Our Tory and Labour MPs will find themselves slaves to Whips

LETTERS SPECIAL

GIVEN the Tories’ scraped majority using the DUP, blue MPs here in Scotland are not going to be able to properly look after their constituents, because they will be permanently under a three-line whip which will nail their feet to the floor in Westminster. Every vote Theresa May needs will be so tight that the Scottish Tories will be nothing more than lobby fodder, and unlike the SNP, which always abstained when a vote had anything to do with an area covered by the Scottish Parliament, the Scottish Tory MPs are going to be forced to trot through the lobby on those English-only matters. And when it comes to Europe can Mrs May be trusted (or Jeremy Corbyn for that matter) not to sell out Scottish fishing, as Edward Heath did in the 1970s, to get a better Brexit deal, so the south-east of England can maintain their booze cruises amongst other things?

Mr Corbyn is in a similar position, he will have the Scottish Labour MPs nailed to the floor looking for a chance to defeat the Tories on some issue which may have nothing whatsoever to do with Scotland, Thousands of people here are going to find that any problem they take to their MP will be dealt with by a wee quine, or a member of the blue rinse brigade acting “on behalf of” because the MP has their backside glued to the green benches as their leader panics over whether or not they will get a piece of legislation through (the Tories) or defeat it (Labour)..

As for the Tory and Labour leaders in the Scottish Parliament, they are beginning to show all the attributes of Miss Jean Brodie and without a shred of the talent of Maggie Smith. They are going to find that when people wake up to the fact that it is virtually impossible to get to their MP, and that MP is fixated only on Westminster and is going to hand their problem over to the office chai wallah, then push them out the door saying “Take it to your MSP,” as if we are under colonial occupation, then a second independence referendum won’t just be sometime in the distant future, but will come back like an express train to run straight over them. The Miss Jean Brodies of the Tories and Labour need to remember, that we Scots will not be lectured to, by anybody.

Alex Flett, Lochfergus House, Kirkcudbright.

GROUCHO Marx famously said: “I have principles, and if you don’t like them … well, I have others.” That just about sums up most politicians. Witness Theresa May’s wooing the DUP, the Scurrilous Twins, Michael Gove and Boris Johnson’s return, the Labour naysayers humbly behind the now-popular leader. No wonder so many people took to Jeremy Corbyn. A breath of fresh air indeed.

Theresa May’s arrogant comment of a “coalition of chaos” has come to pass; the irony, of course, is that it is her chaos. What a mess and at what cost to the country, both in credibility, now zero, and financial waste. Both, we could do well without in times of supposed austerity. What gravitas and credibility can Mrs May possibly inject into the Brexit negotiations? However, she might just get away with staying leader as the Tories are now in turmoil over a leadership election. All the movers and shakers are terrified of Mr Corbyn’s policies and the youngsters who backed him.

This result might just be a turning point for real democracy in Britain and the demise of right-wing policies which were detrimental to the already disadvantaged in society. Thank you, Mrs May.

Ian Smith,

111 Dutch House, Kilmarnock Road, Monkton.

IT was inevitable that there would be a correction in the make-up of Scottish MPs – voters not of SNP persuasion should be represented at Westminster – but I wonder if those who blithely voted for Ruth Davidson’s Conservative Party really understood what they were voting for?

Not just to re-elect Theresa May, but to endorse the policies which have been followed so unsuccessfully since 2010. We should be under no illusions that, were the Tories to gain power at Holyrood, there would follow the imposition of policies such as the bedroom tax, £9,000-plus annual student tuition fees, means-tested winter fuel allowance, privatisation of the NHS in Scotland and

Scottish Water, and further brutal benefit cuts to force more families into poverty. The Scottish Parliament, within its limited powers and led by the SNP, has so far mitigated or stopped the effects of many of these policies.

The turkeys/Christmas cliche is overdone; perhaps we should think of the Scottish Tory voters as the advance guard of a tribe of lemmings prospecting for the highest cliff to jump off.

Stefan Kay, 7 King’s Cramond, Barnton, Edinburgh.

I NOTE that Prime Minister Theresa May has re-appointed David Mundell as our man at Westminster (“Tensions loom in Tory Cabinet as Gove returns to front line politics”, The Herald, June 12). I look forward to seeing him defend our interests as he has always done. How can he fail us given the overwhelming backing of 28.5 per cent of the Scottish electorate? Plus ca change indeed. Or perhaps he is best summed up in the words of the poet Hughes Mearns:

John Boyle,

11 North Crescent Road, Ardrossan.

THE way the General Election result in Scotland is being spun reminds me of George Orwell’s character, O’Brien, when he attempts to persuade Winston Smith in the novel,1984, that he is holding up four fingers when poor Winston can see only three.

The SNP did actually win in Scotland with more votes and more seats than the other parties combined. If the party had achieved this result in 2014, as the then opinion polls suggested, all the talk would now be about the inevitability of another independence referendum.

Alex Salmond gave the gloating Tory supporters at the Gordon count the prefect response when he quoted Bonnie Dundee, “Ye hae no seen the last o my bonnets and me”. The SNP and the independence movement has suffered a setback but will return stronger and wiser in the not too distant future.

I will close by again quoting the SNP’s erstwhile leader: “The dream shall never die.”

David C Purdie, 12 Mayburn Vale, Loanhead.