Westminster is not the government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland as it pretends. The massive democratic deficit in the House of Commons – in which English seats more than double the combined seats allocated to Scotland, Wales, and the occupied counties in Ireland – ensures that Scotland is not represented in what is mathematically and for all other intents and purposes the English parliament. Westminster is where the democratic will of the Scottish people – an entire nation – is dominated and so silenced by the will of England and its people.
Boris Johnson’s Cull
But let us be absolutely clear on one thing, no matter what he has said in his latest panicked announcement, neither Boris Johnson nor the British government have been on this track from the beginning. In fact, they are extremely late to the party. Our hope – and it is a sincere hope – is that these measures will be enough, but the greatest likelihood is that the gate has been closed long after the horse has bolted. People were always going to die of this virus. There is no way to stop a virus. But Boris Johnson has by his wilful inaction and arrogance set Britain up to fail – and fail bad.
The Bridges Over a Manacled Country
Queensferry Crossing, or Nicola Sturgeon’s ‘vanity project’ as the unionists like to style this essential infrastructural development, was closed briefly during dangerous and potentially life-threatening weather. Bearing in mind that bridges all over England were shut for the same reason at the time, to use its closure as a political weapon is right up there were resisting the expense of fire-retardant cladding on high-rise flats. This was not a good look for the Conservatives. That failing to close a bridge in dangerous weather is just inviting a tragedy, is a statement of the obvious.