Odds and Ends Friday 10th May 2024

Are we seeing the start of sanity at last – According to this article companies are starting to question the influence of organisations like Stonewall, and the impact they have had on their organisations, about bloody time.

Chief executives are beginning to realise that they didn’t quite think things through when first setting up their diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) initiatives, according to a co-founder of one of the UK’s most active LGBT charities, Stonewall.

Now I don’t care if someone is black or white, transgender, homosexual, or heterosexual. I don’t care if someone is a Muslim, a Jew, a Christian, atheist, or agnostic. I don’t care all that much in what they believe, if they like me, hate me, ignore me, value me. I do have an issue with getting my head around people who vote Tory, and Rangers 2012 strange obsession with Dundee FC, but in the main I am not all that bothered with what people do. As long as they are not harming others, or themselves, their communities, then let them get on with it.

What I so struggle with is the political correct rubbish that has crept into our lives under the guise of so-called inclusion, of certain people’s interpretation of what equality is. I don’t do the he/him, she/her, me/it pronoun thing on my emails. I know who I am, flaws, warts, ignorance and all, so the end of this nonsense is long before time in my opinion.

Fran Itkoff, a 90-year-old woman from California who had volunteered for a multiple sclerosis charity for over 60 years, was told earlier this year that her services were no longer required after she told a colleague she didn’t understand why she needed to add the pronouns “she/her” to her email signature.

Most people are not overly prejudiced, we all have values and opinion that there are many who would argue are prejudiced, but in the main most people just don’t care, they have enough going on in their lives just getting through the day. If we are now seeing the end of this nonsense, then I am all for it. Most people understand that it is not easy for transgender people, it is not easy for homosexual people, for Muslims, for Christiane, for Jews, for ethnic minorities, but we will not create the kind of inclusive society we desire by enforcing the opinion of organisation like Stonewall on to people, by removing the word mother, and woman, from our dictionary, that is more prejudiced than the bloody concerns that many have already.

Surely we can just strive to be decent human beings.

While this is just rehashing division – on the part of the unionists there is a part of me that is equally determined to ensure that the truth of the Sturgeon years are not forgotten, in the political sense, they should never be forgiven.

The SNP’s “incompetence” in government has “hindered” the cause of Scottish independence, Alex Salmond has claimed.

While the article highlights Alex Salmond belief that the Court Case in the English Supreme Court has set back the independence cause, I would argue, will always argue, that the whole Sturgeon years were as equal a disaster on the colony than the Thatcher years, in many ways worse. Thatcher was just wrong in virtually every belief she had, she destroyed communities, destroyed people, Sturgeon destroyed faith, destroyed hope, that for myself is even worse.

“Obviously it has hindered independence when the SNP became an incompetent government in more recent years.” Mr Salmond, who left the SNP in the run-up to the 2021 Holyrood elections launched the rival pro-independence Alba Party, said there was a “litany of demonstrations of incompetence” by his successors in government.

In many ways Alex Salmond is yesterday’s man, not his fault, Sturgeon, her dangle berries, and the unionists did a job on him to neutralise his threat to their precious union, but he is not wrong is he.

A test for Swinney – can he demonstrate, with actions, that he is a reformed character now he is again First Minister of our colony? I would not bet on it personally, but this is one potential new law that does need to be highlighted.

 “It is a matter of justifiable concern to the Four Bars that the removal of juries, made up of a cross-section of the public, for rape and other serious sexual offence trials continues to be pursued in Scotland. “The evidence base demonstrating the possible benefits of such a change is narrow and there are foreseeable negative consequences., including the undermining of faith in, and respect for, the role of the jury throughout our criminal justice systems.

This attack on our democratic principles, on fairness, on duty, is yet another Sturgeon legacy that has got to be ditched. I have zero faith in the law or the courts in our colony, likewise little faith in our state police, as it is without losing any smidgeon of hope I can ever have in our systems, my rights, and my place in the colony. Honestly, Sturgeon has been worse than Thatcher in so many ways.