by Rab Bruce’s Spider

So what can we expect from COP26 apart from another spike in Covid cases? Well, I may be overly cynical, but I don’t think we’ll get much more than fine words and some promises to take action which will be completed at some point in the future when all the politicians giving the commitments will be long retired from politics and probably working for hedge funds.

I’m afraid that letting the UK Government host a conference on environmental issues is as contradictory as appointing Tony Blair as Middle East Peace Envoy. The Tories love making grandiose statements about their world-beating ideas, but their actions always contradict their public announcements. Take, just as the latest example, the permission given to have sewage pumped into English rivers at the time they are championing the environment.

No, I’m afraid Nicola Sturgeon’s strong words will be ignored. All COP26 is going to provide is a lot of hot air, plus a publicity platform for Tory propaganda. Union flags will abound, rousing speeches will be made, and then they will congratulate themselves for a terrific conference before going back to doing the bare minimum required to make it look as if they actually care.

Everyone ought to know by now that all the Tories care about is their own personal financial wellbeing. Whatever environmental calamities afflict us, they’ll be all right, Jack. (That’s Union Jack in case you were wondering). Everyone else can just suffer. Floods, droughts, storms, petrol shortages, food shortages, medicine shortages, energy price rises, all affect the less well off the worst. It is only when things begin to affect Tory politicians themselves that they will take genuine action, just as happened during the 1858 Great Stink which resulted in a proper sewer and waste management system being instituted in London. Until the stench of the polluted Thames affected the House of Commons, they did nothing about it. I’m afraid very little has changed since then in the way they think and behave.

Their attitude is amply demonstrated by their refusal to allow the Scottish Government to participate even though the conference is being held in Glasgow. I’m afraid these people are stuck with a Victorian colonial way of thinking, and nothing is ever going to change that. Surely more Scots will wake up to the urgent necessity for us to become a normal, self-governing country rather than allow Westminster politicians to drag us into the shit. That’s literally what is happening in England, and Scottish Water is not safe thanks to the Power grab which they still claim doesn’t exist. The Internal Markets Bill gives them the power to do pretty much what they like in Scotland without us being able to do anything to prevent it. Just how far are we going to let them go?