\n Those who were previously deceived by either of these snake-oil salesmen will not be fooled again if they ask themselves some common-sense questions.\n<\/p>\n
\n Why has Brexit resulted in apparently much greater perceived immigration issues, and why has a landslide Labour General Election victory resulted in further austerity?\n<\/p>\n
\n Why has the UK\u2019s economy faltered since Brexit and why has life become harsher for many of the most vulnerable in society since Labour won the last General Election?\n<\/p>\n
\n Why have the rich become richer and the poor poorer since Brexit and why, if Labour have all the answers, have public services in Wales \u2013 where Labour have been in power for longer than the SNP<\/a> in Scotland \u2013 been widely outperformed by public services delivered by the Scottish Government<\/a>?\n<\/p>\n \n The way forward for Scotland is not to trust the stories of either of these politicians that further UK isolationism or superficial change, coupled with increased authoritarianism, can deliver the fundamental change both Scotland and the UK desperately need.\n<\/p>\n \n The devolution experiment is failing both the UK and Scotland and the reform that is now desperately needed is constitutional reform, not more stories of how relatively very minor savings in migrant benefits<\/a> or improved government efficiencies can fund a genuine vision of real change.\n<\/p>\n \n Devolution is on life support, democratically, economically and socially, and it is time to have a serious public debate on the next step of self-determination for all the nations of these islands, without the smoke and mirrors conjured up by two self-promoting illusionists.\n<\/p>\n \n Stan Grodynski<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n \n Longniddry, East Lothian<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n \n I LIVED in England for most of my life before migrating to Scotland with my Scottish-born wife.\n<\/p>\n \n During that time, it was a rare sight to see the Union flag flying anywhere except on public buildings, and then only to celebrate a royal occasion. I recall seeing a few flags of other nations, for instance Norway. Never the St George\u2019s Cross.\n<\/p>\n \n I did fly the Saltire from my own home for a few years prior to moving to Scotland and as a result of discovering my early 20th-century Scottish ancestors.\n<\/p>\n \n However, I digress. The flying of flags of England and the UK, as seen recently, is the result of right-wing political extremism. The Saltire, as seen in the peaceful All Under One Banner marches, has been a sign of Scottish nationalism.\n<\/p>\n \n Since 2014, the Saltire and the occasional Lion Rampant have been seen flying from a number of homes all over Scotland. Similarly, on many past visits into Wales, the red and green Welsh dragon was fairly well in evidence in that country.\n<\/p>\n \n I have seen the St Patrick\u2019s Saltire in evidence in Northern Ireland as well as the similar flag on the island of Jersey.\n<\/p>\n \n For Keir Starmer<\/a> to express his discovering of a pride for the Scottish Saltire is a damn insult given his political ignorance about Scotland. He expressed a similar pride for the Welsh dragon but failed to mention the St Patrick\u2019s Flag, which, ironically is part of Starmer\u2019s own \u201cUnion Jack\u201d flag, as he chose to call it. Why on earth Starmer decided to include this absurd reference to the three countries of the UK, while omitting Northern Ireland, is anyone\u2019s and nobody\u2019s business<\/a>, so far as I am concerned.\n<\/p>\n \n He can never reclaim the Scottish Saltire because he never owned it in the first place, regardless of its inclusion in the Union flag. He has his St George flag which represents England. So be happy with that, Keir Starmer, and hands off our flag.\n<\/p>\n \n Alan Magnus-Bennett<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n \n Fife<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n \n I WAS listening to Ayesha Hazarika, baroness of the Labour variety, talking to Wes Streeting<\/a> on Times Radio. I was sort of neutral in my summation of what I was hearing, as he is not Health<\/a> Secretary for Scotland.\n<\/p>\n \n Towards the end of the show, there was a short Q&A where he took questions from the floor. I was not bothered one bit until Hazarika said she had one last person to ask a question. And there it was, the SNP bad story.\n<\/p>\n \n The question was asked by a doctor from Edinburgh<\/a>. He congratulated Mr Streeting for getting waiting times down in England, and said the same thing would not happen up here because the SNP are running the health service up here!\n<\/p>\n \n I was raging and switched it off. There is no end to the lengths Unionists will go to regarding bashing the SNP. That includes all the so-called Scottish Unionists in Holyrood<\/a> who cannot wait for Thursdays and First Minister\u2019s Questions to attack John Swinney<\/a>, saying how bad we are at EVERYTHING up here, not just the NHS.\n<\/p>\n \n When are the people of Scotland going to stand up against this? I hope with all my heart that next May we will put the SNP back into Holyrood with a stonking great majority. We can do it, but the SNP need to get shoved into position. Every day is Christmas for the SNP just now. We need to make the most of it!\n<\/p>\n \n Old John<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n \n Ayrshire<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n \n WE must hope\/pray that the Nobel Peace Prize committee don\u2019t buckle under the pressure of Trump\u2019s nauseating hypocrisy. Clearly he has done a deal with the war criminal Netanyahu to bring about a \u201cceasefire\u201d (still to be achieved at the time of writing, of course).\n<\/p>\n \n He will immediately disclaim any responsibility for the inevitable renewed aggression\/genocide by Israel once he has the Prize. \u201cI did it, I brought \u2018peace\u2019, but am not responsible for anything which comes after … ,\u201d he would say, washing his hands in the blood of Palestinian women and children.\n<\/p>\n \n David Roche<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n \n Blairgowrie<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Those who were previously deceived by either of these snake-oil salesmen will not be fooled again if they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":472298,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-472297","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115312916073810437","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=472297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/472297\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/472298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=472297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=472297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=472297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}