Scotsman Letters: Forget parties, government failings are bigger

The “Partygate” scandal goes on (Neil Anderson, Letters, 1 February). But attending a party is not a crime, not in a normal world anyway.

Boris Johnson is driven back to Downing Street yesterday after his morning run (Picture: Getty Images)

What Boris Johnson and his lieutenants should be under investigation for is stopping us, the people, attending parties. Denying elderly people in the last months of their life the right to see their loved ones. Removing our right to breath fresh air. Ruining the education of a whole generation of children. Harming the career prospects of young people. Wrecking thousands of small businesses. Putting the nation into the highest level of debt ever seen. Ballooning hospital waiting lists. Putting irrational fear into millions of people.

Let's forget the minor distractions and look at the big picture.

Geoff Moore, Alness, Highland

Pot, kettle

Les Mackay claims that Boris Johnson broke rules that he “as leader of the nation, had imposed on the people of the UK” (Letters, 31 January).

Wrong. Mr Johnson makes rules for England, not the whole UK. Here in Scotland the SNP regime is completely in charge of Covid policy and the rules imposed on us. How many Chief Medical Officers broke their own lockdown rules? An English one? A Northern Irish one? A Welsh one? Only the SNP's Catherine Calderwood broke the rules, I believe. And which of the home nations rulers had old people taken out of hospital and dumped in care homes, some of whom were never tested for Covid while others tested positive?

Would that be the SNP?

Stuart Stephen, Poolewe, Ross-shire

Equally alarming

In responding to the PM’s statement on Sue Gray’s report, Ian Blackford suggested that the allegations that government members or officials may have been breaking laws that they themselves had made, was part of a “systematic decimation of public trust in this government”.

If that’s the case, the incompetence of the SNP in passing a law to make linked-up smoke alarms mandatory, delaying its implementation by a year and then eventually telling us, the public, that we won’t be penalised for not complying isn’t exactly reassuring either.

Mark Openshaw, Cults, Aberdeen

Electoral asset

Following Sue Gray's findings on Downing Street partying, SNP Commons leader, Ian Blackford has repeatedly demanded Boris Johnson's resignation. But is this tactically wise? Let's remember the SNP's overarching raison d’etre: UK break-up. In this ambition, with Johnson apparently so unpopular in Scotland, he's arguably an asset to Scottish nationalism. Rishi Sunak, Liz Truss, or Keir Starmer would all prove less useful personalities for SNP ad hominem attacks.

Many believe Nicola Sturgeon's nationalist narrative woefully weak on economic, social and cultural grounds; personal criticism of the current PM seemingly is all she and Blackford have to advance their faltering separatist cause.

Martin Redfern, Melrose Roxburghshire

Don’t go

An afternoon spent watching Parliament live on TV left me with the following thought: Scotland, please don’t leave the Union. We really need your input to help keep the United Kingdom honest.

Ray Garry, Leeds

Bad old days

Listening to people in the Health Service, I wonder if I might soon face an operation by a surgeon who has decided to opt out of present vaccine requirements? I wonder if there will be a big rise in the number of parents opting out of measles, and other vaccinations and my great-grandchildren will live in a country where “old” diseases are on the increase? I wonder if the push to see polio eradicated will simply fade out as minorities push to see mass programmes cancelled? I wonder how many will die of flu next year as anti-vaccination views leads to many opting out? I wonder if someone in a care home or hospital contracts the virus from a non-vaccinated employee, will they have a case for compensation?

Will we all have “freedom” to opt out of things we don't agree with including the law?

