government.

Stan Grodysnki of Longniddry writes:

"It would appear that Paul McPhail (Letters, April 2) is either blissfully unaware of the devastating outcomes of UK Government actions or is disingenuous in his criticisms of the Scottish Government, which like all governments has made mistakes.

Mr McPhail may be proud to be “British” and not “Scottish”, but personally I am not proud of a government that continues to supply weapons to a regime embarked on genocidal slaughter. I’m not proud of a government which has increased the gap between rich and poor to the highest disparity in Europe. I’m not proud of a government that denies basic human rights to refugees fleeing conflict and is intent on sending such desperate people to an “unsafe country”.

I’m not proud of a government that rewards rich donors with peerages and multi-million-pound contracts and refuses to return a donation from a party donor making clearly racist remarks. I’m not proud of a government that rewarded party donors with PPE contracts worth billions of pounds for items that proved unusable to a struggling NHS. I’m not proud of a government that has wasted tens of billions of pounds on defence contracts which include massively over-budget aircraft carriers still not fit for active service and which still don’t have the planes they were designed to carry. I’m not proud of a government that will have wasted an estimated £100 billion on a high-speed rail line from London to the “North” which will now not even reach Manchester.

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I’m not proud of a government that presides over an explosion of food banks and people living on our streets while introducing a bill that will “criminalise homelessness”.

I am, however, very proud to be “Scottish”, and proud of a government that acts according to the principles of egalitarianism and fairness in spite of the considerable political and media backing of those who seek to misrepresent or undermine its sincere efforts, including the introduction of the Hate Crime Bill, to build a better society for all."