Unionist thinking hard to fathom

HOW much more blatantly incompetent must Boris Johnson and the Tory Government become before the vast majority of the Scottish public realises that a more egalitarian society offering a better future for our grandchildren can only be achieved through self-determination?

Even a Conservative-led committee at Westminster concluded that the coronavirus response was “one of the UK’S worst ever public health failings”. It is bad enough that successive UK governments have presided over decades of Scotland’s manufacturing demise and increasing wealth inequality, while billions of pounds flowed from Scotland’s oil and gas fields into the UK Treasury, before Toryimposed austerity over the last decade pushed many thousands of our citizens, including children, into poverty. It is democratically outrageous that in spite of providing sensible compromise proposals following the Brexit referendum that the Scottish Government, with a clear majority of the Scottish electorate in favour of remaining in the European Union, was not only ignored but an ideological extreme was pursued which, as anticipated, is already proving catastrophic for Scotland’s food and drinks industry.

However, with confirmation that tens of thousands of deaths could have been avoided across the UK, including deaths in Scotland where the number was significantly reduced by comparison in spite of the limited powers of the Scottish Government, it is difficult to comprehend the thinking of those who still seem to believe that perpetual government by those representing the wealthy British establishment in the Commons and Lords is preferable to government by representatives of the Scottish people in Holyrood. Stan Grodynski,

Longniddry.

RICHARD Allison (Letters, October 14) quite rightly, in my opinion, calls for a Scottish Parliamentary inquiry to establish the truth of the Scottish Government handling of Covid. Sadly, I expect that this will be frustrated at every turn and, in any event, what will be the point as it has already been established that, in Scotland, the prime witness can simply respond by having convenient memory lapses?

Duncan Sooman, Milngavie.