Here’s looking forward to a far better 2021
WELL, what a year that was! This time last year, no one could see what 2020 had in store for us.
But let’s not look back on the worst year in many of our lives, let’s look forward to 2021. Consider and plan for what is in the future, rather than worrying about the past and the present.
It is wonderful news that we have started to vaccinate the elderly against Covid. Thanks to vaccine, testing and treatment breakthroughs, we should see a return to normality.
The Tokyo Olympics have been re-scheduled to take place from July 23 to August 8. They will be more exciting than ever with the new additions of surfing, skateboarding, climbing and karate.
It seems a long time ago that we voted to leave the EU, but finally we have a deal. Here’s to 2021 and good riddance to 2020.
P. A. BALL, Stoke-on-Trent, Staffs.
FOR all those unhappy with Boris’s deal, remember that if Labour were in Government we wouldn’t have Brexit and if Theresa May was Prime Minister we would still be subject to all of the EU’s diktats, but without any say.
I wonder what all the Brexit ‘experts’ will do now they have nothing to pontificate about,
DENNIS GREEN, Cramlington, Northumberland.
Well done, Boris!
WHATEVER you think of Boris Johnson and Brexit (I’m a recent convert to both), his achievement is genuinely historic.
He campaigned for and won the referendum, the premiership and a landslide majority. He negotiated, against all the odds, the withdrawal and final agreement (the latter in the teeth of Covid).
And he even found a way to honour the terms of the Good Friday Agreement, drawing praise from both sides of the Irish border.
Unfortunately, the SNP say it’s disastrous for Scotland, with no upside for any of our entrepreneurs, and the only way out is to amputate Scotland from the UK and spend, according to their own Growth Commission, at least ten years trying to get back into the EU.
ALLAN SUTHERLAND, Stonehaven, Kincardineshire.
Seeding grievance
DOUBTLESS Nicola Sturgeon believes a weak UK-EU relationship, rather than the beneficial tariff-free trade deal, would have improved her chances of achieving independence.
With Labour largely joining the UK Government in voting for the deal in Westminster to protect jobs and the economy, her shrill rhetoric now seems desperate and isolated, as she unearths a new grievance: seed potatoes.
MARTIN REDFERN, Melrose, Roxburghshire.
Back deal or be sacked
HALLELUJAH, at last we have a deal! It is perhaps not the best deal but at least it will give us what, I think, most Britons wanted. If this deal is not accepted by Parliament AGAIN, every last dissenting politician should be sacked.
Personally, I have never doubted that we would leave with a deal as the EU can no more afford to lose us for trade than we can to lose them. Well done Boris.
K WINTON, Edinburgh.
SNP will never change
A DEAL with the EU has been done and a vaccination programme to kill off coronavirus is now in full swing; things are certainly looking up as 2020 draws to a close.
But one factor remains absolutely unchanged — the SNP will still be peddling bitter grievances.
The EU agreement is dismissed without reading a line. The First Minister says ‘Scotland’ does not want Brexit, ignoring the millionplus Scots who voted for it.
It seems in Nationalist eyes, Scotland and the SNP are one entity. Dissenters are not allowed. What is best for constituents comes a very long way behind what is considered best for the party. Some things never change. ALEXANDER MCKAY, Edinburgh.
Predictable response
WAS there anything so predictable as the SNP response to the Brexit deal? Had the Almighty himself written it, giving Britain everything it wanted, the SNP would have found fault with it — the reason being that they secretly wanted no deal, thinking it would help their cause of independence. WILLIAM BALLANTINE,
Bo’ness, West Lothian.
Clutching at straws
REMEMBER Theresa May saying ‘now is not the time’ when the SNP wanted an independence referendum in 2020? Given what we know now, the SNP were let off the hook as it would have been a disaster for them. You would think a cautious politician, as Nicola Sturgeon claims to be, would have noted this but no, here we go again.
Miss Sturgeon is desperately looking for problems in the Brexit deal that she can ‘exploit’.
So far the best she can do is moan about the fishing deal, which she would have to give back to Brussels, or seed potato exports which are currently worth £13.5million annually. Miss Sturgeon is clutching at straws.
GERALD EDWARDS, Glasgow.