Not so simple

I am happy to reply to Bill McLellan in the spirit of open debate, leading up to the important Local Election here in South Ayrshire.

Mr McLellan is of course entitled to his views and I agree the Scottish National Party has made mistakes over the past 14 years while in control at Holyrood.

I despair at the CalMac Ferries fiasco, where with the best of intentions, the Scottish Government have saved 300 Jobs in an attempt to keep commercial ship building alive on the Clyde.

I am also disappointed that a fairer replacement of the council tax has not been implemented and that serious land ownership reform has not been undertaken. All of this, pails into insignificance when compared with the Crossrail project in London, still not completed after many years and over budget by several billions of pounds, just like H.S.2 another money pit to save 20 minutes off the London to Birmingham train travel time.

But to cap it all must be the total ineptitude, during the Covid Pandemic, of the Tory Party throwing billions of pounds for useless PPE equipment plus the Test Track and Trace contract, which proved to be a total waste of UK taxpayers’ money.

Of course, we must not forget the VIP. list of favoured contacts, to the Conservative Party friends and donors, who were given the inside track on supplying goods and services during the Covid pandemic. Add to that list, the Russian Oligarchs, who the Conservative and Unionist Party encouraged for favours, to turn London into the world wide centre for Money Laundering, commonly known as “Londongrad” or “Moscow on the Thames” Even to the extent that Boris

Johnson himself facilitated the son of a Russian Oligarch and a former K.G.B. Agent, Evgeny Lebedev, to be given a Peerage and allowed to sit in that bastion of Democracy, the “Unelected House of Lords”, against advice from the head of MI6, Sir John Sawers.

In comparison the SNP. Government at Holyrood has maintained and extended. Free Personal and Nursing care to everyone who needs it, regardless of age, free bus travel, for young people, forces veterans, the disabled as well as the over 60s. Free Prescriptions for all, tuition fees for students, 600 hours of early learning and childcare, from age three and much more. All of this with the purse strings tightly controlled by Westminster, of the multiple taxes that flow through London from Scottish Tax Payers.

Finally, I wish all candidates well in the forthcoming Local Election. Whichever group of councillors wins control, they will find it not so simple, making tough and difficult decisions affecting the wide range of vital public services that South Ayrshire Council provides, against a back drop of a so-called “United Kingdom” with a National Debt of 2 trillion pounds, costing 83 billion pounds of Interest annually.

There are no easy answers out there.

Alec Oattes, Lindston Place, Ayr