Please vote for a better Scottish government

The SNP, who have been the main party of government in Scotland for 14 years simply do NOT deserve to be voted back in. Please take a moment to educate about all the problems they have done nothing to address because they are so obsessed with engineering a referendum result that means they can achieve their dream of ripping the UK apart.

Can you see anything they have actually improved? Yes, we have baby boxes and free school meals, which are lovely, but are these demonstrable improvements, or are they just “feel good” policies designed to attract more votes.

Let’s look at the evidence. Scotland is the worst place in Europe for drug and alcohol deaths.

Scottish Health Survey 2018: main report – revised 2020

Nicola Sturgeon recently apologised again for “taking her eye off the ball” on this one but there is so much more she should be saying sorry for.

You see, Scotland is also the one of the flabbiest places in the world. As noted back in 2017, our obesity rates are amongst the highest in the world – even higher than England and higher than most countries in Western Europe. Two out of three adults in Scotland are overweight – that’s 65 per cent so people of a healthy weight are in the minority. Our rates of childhood obesity are also significantly higher than the rest of the UK. We’ve got about one third of children, aged two to 15, who are overweight or obese, and 17 per cent of them are obese.

The facts are shocking but why are the SNP not using the powers they already have to address this problem?

So, in 14 years, public health has been a complete disaster.

Scotlands prison population is amongst the highest in Europe particularly amongst women. Despite clear pledges to reverse that trend it has never happened.

They were originally elected on a pledge to abolish council tax but that has never happened. In fact, she has reneged on at least three manifesto promises to sort-out the injustices of the current system, which is based on out-dated property values. Councils have now been cut to the bone and this has resulted in ridiculous amounts of fly-tipping in places like Glasgow. In fact, local authorities have faced real-terms cuts to their non-ringfenced budgets of approaching £1 billion over an eight-year period – they have been “neglected and mistreated” by a central government that only cares about PR.

Then, there is education. Just look at Scotland’s Pisa performance in the core subjects of Reading, Maths and Science…

Of particular concerns is that Scotland has fallen behind England in terms of these internationally-administered tests. Listen to Professor Paterson of Edinburgh University: “Scotland’s results are even worse than three years ago, when the outcome was widely seen as dismaying. Attainment in mathematics and science has continued to decline. The upturn in reading attainment has only brought the country back to where it was a decade ago.”

Education has been a disaster.

Meanwhile, Healthcare has seen millions wasted in scrapping an eye hospital destined for Edinburgh and a children’s hospital meant to open in 2012 still is not open. One eye surgeon described the the scrapping of the new hospital and dispersing of services as ‘a step back into the dark ages’. Whilst money was found south of border for Sunderland to receive a new centre of excellence, the Scottish Government has wasted at least one million pounds on drawing-up plans for a new hospital they now decide is too costly to build!

Yet that is small fry compared to the millions frittered away by the SNP. The list includes:

• Calmac ferries: Ferguson Marine was supposed to deliver two ferries to be used on CalMac’s west coast routes by 2018 at a cost of £97m but the vessels are not now expected to be completed till 2022 and 2023 respectively, with the cost having almost doubled and the procurement process described as a “catastrophic failure”
• Social Security Scotland: cost of running this system, devolved from Westminster, has more than doubled to £652 million (well above the £200m contributed by the UK Government for implementing the system, which will not be fully operational until (at best) 2024
• Bifab: the Scottish Government was forced to write down £140 million in loans and guarantees. Surely, there are better ways to support jobs that actually have a future?
• Exposed the tax payer to a £575M cost to save about 100 jobs at Gupta’s smelter at Fort William

Then, there is ooverty from the SNPs own figures.

I could go on and list more failure but I simply plead with the people of Scotland to reject a party that is so fixated on creating a border between Scotland and England, they have forgotten how to govern. We must elect a Scottish Parliament to serve the people of Scotland, to make this country a better place, not divide us into “Yes” and “No” camps when so many just need help today.

A Tale of Two Religions

I was struck recently by a contrasting pair of responses by two different religions to being insulted. On the one hand, I read of Christian Concern‘s quiet intervention in a school where Stonewall’s Fit video was being shown to secondary pupils. This carefully crafted propaganda piece from the LGBT lobby makes the incendiary and completely false claim that David and Jonnathan, as well as Ruth and Naomi, were in gay relationship.

How did Christians respond? They drafted a letter to the school outlining that these views contradicted both the schools public sector equality duty and its statutory obligations to respect the right of parents to raise their children according to their own religious convictions. The letter also shared how disrespectful the views were and that Stonewall itself has no place in schools given how politically partisan they are.

What as the result? The school relented and admitted they did not even know what was in the video. After learning the content, they undertook never to use the video again. Christian Concern will not publicise the details of what school and where because they do not want to embarrass an institution that ultimately did what was right.

On the other hand, a school teacher at Batley Grammar in West Yorkshire has been suspended and is understood to have moved into hiding with police protection after it emerged that he had shown a cartoon of Muhammad in a school lesson.

The teacher is said to have shown students a cartoon during a religious studies class on Monday about blasphemy and there is speculation the cartoon was one of those published by French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in 2012, which was used to justify the subsequent brutal murder of 12 people in the magazine’s office. In fact, just last year, French schoolteacher Samuel Paty was beheaded close to his school after being targeted for showing cartoons of Muhammad to students in a lesson about free speech.

Despite apologising, Batley Grammar was forced to shut for two days in a row because of protesters, largely young men in their 20’s who cannot either be parents or pupils. A pupil who set up a petition in support of the teacher noted that some of the protestors were “shouting aggressively, blocking entrances and many were found carrying knives.” He states that the teacher is not racist and did not support the cartoons.

Meanwhile, local charity, Purpose of Life, which has worked with the school, publicised a letter to the school complaining about the incident, which named the teacher thus making him a target. The letter states:

“It seems there are people out there that want to abuse the use of freedom of speech by insulting our beloved Prophet (PBUH). To me this is clearly showing what hatred people have for the beautiful religion of Islam and is clearly sadistic behaviour. This to me is terrorism to Islam & Muslims around the world.”

The letter goes on to demand that the teacher issues an apology and is permanently removed from the school, and states that “the fallout from this [sic] be far reaching.” What a shocking and appalling communication from a charity! It is unbelievably irresponsible to name the teacher given that protests had already started, and given that Samuel Paty was brutally murdered in similar circumstances last year.

How absurd to claim that showing a cartoon is ‘sadistic’. It is also clearly intended to stir up animosity to call it “terrorism to Islam and Muslims around the world.” Does it need to be stated that showing a cartoon is not terrorism? Displaying a cartoon for discussion in a school lesson is not even comparable with violent murderous terrorism.

The fact that the teacher requires police protection belies the nature of this ‘religion of peace’. Why would someone need protection from followers of a religion of peace? Perhaps because its teachings are not so peaceful after all, as you can read here.

So, there is the appalling contrast. There is one answer to the question, “don’t all religions believe in the same god?” Only Jesus Christ was given and actually deserves the title “Prince of Peace”. His church was not built on conquest by the sword, but His sacrifice on the cross and triumphant return from the grave.