NHS scandal: Part II
Kenneth Roy
Perhaps his Eckness will ensure blanket radio coverage across the Highlands when he ushers in the post-2014 Scottish nirvana.or maybe not. A recent Friday however brought me a political story on Radio Scotland which encompassed local, Westminster and international politics.
Lucinda Creighton, the Irish European affairs minister, was being interviewed by BBC Scotland’s Raymond Buchanan, in Dublin to cover a visit by our own deputy first minister Nicola Sturgeon. The subject, Scotland’s entry into the EU, has proved damaging to the nationalist cause and the broader ‘Yes’ campaign over the last few months. Ms Creighton’s words, while sincerely and professionally conveyed, seemed to me to be incendiary. I recall thinking that with supposed allies like the Irish government, our Nat friends did not have enemies to seek. Her view was that after independence Scotland ‘would have to apply for membership’ and that such negotiations were likely to be ‘painstaking and complex’.
She went on to say much more in support of her opinion including a reference to a recent visit she’d made to Iceland to discuss the ascension of that small country into the EU. Having made mention of Iceland’s long standing role in EFTA and the problems that country was having in conforming with EU structures, she said that Scotland would face similar difficulties. ‘Jings’, I thought…there’ll be trouble over this but what can they say…it’s been broadcast.
Over the subsequent weekend however it transpired that the followers of Eck did indeed have an explanation, even if it assumed an Orwellian complexion. The party line, as espoused by culture minister Fiona Hyslop – has she not read ‘1984’? – was that the Irish minister’s words had been taken out of context and/or misinterpreted. When challenged on BBC television she stuck to her guns even after her interviewer replayed Ms Creighton’s unedited words. It emerged that the email traffic between Edinburgh and Dublin must have been intense for Creighton was now clarifying her position. Hmm.
In the meantime, events on the internet frontline of the independence debate were taking an even stranger turn. Peter Murrell, the SNP chief executive, took to Twitter in an allegation that the BBC had edited the tape to suit the ends of the unionist cause. Never slow to heed the dog whistle from headquarters Newsnet Scotland was also rapidly on the case. G A Ponsonby, a regular Newsnet correspondent, was straight on to the minister in Ireland, extracting the following from Ms Creighton:
I certainly did not at any stage suggest that Scotland could, should or would be thrown out of the EU.
This seems to me to be an extraordinary state of affairs. The minister is asked to deny a statement that was never part of the broadcast interview I heard her give to the BBC. Still, I suppose it is no more strange than Peter Murrell’s belief that staff at BBC Scotland, interviewer, editors and sound engineers, conspired to edit an interview to damage the nationalist cause. In this anniversary season of George Orwell, I believe that Murrell, Hyslop and Ponsonby should read the great man’s essay ‘Politics and the English language’. Jean Seaton, an Orwell Prize judge, puts it succinctly when she says of the work:
We are now in a battle for the kind of nation we want to live in just as much as he was.
Dick Mungin
The Scottish Review has to be congratulated on its exposure of the, at best, incompetence evidenced by NHS Ayrshire and Arran. A near quarter of a million pounds per year for the executive medical director is a lot for such poor performance. I fear we are becoming a nation that is dominated by a fat cat establishment that has the public’s best interests as one of its lowest priorities. It works hard to veil the low value for money that it offers taxpayers and our taken-for-granted trust in the well-qualified is, in many instances, entirely misplaced.
Karen Watt
I know it is not the norm to respond to a letter in The Cafe, but on this occasion I feel I must. Ian Petrie (7 February) discusses the lack of loyalty to a United Kingdom by the ‘us and them’ population of England.
I proposed many months ago in a national Scottish paper that all UK citizens be given the vote on independence. After all, many people south of the border (and across the Irish Sea) have vested interests in this country. Many others were born and raised in this country, but now must live and work in other parts of the UK.
The response by the anti-unionists was harsh. They either laughed at or ridiculed the suggestion. I have yet to meet anyone living in England who is concerned with Scotland staying in the union. In fact, if the vote had been given to all eligible UK citizens, I am wholly confident Scotland would secure its independence with an overwhelming majority.
Denise Davis
I always try to watch Question Time and smiled at the rather tactless remark made by an Englishman about storing nuclear waste. I thought it rather funny, actually. Before people cry ‘Ha! An Englishman!’, I live in Glasgow and have done for nearly 36 years – half my lifetime. I have frequently said that wild horses would not move me from Glasgow back to England whence I came. But I do think that we who live in Scotland are often lacking in humour, being too quick to leap to being defensive.
Mark Eden-Bushell
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