APPARENTLY after Saturday’s SNP NEC meeting a “day of action”, led by the new First Minister, was held in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West seat of former SNP MP Margaret Ferrier. Survey forms were posted through doors and presumably voters were canvassed etc.
The House of Commons has not yet decided Ms Ferrier’s fate. I have never met Ms Ferrier and what she did during the Covid crisis was at best foolish. Maybe I am old-fashioned and certainly getting older, but I do wonder what has happened to the now clearly unfashionable concepts of loyalty and friendship.
I understand the SNP are prepared to spend money on promoting the potential recall petition in conjunction with the various Unionist parties.
Given the current state of the SNP and its leadership (past and present), I am reminded of the words of Robert Burns in my favourite example of his work – Holy Willie’s Prayer:
Thy strong right hand, Lord, mak it bare Upon their heads! Lord visit them, and dinna spare, For their misdeeds! And pass not in thy mercy by them, Nor hear their prayer; But for thy people’s sake destroy them, An’ dinna spare! But Lord, remember me and mine Wi’ mercies temporal and divine!
The SNP’s Holy Willies seem to be taking their pitchforks and their burning torches to Rutherglen and Hamilton West to try and unseat their former colleague.
Even in very practical, political terms it will be difficult for the SNP to retain the seat. I do not envy the eventual SNP candidate. If the SNP, in cooperation with the assorted Unionist parties, are successful, a by-election will have to be held despite the fact that a UK General Election is probably only about a year off. The taxpayer will have to bear the cost of organising the by-election and the SNP and its members will have to spend many thousands of pounds, when money is apparently in very short supply, to fight an election campaign which, given the circumstances, they may well not win.
I really struggle to see much sense in this whole situation.
John Baird Largs
I AGREE wholeheartedly with Dr Philippa Whitford that challenging the Section 35 order is essential to establish that Westminster cannot simply keep objecting to Holyrood legislation, or they will eventually have weakened the devolved powers to the point where they can justify closing our parliament down, as it will be achieving nothing.
Sadly, I fear that they may win in court, in exactly the same way as with the last challenge. I will never accept that the decision in that case was made on a legal basis alone, as the deciding factor was admitted to be the effect on the sovereignty of Westminster. Yet that same court is on record as conceding that the sovereignty of parliament has no place in Scots law, and therefore the judgment rested on a political, legally irrelevant consideration. To my mind we should never have accepted the jurisdiction of an English court over our own independent, most senior Scots court.
In this current case, if there is any part of the bill which Westminster truly believes requires amended, why did they, before it came to the vote, turn down all offers of discussions to iron out these problems? And why did they allow some Tory MSPs to vote for it and not instruct their appointed branch manager, D Ross, to whip his team to vote against? Does this not amount to a calculated manoeuvre, designed to prepare the ground for wielding a big hammer to put Holyrood “in its place”?
I myself would like to see some amendments that would improve the bill, for example, not allowing a change of sex on a birth certificate, since what is recorded is a scientific fact, observed at the moment of birth, a time when there cannot be any indication of how a child may in later years wish to live their life. Elements such as this, however, could easily have been discussed to an amicable compromise at any time during the preparation and debate stage.
Am I alone in smelling an enormous rodent in the way this Section 35 is being used?
L McGregor Falkirk
YOU reported in Sunday’s paper that Keir Starmer wants “a strong showing in Scotland, so we have ... legitimacy” come the next UK General Election. A big ask, seeing as he is starting from a base of one out of 59 in Scotland.
However, his ambition for legitimacy will be fundamentally undermined as soon as he tries to argue that a UK General Election win is a mandate for constitutional change, because for the last two years he has been ruling out exactly such a mandate with his repeated refusal to support the Scottish Government’s requests not to carry out constitutional change, but even to ask the electorate a question about constitutional change after the SNP’s election win in the Scottish general election in May 2021.
Such double standards have to be called out for what they are, and I hope that The National’s readership will be making that point to friends and family in the months ahead.
David Patrick Edinburgh
THE BBC’s Good Morning Scotland interviewed Alex Bell, former BBC correspondent and former adviser to Alex Salmond, about the imminent demise of all things related to SNP.
As I tried to listen to the vitriol and partisan diatribe from the now-salivating-with-glee Mr Bell, I likened the interview and its content to the scenario where Jeremy Corbyn’s adviser is asked to critique Keir Starmer’s performance!
Please, BBC, these interviews you continue to feed us are never going to be impartial. Clear and concise analysis is welcome but partisan drivel does not enhance or grow the debate.
Jan Ferrie Ayrshire
