Readers' letters: Backstabbing Tory MPs will pay a high price

I wish to register my disgust at the back-stabbing Tory MPs who have, for their own personal interests, turned against a sitting Prime Minister who has led a team achieving much over the past two years that is deliberately overlooked.

A government is more than just the personality of its leader. It is instead, the record of what has been delivered to support the unforseen consequences to the people of the UK since the onset of Covid and the huge consequences to world economies resulting from Russia's actions in Ukraine.

In both of these situations, Boris Johnson has led a team to protect UK citizens and at the same time, to enhace the profile of the UK in foreign affairs.

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The actions of these self-interested and immature MPs amount to political suicide and with Johnson gone, It is entirely unclear where his successor will come from.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson reads a statement outside 10 Downing Street formally resigning as Conservative Party leaderPrime Minister Boris Johnson reads a statement outside 10 Downing Street formally resigning as Conservative Party leader
Prime Minister Boris Johnson reads a statement outside 10 Downing Street formally resigning as Conservative Party leader

This is a really sad day for the Conservative Party, and the likelihood is going to be a hung parliament in a forthcoming General Election – and we all know what the result of that was during the Cameron era, and the fudges produced by the coalition that ensued.

Derek Farmer, Anstruther, Fife

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Boris Johnson resigns: How the world reacted

No mandate

Beware politicians claiming mandates. Before Boris was booted out, he was down to his last argument, the claim of a voter mandate to stay in power. It could be that Nicola Sturgeon’s ‘mandate for independence’ is in the same category.

Dozens of polls have shown that voters are evenly divided on independence. There is therefore no clear mandate.

That she talks such nonsense indicates we live in a world in which when you are in power and repeat a lie constantly, it begins to look like the truth.

Crawford Mackie, Edinburgh

Bogeyman’s gone

How inconvenient of Boris Johnson (finally) to resign. He has served as a very useful bogeyman for Nicola Sturgeon and her party. Whoever succeeds him will still be a Tory, and therefore akin to the devil incarnate in her eyes, but that person surely cannot be as untruthful, devious and clumsy as Johnson.

Ms Sturgeon has, of course, to say that she feels “a widespread sense of relief” at Johnson’s demise, but he denies her a valuable electoral tool.

I heard a commentator refer to Johnson as a “campaigner, not a governor”, and the phrase “peas in a pod” came to mind. Ms Sturgeon and her party are not fit for government. They are a campaigning force, with one aim.

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Take a look at the state of the devolved services that they are supposed to be running, and I defy you not to say of the SNP, in Ms Sturgeon’s tweeted words about the Tories: “The whole rotten lot need to go.”

Jill Stephenson, Edinburgh

Home front

I have listened to a lot of commentators but they do not understand.

Henpecked husband goes home and says I've chucked in my job. Wife says the wallpaper has hardly dried in their new home and here she is, a young mother with two young kids with an unemployed husband and how is she expected to cope with high inflation and energy and food prices running away every day?

William Gordon, Edinburgh

Beer and pizza

If Scotland is ever to support itself as an independent country it is of fundamental importance to our economy that we have several high-growth technology companies here. Indeed, the SNP says establishing such companies has always been a major priority of theirs.

So after 15 years in power can they explain why in The Sunday Times list of Britain’s fastest growing private companies only two are Scottish?Yorkshire alone has over three times as many.

Of the two Scottish companies one sells pizza ovens and the other is a beer club. There are no technology, bio-science or manufacturing companies to be seen, even the pizza ovens are made in China.

This is an appalling indictment of the SNP government and their complete lack of understanding of industry and entrepreneurial business start-ups. However at least in our poverty-stricken future we will be able to drown our sorrows at beer and pizza parties.

Dr Richard Marsh, Strathdon, Aberdeenshire

Labour’s back

What good news – and I do not mean the disintegration of the Westminster government, that is merely a bonus.

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The fact that Labour have ruled out an electoral deal "of any kind”, either in Edinburgh or London, with the nationalists is significant and cheering indeed for we Scots on the pro-UK side of the constitutional argument.

