Now they have ‘banned the bomb’, what next?

Vanguard-class submarine HMS Vigilant, one of the UK's four nuclear warhead-carrying submarines, at Faslane naval base

But now it’s full lockdown, so the game’s a bogey. How frustrating is that? The most momentous event takes place –and it will pass unremarked. Nuclear weapons will be internationally outlawed, but we will just carry on as usual.

Like millions of others, I’ve spent a lifetime campaigning to “ban the bomb” and here they go and do exactly that. But the UK ignores this, and I can’t even demonstrate my anger.

For Scotland this is the crucial issue par excellence. Scots law has always prided itself on being distinctive, and this is its chance to prove it is. It is inconceivable that the Scottish legal establishment should simply ignore a ruling of the United Nations, the highest international legal authority.

It is vital to grasp that this Treaty is unique. It is the Charter of the Victims (ie you and me) because it is focused on the humanitarian consequences of the use of nuclear weapons, and does not get sidetracked into discussing “deterrence” , or the imagined advantages of nuclear weapons. Previous agreements were deals among the members of the exclusive Big Boys’ Nuclear Club.

This legal ruling has an impact not only on the highest levels of law, but at the lowest, and must affect the way ordinary policing of the nuclear base is conducted. The police simply cannot go on arresting people who are upholding international law, charge them with Breach of the Peace and imprison them. They must decide, which side are they on – are they upholding international law, or is it a case of my country right or wrong?

Brian M Quail

Hyndland Avenue, Glasgow

No delay needed

John McLellan (Scotsman, 9 January) should know that 11 countries, including the US, New Zealand, Serbia, Moldova, Slovakia, Iceland and Brazil, have held elections during the pandemic. England, unlike Scotland, may well have to postpone its elections because the Covid infection rate is more than twice as high Scotland’s (91.5 vs 42.5 per 100,000), and deaths are more than a third higher. Seriously ill Covid patients from northern England are even being sent to Scottish hospitals.

As Scotland’s democratic deficit with England widens when Scotland’s MPs fall from 59 to 57 and England’s rise from 533 to 543, as Brexit starts to bite with price increases and shortages, and as London imposes the Internal Market Bill that will render the Scottish Parliament toothless, there is greater urgency to hold the May election as planned.

After 18 straight polls showing majority support for ending the union, the election must be a plebiscite on the restoration of Scottish independence.

Leah Gunn Barrett

Merchiston Crescent, Edinburgh

Pros and cons

There is growing controversy about whether we should hold the Scottish election in May due to the coronavirus epidemic. The former First Minister Henry McLeish says that the election must be postponed because voting risks spreading the virus, and because local authorities must give priority to easing the impact of the pandemic.

Nicola Sturgeon will certainly want to have the election as she can then show Boris Johnson that the SNP has a mandate to call another independence referendum, and she will point out that the election has already been put back one year.

There are others who voice the opinion that as some form of lockdown is inevitable, voters will be put at risk and there could also be some disruption to campaigning.

One solution to resolve part of the problem would be to have a mandatory postal vote, which of course would take a great deal of administration and planning, and following the USA election would probably have its doomsayers telling us that the election was rigged.

Covid-19 of whatever strain is a very serious epidemic and could be with us for some time. The Government's sole priority must be vaccination, masks. and social distancing.

James Macintyre

Clarendon Road Linlithgow

History of violence

Professor Goldblatt (Scotsman, 9 January) states that “the last time the US Capitol was attacked was by … the British Redcoats, in 1814’,”

Unfortunately he has got his history wrong and the Capitol has been attacked on a number of occasions – with dynamite in 1914, gunfire in 1954, and bombs in 1971 and 1983 by a mixture of nationalists and left-wing extremists.

Prof Goldblatt sees the attack as "a terrifying decline” but the history books tell us otherwise and the US has been scarred by violence since the Declaration of Independence in 1776, with four presidents assassinated and numerous others surviving attempts on their lives.

