Letters / Under the SNP Scotland has gone backwards
The Shetland Times was content to print a letter last week suggesting that they had inferred, by the proximity of two articles, that the prime minister of Great Britain, Boris Johnson, is a ‘piece of faecal matter’.
Perhaps I can then be permitted to say how gratifying it was when the English media finally realised that the rays of sunshine they thought emanated from Nicola Sturgeon were in fact only gusts of wind.
Andrew Marr hit the spot when he told her there was a gap between her presentation, and the reality. A trained lawyer, presentation is her one true talent.
She has managed to persuade the Scottish people that Brexit would be a financial disaster as 20 per cent of our trade was with Europe, but independence would be a roaring success even though 60 per cent of our trade is with Britain.
Asked how she would fund her free medicine and education after independence without the generous gift of English gold from her friend Boris, her answer is always she would fund it with growth. Well, good luck with that.
The reality is that under the SNP Scotland has gone backwards. Under their guidance education, once Scotland’s pride, has deteriorated to the point where they are too embarrassed to use international test criteria and claim it is the “perception” which really counts.
Scotland was to be the greenhouse example to the world, providing massive industrial opportunities and bucket loads of jobs. The reality is a botched chance and a massive cost to the Scottish taxpayer.
She has persuaded the Scottish people that setting up a border in the middle of an island nation, where there is no natural geographic barrier, would present no problems.
The reality is that as any study of history and geography and indeed the example of our Irish neighbours show this tends to be a recipe for endless quarrels and friction.
She has managed to persuade a large section of the Scottish population that the English, especially DA TORIES are the enemy.
The sad reality is that, while I have never heard of animosity or aggression towards Scots who have settled in England there are many and alas increasing examples of English people, no other nationality, only English, some of whom have lived for years in Scotland, now being made to feel unwelcome and in some cases facing open hostility and abuse.
Inevitably (to the horror of the tourist industry) we are now starting to see the beginning of a reaction in England, fed up with the constant sniping from their northern neighbours.
I consider myself fortunate to have lived my life in one of the best countries in the world. The four Labour and four Conservative periods I have lived through have served me well.
The two party system with its evolved methods of checks and balances tended to moderate the extreme elements in either, the net result being a steadily improving standard of living for the population as a whole.
I have had the great privilege of being able to call myself both Scottish and British.
Now I am faced with the prospect of myself, my family, my grandchildren no longer being British, no longer being part of one of the most successful unions that has ever existed.
And for what? To be governed by a party with no checks and balances; a party which brooks no dissent; a party where the faithful must clap every utterance of the great leader; a great leader, corrupted and tainted as all are by the elixir of power who now believes herself to be above the law; a party which seriously proposed an adult minder for each child; a party which has centralised power to itself and to its police force.
The prospect fills me with dread.
Robert Johnson
Whalsay
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