I am yet again struck, but hardly surprised, by the arrogant and misguided authority with which the Secretary of State of Scotland Alister Jack parrots the UK Government line that there should not be another independence referendum in Scotland “for a generation”.
This is straight out of the Donald Trump playbook and it is, of course, not for Mr Jack, Mr Johnson or any other UK Government minister to decide whether there should be another referendum north of the border. We live in a democracy and this is a decision for the Scottish people.
One can, however, recognise the Tory Government’s concerns as, over the course of the last few months, opinion polls, now 12 in total, have shown that the majority of Scots are now in favour of independence.
Mr Jack and his colleagues need to remove their tin-ears and listen to what the Scottish people are saying.
Professor John Curtice is absolutely right when he notes that Boris Johnson cannot “bind” the Scottish electorate, who have the “right to be fickle”.
If the electorate decide that they wish to back another referendum – and they give the SNP an overall majority at the next Scottish Parliamentary elections – then it would be foolish in the extreme for Westminster to ignore this.
Alex Orr.
Belated furlough
Re the union boss John Boland saying the furlough extension came too late for many in the oil industry. Not only the oil industry but thousands of others and businesses.
Makes you wonder what is going on when a government is destroying its own country and people to supposedly save our NHS when there are hospitals with no Covid patients in them. The NHS is being made the scapegoat. Yes, we know some hospitals are busy in the big cities but every year the hospitals are busy with flu patients and those with respiratory illnesses. So what’s going on?
J Barber.
No priority
so sick of nationalists and unionists toing and froing and pollsters polling on a non-existent referendum. Can we just focus on beating the pandemic?
R Grant.
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