Alan Black

Camus Avenue, Edinburgh

More pain ahead

It is fair to say that Donald Trump’s political career is over despite the fact that millions voted for him in the last election and many highly-placed Republican politicians’ silence after the events of last week has been deafening.

Many Republican voters will have been shocked at the scenes that unfolded on Wednesday. The complete disregard for American institutions such as Congress, law and order and the police will not have played well with some. There are also enough Republican politicians who will, finally, wish to keep his toxic influence out of the GOP.

It may be an unlikely scenario but If anyone was stupid enough to bankroll a 2024 campaign for Trump as an independent it would split the Republican vote, giving the Democrats a virtually unchallenged path back to the White House.

It would, of course, create a toxic atmosphere in the US and be a catastrophe as well as comeuppance for a Republican Party that welcomed him into the fold and turned a blind eye to his extremism, but Trump’s chances of being elected again are nil.

What is more immediately relevant is what will happen to Trump over the next few months. His legal battles as well as what indiscretions might be uncovered in the wake of his presidency will, inevitably, take up much of his time.

He may still appeal to millions of the lowest common denominators of American society but his political, business and media career is over. Few in the public eye will touch him or his family.

The painful blood-letting in the US, however, is only just beginning.

D Mitchell

Coates Place, Edinburgh

Testing times

It is not rocket science to have passengers arriving at Airports like Dyce, Dalcross , Heathrow etc to be tested for Covid-19 and similarly at the ports.

This virus has been brought into this country from abroad. I have been saying from 23 March last year that people should be tested or quarantined. The experts like Professor Chris Whitty and Professor Jason Leitch do not seem to take note of these routes of transmission.

In Shetland cases are rising alarmingly again by people coming in by boat or plane.

We will not control this virus if we do not stop the travel of people from area to area.

Michael Baird

The Bank House, Dornoch Road, Bonar Bridge

Snail mail

We've had three Christmas cards delivered by the Post Office in the past week, with the latest – on Saturday – postmarked 14 Dec 2020. The earlier two had not been postmarked just the stamps scored out by pen. All three were small: 5in square or smaller.

Are small letters getting stuck in the folds of (occasionally used?) Post Office sacks?

Hywel Williams

Pentlands Gardens, Edinburgh

Grace and dignity

Who could ever forget the heavily pregnant Wendy Alexander, then Labour leader, being hounded out of office by leading SNP members over some minor accounting error in her constituency party? Or First Minister Henry McLeish being forced – again by the SNP – to resign over a similar and very minor problem. What can be said without question is that they left with grace and dignity, believing honesty and the integrity of the office they held to be paramount.

The two main protagonists in the present furore in the SNP were prominent among those hounding the Labour leaders. I fear grace and dignity is the last thing we can expect from either of these as one or both are toppled.

Alexander McKay,

New Cut Rigg, Edinburgh

Irish lesson

Joanna Cherry has told us that Scotland could follow the Irish path to independence and thus avoid a referendum.(Scotsman, 9 January) She begins her argument with the Irish Nationalist landslide victory in the December 1918 Irish elections. She then states that Irish independence then came about as a result of a Treaty negotiated with the British Government. This took place in December 1921.

She admits that in the lead up to this Treaty there was "violence which no-one would wish to replicate."

We could use the word "violence", perhaps, to describe a drunken brawl on a Saturday night. What Ms Cherry conveniently omits to mention is that the particular " violence" she refers to lasted almost two years, became known as the Irish War of Independence and cost around 2,000 lives.

She also conveniently omits to mention that as soon as the December 1921 Treaty set up the Irish Free State, Ireland was plunged into a vicious Civil War between rival Irish Nationalists which lasted around two years and cost another couple of thousand lives.

A terrific path to follow! Thank you very much for pointing it out, Ms. Cherry.

D Mason

Pomathorn Bank, Penicuik

Now they have ‘banned the bomb’, what next? - Readers' Letters

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