James Watson, Dunbar, East Lothian

Living to serve

Andrew Kemp (Letters, 1 February) says, “Gill Turner completely misses the point, which is whether employees who should be apolitical in their duties and loyal to the Crown should be engaged with plans to break up the UK”.Putting aside the rather archaic notion of civil servants having to be loyal to the Crown, it's Mr Kemp who has got this wrong. I wonder what he makes of this quote from an expert in constitutional law, speaking about the complaint made on this issue by Ian Murray MP to the head of the UK civil service, Simon Case.“I’m not in favour of Scottish independence and I'd much rather see a Scottish Government with very different priorities, but I don't understand this. Civil Servants exist to support their ministers, and like it or not, it is Scottish Government policy to pursue independence in a second referendum. Muscular Unionism was stupid, self-defeating and rightly abandoned when Whitehall flirted with it last year. It's equally stupid and self-defeating when pushed by folk who should know better such as Ian Murray.” And the author? Professor Adam Tomkins, ex Conservative MSP.Gill Turner, Edinburgh

Go it alone

Surely the time has come for the Scottish Conservatives to establish their Party as truly independent from the UK Conservative and UnionistParty. The attitude of the Prime Minister towards Scotland was established shortly after his Party's victory in the last General Election when he declared that, "We are now one nation, from Woking to Workington". He attempted to reassure the electorate of his support for the Union by appointing himself minister for the Union, but can anyone honestly claim that he has shown any interest in Scotland since then? He sacked Ruth Davidson's favourite for the post of Secretary of State for Scotland, David Mundell, appointing Alister Jack instead. When party donor Malcolm Offord had been rejected as candidate for Edinburgh Central by the local membership and relegated by Lothian Conservatives to a lowly fifth place on their list in the last Scottish election so he couldn't be elected you would have thought that would be it. But the Prime Minister put him in the House of Lords and made him Under Secretary of State for Scotland so he is into the Scottish political scene by the back door.

And now the elected Scottish Conservative leader has been sneeringly dismissed by the Leader of the House of Commons, Jacob Rees-Mogg, as a lightweight of no consequence when he courageously expressed the popular view that the Prime Minister should resign.

Mr Johnson hasn't resigned. He has always been less popular in Scotlandthan in England but now we know that he will not be welcome here even by his own Party members.

This situation cannot continue and it is time for Scottish Conservatives to set their own standards and adopt their own policies by forming their own, independent, party.Ian McKee, Edinburgh

Feeding the beast

An interesting piece from Brian Monteith (Perspective, 31 January), on Labour offering yet more powers for devolution. Is this wise? Devolution has not served the party well so far, yet they are pushing for more. Do they not understand that you cannot appease the beast of nationalism – it just keeps coming back for more! Where will this end?

William Ballantine, Bo'ness, West Lothian

Perspective please

I do wish Grant Frazer would introduce a sense of proportion into his periodic rants about the Union (Letters, 29 January). A couple of years of deplorable and probably illegal indiscretions by a one-off, over-privileged, blustering liar and his cronies hardly constitute a valid reason for calling a 300 year-old Union "rotten". I doubt if those hundreds of thousands of Scots who benefited from the business grants and furlough payments which came from the UK Treasury during the pandemic really thought there was anything “rotten” about it.

His closing paragraph tells us we are all in danger of being “buried in a rising tide of English or British Nationalism destroying the peace and harmony of Europe”. Seriously?

D Mason, Penicuik, Midlothian

Tiring times

With all the turmoil at Westminster it was a pleasure to be distracted by Aidan Smith’s article on Scots words (Perspective, 1 February).No doubt your readers all have their favourites. Two of mine are “wobbit” or “fair wobbit” and “puggled”, both meaning “exhausted”.

The latter was often used by my late wife but I don’t think it was common, in Edinburgh at least. Could her Clackmannanshire background have been responsible?

Michael Grey, Edinburgh

Load of blether

As an exiled Scot living only just south of the Border, I still find language and communications can sometimes present difficulties. This is despite “Geordie" being an interesting and versatile language in its one right. Take “Ha’way” – usually followed by “man”. It can mean anything from words of encouragement to expressing incredulity or even aggressive intent. It all depends on the intonation.Despite this versatility, a Geordie friend was perplexed earlier when I let slip the word “blether”. I confess that all my attempts to explain the meaning fell on stony ground until I related it to Boris Johnson.

Suddenly the penny dropped.

John Rhind, Beadnell, Northumberland

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