Unsporting behaviour
THE SNP’s forced Commons vote on government department estimates (not usually a matter put to a vote) for the petty spite of ensuring english MPs missed the World Cup match against Colombia was unedifying in the extreme.
Peter Grant, MP for Glenrothes, boasted on Twitter: ‘The adjournment bells all over Parliament rang at the very moment england scored. Tory whips, you have no idea how much influence we really have.’
Well, good job! The next time Scotland needs friends, guess how willing to help any MP from down south is going to be?
The one crumb of comfort is that english MPs will empathise with their thousands of constituents whose work commitments equally meant not watching the game.
In that respect, a Parliamentary cold dash of reality as to how ‘the other half live’ is just the tonic.
MARK BOYLE, Johnstone, Renfrewshire.
MORE distressing than any other aspect of nationalism is its grinding, mean-spirited pettiness.
It appears the SNP’s Westminster leader, Ian Blackford, organised his troops in the latest stunt to prevent ordinary house of Commons staff – as well as MPs of every other party – from watching a vital england World Cup game on TV.
he must feel proud to have struck such a blow for nationalism.
The problem for Mr Blackford and his primary one colleagues at Westminster is that the only people this will impress are already voting fodder for the SNP. What his party needs to do to have a hope of success is to convince the unconvinced, thinking majority of the electorate.
All this latest stunt will do is make them more determined not to give a party with this nasty mindset any chance of reaching their holy Grail.
ALEXANDER MCKAY, Edinburgh.
WHEN england won their game against Colombia and qualified for the quarter finals, I celebrated and I’m sure many Scots did the same.
Sadly, our SNP politicians again proved how petty and mean-spirited they can be by forcing colleagues to vote on a series of obscure financial Bills as the match kicked off.
They did everything possible to ensure those present missed seeing their national team play. Some even gloated about it on social media.
Sadly, these people represent Scotland, or at least those Scots still voting for them.
A robert Burns quote sprang to mind: ‘o wad some pow’r the giftie gie us, to see oursels as ithers see us!’ It comes, of course, from To A Louse.
A MORRISON, Dyce, Aberdeenshire.
ANOTHER victory for Ian Blackford and his cohort of Nationalist MPs, and, in turn, another embarrassment for Scotland.
This is how low the SNP has dragged Scotland’s representation in the UK Parliament, as MPs behave like petulant children. But with every one of their ill-tempered, petty acts, the SNP bolsters the determination of Scots to stand up to the divisive nationalism so poorly serving us.
KEITH HOWELL, West Linton, Peeblesshire.