Outrageous Slurs

Sent to The Herald:  15th February 2008. Not Published. 

Dear Sir,

For many years outrageous slurs have been hurled at the democratic, internationalist and moderate left-of-centre party that now forms the Scottish Government. I have heard the SNP described during the last decade alone using terminology such as ”neo-Nazis… Omagh bombers… wife beaters… oddballs, extremists and out and out racists” (all in one go, and in a press article as well!) “xenophobic” (this one is repeated most), “the toast of Belgrade” and subsequently “the toast of Baghdad”. Recent years have also seen media reports about a former SNP MSP and his father’s alleged past membership of a criminal organisation – the SS. Reference to Alex Salmond and Adolf Hitler has been made in a comparative manner by a New Labour MP on the floor of the House of Commons and I have also read in the press what I consider simply to be disgraceful attempts to smear the now deceased former SNP leader, Arthur Donaldson for his conscientious objection. When the SNP Government wrote to every treaty party on the planet requesting Scots observer status for the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty the countries that were singled out by New Labour in their attempt at a retort were Iran and Zimbabwe, as London claimed that the SNP was seeking support from “very despotic and dangerous individuals”.

Now a New Labour councillor in North Lanarkshire has used the term “Nationalist Socialists” at a council budget meeting to describe the SNP opposition council group (your report, 15th February). Perhaps those who are engaging in this muck throwing are adherents to the statement that “if you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.”

Then again, I would not like to accuse people of engaging in a propaganda strategy that was used by none other than chief Nazi propagandist and war criminal, Joseph Goebbels.

Yours for Scotland,

Olympic Funding

Sent to the Herald: 29th January 2008

Sir

Ann McKechin’s desperate attempt to paint the SNP as ‘opposed’ to the London Olympics suggests she is more concerened about her own record in blindly supporting a London line than the best way to invest in sports and exercise in Scotland.

The SNP does not object to the fact that the London Olympics are taking place, but rather to the exorbitant cost and the methods of funding massive construction projects in the East End of London that will have no tangible benefit to the rest of the UK.

Lottery funds in Scotland could have been used to train young athletes to compete in both the Olympic and Commonwealth games, but Scotland’s Labour MPs voted it away.

In Scotland we have a well-managed, competent Commonwealth Games project with most of the infrastructure already in place and the confident support of civil society.  In London, massive amounts of funding are being wasted on unnecessary construction and vast consultancy fees by a government in thrall with the private sector and out of touch with ordinary people.

A metaphor, perhaps, for much of what is happening in Scotland and Westminster today.

Yours, etc