SNP are the best in the businessatthemoment

We have a new contributor to the esteemed columns of the Perthshire Advertiser (Letter, July 3).

Mr George Godsman of ‘address supplied’ urges regular PA correspondent Mr Thomas Burgess to take off SNP specs and view the current first minister and her political party in a less favourable light.

Now I am no SNP zealot.

I am not a member of that party and merely a recent convert to voting for that party, and I certainly feel that the somewhat less than totally satisfactory things Mr Godsman listed, are indeed things which the SNP government needs to improve on ideally.

However, in any election, be it national, local political, or even for the head of the student debating society, one is never going to find a candidate or party which scores 100 per cent in every aspect of policy, or outlook.

It remains to be seen whether Sir Keir Starmer will revitalise and re-energise Labour, but in the meantime, for me at least, there is no other political party other than the SNP even coming close to the 50 per cent pass mark.

Mr Godsman acknowledges Ms Sturgeon as being an efficient political leader.

One of the factors in weighing up the electability of any party and awarding percentage marks is the efficiency, personality and truthfulness of its leader.

With the possible exception of Starmer, still unproven at this time, I don’t believe that any of the current leaders come even close to Ms Sturgeon in any of these traits, and certainly not the charlatan who is the current UK leader.

In some, admittedly not all, of the categories that Mr Godsman mentions as being SNP failures, the track record of the government of the UK, since 2010, is no better and certainly in some instances, particularly during the current pandemic, is actually worse.

Mr Godsman describes himself as liking to think he is a reasonable person.

Exercising such reasonable thinking he goes on to accuse teaching unions of not falling into line with the plans of dearest Boris to get children back to school during the lockdown.

Very laudable objective obviously. However, what reasonable person would not expect a trade union not to want to look out for its members, especially so when the concern relates to a potentially fatal virus which respects no workplace, no individual, and which, if not fatal to a particular individual, can turn that person into a carrier who could then in turn fatally infect many others?

Mr Godsman goes on to imply that without the riches of the union, Scotland would be in dire straits if the 2014 vote had gone the other way.

One can only point out that the Republic of Ireland, with a roughly similar population to us, survived the epidemic, and it is sans the export assets Scotland has of oil and whisky.

That country has been independent of indifferently performing UK Government’s for circa 100 years, and a blip during the ‘08 crash notwithstanding (and it wasn’t alone in that) has survived moderately well.

The same is true of New Zealand, also of similar population size.

Getting away from the control of UK Governments hasn’t done the New Zealanders any harm.

Until such times as a unionist party comes about which accepts Scotland as an equal partner in any union, including getting a government we actually voted for in a UK election, not what England sees fit to impose upon us with their greater voting numbers, then I’m quite happy to nail my colours to the mast.

I would challenge Mr Godsman to do exactly that, tell the PA readers in your next epistle exactly what’s great about this current union, and just how wonderful you think Boris and his Tories really are.

Mr Godsman concludes by quoting Harold McMillan about events shaping politics.

There is another Harold McMillan quote.

One made during another campaign and debate regarding Independence back in 1961, albeit not that of Scotland at that time.

It was that “The Wind Of Change” was blowing. That wind and that change could well be in the political climate here in the future.

Allister Band

Hermitage Drive

Perth