Thank heavens Keir Starmer and Anas Sarwar have at last seen the light and will not be dealing with the zealot-driven SNP, which they accurately categorise as “faux patriots” (Scotsman, 6 July). They are quite right to assert that Vladimir Putin would be backing the SNP in any way he could.

It means a huge chunk of the electorate can now feel free to vote Labour again in Scotland and help bring down the most dreadful and eye-wateringly incompetent administration this country has ever experienced.

Alexander McKay, Edinburgh

Dirty word

Whatever your view of Boris Johnston, his government was not a nationalist one, and it was quite wrong of your comment (Scotsman, 5 July) to state this so emphatically.

In the 2014 independence campaign, there was a point where “nationalist” was regarded as a dirty word, with opinion polls underlining this and even Ms Sturgeon herself saying that she would change her party name if she could.

The term “British Nationalist” first came to my attention at that time, an obvious attempt to produce a derogatory term of equivalent value on the pro-UK side of the equation, and hint at a similar mindset to the “British Nationalist Party”, a group that British public opinion has always turned its back on.

Johnson’s party may have taken a political decision that you don’t like, but that doesn’t make them nationalists. They will say they are Unionists, the clue being in their name, but this is not the same thing. Indeed, it is the opposite.

If we want the UK and Scottish Governments to get on, we do need them to recognise one another, and not to undertake decisions that are outwith their agreed jurisdictions.

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The government which consistently refuses to accept the legitimacy of the other is the Scottish one. If anything, the UK government lets them away with far too much, and seems afraid to pull them up on their obvious excesses and constant sniping.

Anas Sarwar is wrong. You cannot legislate a way for people to get on (Scotsman, 5 July). His Labour colleague Lord Foulkes had a better idea. Make sure that all devolved administrations account for their money properly, and give a Westminster committee overall scrutiny of that. Make every party produce a budget that must be passed as “competent” by an independent watchdog prior to elections, including those standing for Westminster.

We will only get better government if it is more obvious who is doing what, and who is paying for it.

If the UK government had any sense at all, they would insist on this, and recognise the value of doing so.

Victor Clements, Aberfeldy, Perth & Kinross

Energy policy

Some people will remember that 167 people that were killed on 6 July 1988 in Scotland's North Sea when the Piper Alpha platform exploded.

Then on 22 September 1988 there was another blow out on the Ocean Odyssey oil rig when it exploded, killing Timothy Williams, the new radio operator, on his first hitch.

At a time when we are all correctly complaining about the spike in energy prices and energy company profits we should also remember the price our working brothers and sisters pay.

This is a good time also to remember the damage done to our environment and the consequences of global warming.

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There are some really useful and practical alternatives that will keep us warm and defend our environment as well as loads of jobs and skilled work, but these will not bring short-term super profits for the few.

We need to make sure that the politicians we elect are committed to us and not only to the fuel companies' profits and their bosses.

Norman Lockhart, Innerleithen, Scottish Borders

Fishing alert

A recent report published for the Scottish Fishing Industry has warned that offshore developments and expansion into marine protected areas could close more than half of Scottish fishing waters by 2050.

This would result in real harm to to our island and coastal communities, who are already under immense threat from rising fuel prices and post-Brexit issues.

According to the report the worst case scenario would result in more than 50 per cent of Scottish waters being out of bounds to our catching fleet by the mid century.

Should these forecasts prove correct it could lead to the demise of our fishing businesses (both offshore and onshore), which currently contribute in the region of £150 million to the Scottish economy.

It is hard to understand why a low carbon food like fish is under threat from the production of green energy at a time when the fishing industry is already under threat from reduced quotas and vastly increased fuel prices.

The voters in our Highland and Island coastal communities must hope that the doomsday scenario painted in the report will provide a wake-up call to both our governments before it is too late to salvage a vital asset to the Scottish economy.

DG McIntyre, Edinburgh

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