Proud to be a fanatical SNPsupporter
In reply to George Godsman (Letters, July 3), I would like to thank him for describing me as a true fanatical supporter of the SNP.
I take that as a compliment as I most certainly am – and I don’t hide the fact that I have a hard political position, unlike some unionists who appear in these columns with fuzzy representations of their equally hard positions by weasel words and soothing sentences.
Take, for instance, my present interlocutor, who gives a glowing description of Nicola Sturgeon as ‘a politician’, emphasising the ‘politician’, before going on the attack.
He also sneaks in the weasel word. ‘moderates’. This is an ancient Tory trick used for decades. It attempts to rope into the Tory fold those who consider themselves moderates and by implication taint those who disagree with Tory philosophy as extremists.
Mr Godsman accuses the Scottish Government of a U-turn on education, going from ‘blended’ to full time. Correct, if you insist, but it was more like a parabolic arc due to the vast improvement in the COVID-19 situation in Scotland. We couldn’t just rush into full-time schooling if the situation was really bad – bairns could spread it to their elderly relatives and we have the teachers and ancillary staff to think about as well.
Still, when we think of Tory England going round in circles on Brexit, Huawei, COVID testing, air travel self-isolation, Hong Kong British citizenship and herd immunity, what’s one U-turn against half-a-dozen O-turns.
According to him, Nicola is basically “politically posturing” by having a different time of moving out of lockdown compared with England. That ‘posturing’ has, along with the other two non-Tory nations, got the death rate down to nearly zero, compared with Tory England which has a daily death rate undulating between a few dozen to approaching 200.
He even asks (rhetorically) how moving at a distance of a few weeks can make a difference to deaths or the rate of spread.
Apparently he is unaware the answer is enacting in front of his eyes and is, ‘a lot.’
He also tells us that he smiles at the Scottish Government’s aim of eradicating the virus.
It may be difficult to achieve, but surely anything that saves lives is a better alternative to the Tory’s English plan of herd immunity, knowing that with a killer virus it will cost (and has cost) lives. Of course, the old, the vulnerable, ethnic minorities and the disadvantaged tend to die off quicker – as they did during the decade of
Tory austerity – so that doesn’t matter, profits do.
Mr Godsman moves on to the economy at which the SNP is no good, by his standards. Well, considering that the British/Scottish financial control is something like 80/20 per cent, I’ll accept that, but with the caveat that most blame lies with his pals in the Anglo-Norman ruling class.
He also tells us that London sent “copious amounts” of money to Scotland. No, it didn’t. They sent back a few billions of our own money.
I’ll take no lectures about finance from a supporter of a government running a public debt approaching two trillion pounds.
He goes on about Scotland sticking with the present central bank if we had become independent in 2014, as if this was solely England’s property. If we had problems there is always the IMF. We know they will help out because they did when the UK went for a loan to save its sinking pound.
Personally, I look forward to rejoining the EU (as do most Scots) and either aligning with, or adopting, the Euro.
Mr Godsman finishes by suggesting I be careful what I wish for as the future holds pandemics.
At least an independent Scotland will be free of the virus of Toryism.
I’ll be looking forward to getting back to the future.
Like latter day Romano-Britons he and his dwindling cohort can head forward to the past.
They may as well – they have nothing of value to offer in today’s world.