LEAH HAS A FRIEND CALLED MARJORIE

Leah’s friend Marjorie is also a great letter writer and I feature today a quick selection of her recent output.

Sir

Last night on Question Time SNP deputy Westminster leader Mhairi Black claimed water had not been privatised ‘because of devolution.” I realise that devolution only happened when she was 4 years old but in actual fact it was a Strathclyde Regional Council Referendum on March 1994 which asked Scots if they wanted water privatised as it was in England. The answer was a resounding no and how wise that looks in retrospect; if only we could similarly introduce referendae on the Swiss model to give our politicians feedback on other controversial policies-gender self ID comes to mind but there are many others.

I have just two concerns: one, can we be assured that the Victorian era sewage pipes and facilities in Scotland have been and continue to be upgraded and properly maintained avoiding Thames Water’s appalling sewage dumps into the water supply, rivers and beaches, and two, why on earth is Sarah Bentley, Thames Waters disgraced CEO, a non executive director of the Bank of Scotland?

MARJORIE ELLIS THOMPSON

AND

Sir:

I have to believe that both Derek Farmer, who thinks that Thatcher’s privatisation programme (continued by ‘New’Labour) was somehow of benefit as we ‘avoid being held to ransom by unions” and Charles Wardrop who advocates nuclear power whilst simultaneously denouncing ‘costs and unreliability’ of renewables, are sincere if seriously misguided in their beliefs.

Privatisation has led to our utilities being run for the profit of foreign shareholders, not the people of these islands. The classic example is Thames Water, making booming profits but still not replacing antique Victorian infrastructure resulting in annual flooding in various parts of London. The flooding in many cases consists of the same excreta regularly pumped into English rivers and beaches. Our quality of life and the state of our services has gone down, not been improved, unless you are part of the top 1%. I would prefer we dealt sensibly and fairly with unions who are after all representing British people and not put our faith in faceless murky offshore funds held by Spain, Denmark, the Netherlands, indeed just about anybody whilst we head further down the league table of living standards.

Mr Wardrop needs to explain why he thinks nuclear energy is somehow cheaper, especially when no company will undertake to build a power station without governmental guarantees-it is just too risky and as always leads to huge cost overruns. He may also wish to consider why only two new nuclear power stations have been built in the United States since the 1979 Three Mile Island meltdown and both were billions over the budget and delayed for years.

Interestingly the company which built Three Mile Island was Babcock & Wilcox, known in the UK as Babcock. This company has the contract to run Faslane, Coulport, Forsyth, Plymouth and Portsmouth and the UK government seconds senior civil servants to work with them, at our expense of course.

Sadly I cannot share either gentlemen’s faith in either privatisation or nuclear power, particularly in combination. I find it utterly terrifying and a cavalier waste of resources as well as the neglect of a government in protecting its people from unaffordable costs as well as safety.

Yours faithfully 

MARJORIE ELLIS THOMPSON

AND

Sir

I sympathise with David Hamill who is thinking of refusing to resign from his bowls team until he gets a knighthood a la Nadine Dorries who is “investigating’ why she didn’t get a peerage.

Can I recommend he stays on the team but just starts calling himself Sir David?

When Gavin Williamson, the hapless former Education and Defence Secretary was knighted awhile back, it was rumoured to be because he had stumbled upon our priapic former PM being pleasured on a couch in the Foreign Office. So my friends and I just gave ourselves titles: for awhile I was Lady M but a year or so later when I found out that that was the name of Michelle Mone’s Covid yacht I simply elevated myself to Countess-I lived in Camberwell at the time and I liked the alliteration.

With the recent news that Mrs Windsor has received the Order of the Thistle I am thinking of updating my own title! I think ‘Regina of Royal Terrace’ sounds rather good but it may be a step too far.

Yours faithfully

MARJORIE ELLIS THOMPSON 

Royal Terrace

Edinburgh

AND

Sir

Christopher Ruane asks how Scotland can benefit from the UK’s ‘significant role in global affairs’. I had to read that sentence twice and would have laughed heartily were it not so sad. It is a view of course, widely shared by those who will not accept that Brexit has been a complete and utter disaster, in the media as well as in the extreme dregs of the Tory party. Who knows what people in Starmer’s Blairites Tribute band believe, as they never met a principle they couldn’t jettison.

As one of the most brutal-certainly not ‘civilising’ as we are constantly told-colonial powers the world has ever seen the UK’s power and influence has steadily been declining. The European Union was undoubtedly one of the last places we were able to exert some influence! Contrast Sunak’s reception in Washington with that of Narendra Modi.

Having asset stripped the colonies in our heyday and continuing to asset strip Scotland (we alread!y took everything we wanted from Wales) there is nowhere left to turn other than England itself. And Rees Mogg by moving his hedgefund HQ to Dublin has pretty much confirmed there’s not much left to take.

The so called UK will be a playground for the very rich and our absurdly Ruritanian monarchy. Eventually I am sure, call centres for thriving businesses in other countries will be based here too.

Being the loyal and obedient servant we already are to US adventurism is a dead end. Scots must have the courage of their convictions and, as Winnie Ewing famously said, take our rightful place at the UN between Saudi Arabia and Senegal. 

Yours faithfully 

MARJORIE ELLIS THOMPSON

MY COMMENTS

Both Marjorie and Leah demonstrate the worth of sending good letters to the various media outlets in Scotland. They are the right length, right to the point and in some cases are written in good humour, always attractive to the reader. The fact that Marjorie and Leah are members of the Scottish National Congress Steering Committee that is currently serving as the Executive Committee of Liberation.Scot should tell you that as a manager I have a very good team of effective players on the field. Marjorie has an interesting CV having worked on Capitol Hill as a congressional staffer, as Vice Chair, then Chair of British CND and as Director of Communications for the Commission of Racial Equality to name just a little of her background.

I am, as always

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