DOWN in Westminster where the people in control (sic) can literally print any amount of money they wish for and never have to repay it despite pretending they have to, as they constantly try to ensure hard workers, fraud victims and honest people from the working classes never prosper and are firmly kept in their place to ensure the crooked rich can continue to milk the system.

They won’t pay the WASPIs.

They won’t pay the infected blood victims.

They won’t pay the Royal Mail postmasters.

They won’t pay a remotely sufficient state pension.

They won’t pay to fix the NHS.

They won’t pay to fix the schools.

They won’t pay to fix the roads.

They won’t pay to fix the chronic housing shortage as Thatcher’s legacy of wanton destruction lives on to this day.

They won’t stop charging three times more for people’s energy than they need to as they frantically try to hide the colossal financial damages and downright stupidity of Brexit.

They won’t listen to the economists who warned them to avoid increasing mortgage prices. Instead, in their infinite wisdom, they decided to put them up around a dozen times. Again, this was to help hide the meltdown of Brexit, and in doing so caused a meltdown in the housing market.

They won’t pay the nurses, rail workers, teachers and so many millions of other workers an honest wage for an honest day’s pay that would ensure huge swathes of the workers after a hard day’s work do not need to go to a food bank on the way home to ensure they can feed their families.

Meanwhile, up in Scotland, we have a government actually voted in by people in Scotland, with tiny levers of power granted to us by the UK Government. But despite being given a fraction of the vast sums syphoned by Westminster from us each year from our huge oil, gas, renewables, obscenely over-taxed whisky excise duties, etc, it still manages to work miracles and to produce this record we should be very proud of:

We don’t have health workers striking.

We have the best-performing NHS by a country mile.

We have the most dentists per capita.

We have a better education system.

We have the lowest murder rates since records began.

We have the best-educated workers in Europe.

We have free prescriptions.

We have free university fees.

We have free bus passes for the young and old.

We have no disgraceful peak train fares currently – which actually punish people for trying to go to work to help do their bit for the economy, a truly disgraceful action on every level.

We have double the free hours for our children in nurseries.

We have help for young parents when their babies are born.

We have the Scottish Child Payment.

All this from a disgraceful and very deliberate amount allocated to us – far too low to possibly allow Scotland to look like a well-run nation.

Just think what we could do with access to our own huge resources.

We know full well that if this were to happen, the UK Government would look even more like the catastrophically bad government it is.

Anyone who thinks Labour will somehow improve things is howling at the moon.

I think what is becoming more obvious by the day is that despite its many faults, at least the Scottish Government actually cares about its people. Meanwhile, the UK Government is currently embroiled in more worker strikes and scandals than you can shake a stick at and most certainly does not care about the common people at all. To them, greed is king – and to hell with anyone and everything else.

The list just goes on and on and yet still some people up here – fellow Scots – are so brainwashed that they seem to be completely oblivious to the downright corruption emanating from another country’s establishment actively ruining all our lives.

Of course, this isn’t just Scots, but all the good folk on these deeply unhappy islands – except Ireland, of course. But speaking from experience, it frustrates me that fellow Scots would rather spend their time pretending Westminster looks after the Scottish nation so they can concentrate on obsessing about the Scottish Government’s failures on ferries, iPads and campervans.

Each of these are – in relative and financial terms – all absolutely tiny and completely irrelevant compared to down south. Billions were stolen and squandered in PPE contracts, faulty aircraft carriers, one tube station’s renovation. Tens of millions were invested in imaginary ferry firms.

£100 billion and counting was spent on that highly lauded train line to nowhere. £10bn went on an abandoned NHS IT system and nearly £2 million per person was spent to send people to Rwanda to save around £15,000 a year.

The list of complete and utter failures from the UK Government’s flawed financial planning experts is quite simply endless.

The people of England are great people – they have a beautiful land and I love visiting it – but they also have a government completely incapable of running their own lands which should not be allowed anywhere near the levers of power of another nation – especially one with massive resources. If Scotland were to break away to run our own affairs, it would leave Westminster to concentrate on making the lives of the good people of England, that much better – and it can’t come a moment too soon.

We just need a proper leader up here and we need the Scots up here who fight tooth and nail to ensure their own families never prosper to wake up and smell the roses.

