 | 'History will look back on women like Winnie Ewing - who has just retired from politics aged 76 - and view them as people who brought passion, humanity and ideas into the grey world of Westminster and Europe.And given the line-up of candidates for the two by-elections in Scotland last week it's clear we could do with a few more like her..' Elaine C. Smith in the Sunday Mail, 2 nd October 2005. |  |
HISTORY will look back on women like Winnie Ewing - who has just retired from politics aged 76 - and view them as people who brought passion, humanity and ideas into the grey world of Westminster and Europe.
And given the line-up of candidates for the two by-elections in Scotland last week it's clear we could do with a few more like her. Voters were interviewed in Glasgow recently and half of them didn't even know the name of their MSP - despite Mike Watson being on the front page of every newspaper for trying to torch a hotel.
I'm a great supporter of our Parliament and campaigned for it.
But I was always afraid that if Labour ran it then it would do a lot of talking about Scotland but little to really help the people.
Our voting system is weighted to make sure the Nationalists will never win an outright majority, so independence, or even talk of it, is out the window.
The fear was always that the parly would become a giant "toon council" and I'm sorry to say that, at times, it appears to be just that.
The problem is that it is a halfway house and the people who govern don't believe in the Scottish people.
They believe that you and I are not good enough to rule ourselves and they have been helped by a media that constantly tells us that we are not good enough to decide on anything, from going to war or what we watch on TV.v
They have done everything to keep us in our place. Constantly telling us that Scotland is basically rubbish and that it's better to be ruled by numpties in Westminster than our own home-grown numpties.
This parcel of rogues in charge are much worse than all the nonsense about the English oppressing us - we do it to ourselves. The wounds to this nation are self-inflicted.
First Minister Jack McConnell may worry about the insecurity and lack of ambition and enterprise of Scots but he is part of a system that rubbishes us.
And before I get letters from unionists, I'd like to state that I am not and never have been a member of the SNP. But I do support the idea of independence and don't see why I should apologise for it.
I have supported self-determination for other small countries, so I don't see why I can't in my own.
I don't see why Scots can't vote for Scotland. If we did then maybe we would see the same outcome Norway had during its government elections earlier this month.
Their winning party has pledged to spend more of the £38billion they made from North Sea oil revenue on welfare. They have also slammed the last government's tax cuts for the rich.
I wish we Scots had that - but we won't if we keep electing those who don't think we're good enough to rule.
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