DREW HENDRY: We need to get Scotland away from the horror show
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Halloween is a time when scary things are supposed to happen. Ghosts, zombies, and ghouls are the order of the day.
Westminster, however, hasn’t waited and has been playing out its own real-life horror stories within the crumbling walls of the palace.
Like some ghastly rickety fanfare, we’ve seen frightening and dangerous things unfold for years, picking up speed in the past weeks and months as breathless newscasters break the news of more dark intrigue and betrayal.
Make no mistake, this may look like a rollercoaster ride, but it is a dirty old carousel with the same old dangerously unfit horses going round and round in ever-decreasing circles.
Of course, seeing the first Asian Hindu take office is truly welcome, but this isn’t a new broom with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. The Tories have been in office for over 12 years.
He’s the ‘Party gate Chancellor” who broke his own laws. He isn’t going to make things better; he’s continuing their long-running austerity programme, degrading public services and growing food bank dependency.
As a Brexiteer, he happily wedded us all to the deeply toxic Brexit ideology harming our businesses, starving them of vital staff and turbo-charging inflation – especially basic food items, now running at up to 60 per cent more.
Westminster’s hall of mirrors also shows Labour wedded to “make Brexit work”.
It’s a nonsensical stance that, hand in hand with their stated belief that the Tories are not deporting enough people quickly enough is a chilling reflection.
And just when you thought that one of the most frightening apparitions had been removed, it is back where it was. Suella Braverman, the Home Secretary, whose dream is not of a brighter future for families, or a reduced skills shortage or even an end to people trafficking. No, it is her stated “dream and obsession” to see a flight take asylum seekers to Rwanda.
Sacked only six days earlier, having broken the ministerial code, she is back in the job tasked with upholding law and order and potentially breached national security. She is back alongside colleagues at the helm of the ghostly pirate ship that is the Tory government.
It’s a horror show we should be done with. The UK is substantially poorer than independent countries comparable to Scotland, with wider inequality, higher child and pensioner poverty and lower productivity. It is time for Scotland to choose a better path.
Drew Hendry is SNP MP for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey.