Then we can all benefit and move forward as good friends both up here and with England as friends and neighbours who can be called upon to help each other as and when needed.

Is it really too much to ask?

Iain K

Dunoon

POLITICAL commentators in the English media have – quite rightly – been totally dismissive of the Russian election and the inevitable outcome. Mind you, one experienced observer of Russia (I can’t recall his name) had a very different perspective. He reckoned that even if they did have a fair election, Putin might well have won anyway as he is more popular in Russia than many in the West think. No doubt aided by wall-to-wall propaganda in their media, though. Not that there is any blatant propaganda spewed out from the English press and media. Heaven forbid! That wouldn’t be cricket, chaps!

All this pious stuff coming from the English media about the Russian “election” does however beg the question of their attitude to democracy a lot closer to home. I’m talking about us, of course, the country they oh so wanted to be “Better Together” with, almost 10 years ago!

I know the topic is rarely mentioned now because of a certain Supreme Court decision but I still cannae get ma heid aroond how a democratic mandate won fair and square in a Scottish election that the Scottish people voted for – a referendum to be held on our independence – was just totally trashed! Putin would have been well proud of those doing the trashing – not just the Tories but Labour too!

For me, with an election looming, I would love to hear SNP and Scottish Greens politicians relentlessly, unashamedly and enthusiastically hammer home this clear denial of democracy to show up those defending the Union for what they are – politicians that have utter contempt for the wishes of the Scottish people! Let’s face it, the “Supreme Court” of the Scottish people is the Scottish people, end of!

A total change of subject, I know, but I thought it was brilliant that after Humza voiced his support for Diane Abbott at the event in Perth that SNP delegates spontaneously gave Diane a standing ovation. On hearing about this, Diane said she was “honoured and touched”. Isn’t it disgusting that she can’t get the same respect fae the high-heid yins in her ain party? It’s a mad, mad world!

Also, here in Scotland, we are the only Western European country, in Humza, to have a Muslim leader. Now our Celtic cousins, the Welsh, are the first European country to have, in Vaughan Gething, a Black leader. I cannae speak for onybody else, but with all the awful recent stories of racism and Islamophobia, this pale-faced, 63-year-auld guy, thinks this can only be a guid thing – and no afore time!

Ivor Telfer

Dalgety Bay, Fife

ONE could be forgiven for thinking that the SNP strategy for the coming General Election – concentrating on reducing the number of Tory MPs – is to help facilitate a Labour government. In doing that, they would be able to demonstrate nothing of any significance will change. They might then use the continuing austerity imposed from Westminster to their advantage in the next Holyrood election – resulting in a massive increase in the independence vote share and a decisive display of popular rejection of the Union.

That, however, assumes a degree of joined-up thinking that has been absent from SNP strategy – or indeed from the strategy of any other independence party. It also assumes they are preparing some radical legislation in the intervening period that would give people a glimpse of a better future post-independence. Again, there is nothing in recent history to lead us to expect anything of that nature is being planned.

Unlike some of you correspondents, I don’t actually believe our elected representatives have become too comfortable with their current situations. I think they are just stuck in a do-loop with no idea how to get out of it.

I’m not sure which is worse!

Cameron Crawford

Rothesay

ALYN Smith MP has had, and continues to have, a long-term love affair with the institutions of the EU. I respect his views and will defend his right to argue for his beliefs, however misguided I believe them to be (The National, Wednesday, March 20).

However, I do wish his constant dismissal of potential Scottish membership of EFTA was based on fact, not fiction. Article 100 of the 1994 agreement between the EU and EFTA, which led to the creation of the European Economic Area, states that “the EU Commission shall ensure experts of the EFTA States as wide a participation as possible according to the areas concerned, in the preparatory stage of draft measures to be submitted subsequently to the committees which assist the EU Commission in the exercise of its executive powers”.

Either Mr Smith knew of the existence of Article 100 – and therefore was misleading the readers of The National – or he did not – in which case, he was ignorant of the facts. Which was it?

Cllr Andy Doig (Independent)

Renfrewshire Council

I FIND it hard to believe that Buchanan Galleries is going to be demolished, as, apparently, Glaswegians prefer walking around outdoors in one of the wettest, windiest parts of the world.

Who thought up this change? Aquaman, King Canute and

Captain Nemo?

Stephen McCarthy

Glasgow