Latest news with #KellyGiven
The National
18 hours ago
- Business
- The National
Scottish Government must do more to bin our throwaway society
Gillian Martin, the minister with responsibility for the circular economy said: 'There are huge opportunities in having an economy which makes reuse and recycling the default choice.' From mobile phones to fast fashion and plastic bottles, people are trapped in a system which is expensive and wasteful. The new law is meant to change the way we use materials for good, but a whole year has passed and the only significant policy change has been a backwards step to indefinitely postpone plans for a 25p charge on disposable cups. READ MORE: SNP MPs join Labour rebellion in bid to kill off benefit cuts We don't have time to fix the economy one product at a time, but this move would have shown an important shift that the Scottish Government has failed to achieve. Disposable cups are an obvious symbol of our throwaway society. In Scotland, more than 380 million disposable cups are used every year. Many of them are made of a mix of materials like cardboard and plastic which means, contrary to what many people believe, they cannot be recycled. They are either sent to landfill or burned. Studies have shown disposable cups are leaching hidden ingredients into our drinks – microplastics and toxic chemicals. One recent study suggests that more than 700 pieces of microplastic are ingested with every drink from a disposable cup. Microplastics have been linked to an array of diseases, from cancer to neurological, hormonal and immune diseases. Despite the evidence of how harmful these products are, in 2019, when the Scottish Government first considered this issue, a 25p charge was favoured over a ban. Public consultations were conducted. Most of the public who responded supported a charge (66%), but more than half the businesses which responded favoured no charge at all. The policy was quietly shelved last month by the Scottish Government without announcement. By giving in to corporate pressure like this, the Scottish Government has failed in its duty to protect the people of Scotland – knowingly allowing businesses to continue to use products that are harming people and the environment when better options exist, simply so they can boost their profits. And disposable cups are just one example of a product like this. Looking at wider circular economy issues, things don't get much better – Scotland's recycling levels are the worst in the UK despite a £70m programme to improve them and new incinerators continue to be built despite a government ban on such technology. READ MORE: Kelly Given: If Zohran Mamdani can do it, left must believe it can make it anywhere To truly fight back against the throwaway society, the Scottish Government must use the circular economy law to stand up to corporate greed and tackle the root causes of the issue. There needs to be a step change in investment for reuse and repair so that everyone in Scotland has access to these services, which have benefits for communities as well as reducing carbon emissions. Companies should be required to pay for the cleanup of the products they sell, from clothing to toys, rather than the costs coming from the public purse. Burning rubbish in incinerators has got to stop – when you burn a resource, you can't reuse or recycle it ever again. So, it's vital that the Scottish Government acts now to close the vast loopholes in its incinerator ban too. With changes like these, Scotland can move away from the throwaway society, towards a future that will protect people and the planet. Kim Pratt is Friends of the Earth Scotland's senior circular economy campaigner
The National
18-05-2025
- Health
- The National
Referendum should be used to ask the people's views on assisted dying
I know there will be an immediate response from those who would choose to end their life because of suffering, but what percentage of the population is that? We should be pouring resources into making life as pain-free and comfortable as possible, not training people to administer death. READ MORE: Andrew Tickell: Assisted dying debate deserves better than bad-faith politics It will change perceptions of what is acceptable. It will divert funding from keeping people pain-free, allowing them to die with dignity without feeling they are a burden. Why spend money training people to kill? It has now occurred to me that this is such a massive question with such ramifications that it should have been the subject of a referendum in the way the public were asked to vote on Brexit. I believe the people should have a voice on this matter, not a few with vested interests, and cannot understand why this was not offered. In hindsight it appears to have been dumped on an unsuspecting public. It may be that within the charmed walls of political circles there has been discussion, but it certainly has not been a regular topic of discussion in community halls, hubs, cafes, leisure centres, clubs, anywhere in fact where people gather. Did your representative hold meetings about this proposal? Sadly that will probably begin to happen now – possibly too late. READ MORE: Kelly Given: This isn't mere policy dispute – it's life and death I would love an amendment asking for a referendum. Why should a group of politicians set us down this path without the consent of the people? They are allowed a vote of conscience. Big deal – making life-and-death decisions about other human beings without asking those very human beings. I hope with all my heart this falls, and while I feel for the small group of sufferers relative to the whole population who feel this is their only way out, we cannot set this into law for the majority, among whose ranks are the disabled, the elderly, the addicted, the suicidal, the depressed, the poor, the misdiagnosed, the homeless, the desperate, the solitary. Are we expendable because we are deemed a drain on resources clothed in kindness and mercy-speak? Do you feel duped? We see you. The people should have their say, not politicians, as unfortunately no-one trusts politicians these days. Isobel Delussey Address supplied ASSISTED dying is concerned with those facing a period of painful terminal illness, leading to death, so may wish to skip that journey and go directly to the main event. However, many people in that position will be wise enough to have made their own arrangements to leave, and do not require assistance. There are also disabled people who have found their painless but limited-activity lives to be unenjoyable, so will simply kill themselves, and some do that every year. So across the spectrum, many will have already dealt with their own situations, so no assistance needed. In Scotland at present, helping someone to die is known as murder – and should remain so, as legalising it will open a route to be used by those wishing to be rid of someone for their own selfish benefit. Malcolm Parkin Kinross
The National
24-04-2025
- Politics
- The National
Sickening autism crusade in the US is undeniable fascism. Here's why
The first community to feel the genocidal wrath of the Nazi regime was the disabled community. Deemed 'unworthy of life' and inadequate contributors to the 'master aryan race' disabled people were targeted by the 'T-4' or 'euthanasia' programme that systematically exterminated more than 250,000 disabled people simply for existing. The programme depended on the co-operation of doctors and healthcare professionals and began with an identification process whereby people with disabilities were made known to authorities, and eventually were murdered. Nurses and doctors were paid financial rewards for identifying disabled patients, deciding which of them should live or die and even overseeing their deaths. READ MORE: Israeli police officers aimed guns at two British MPs in West Bank It would be the September of 1939 that healthcare professionals would first receive the direction to neglect disabled people in their care, resulting in starvation and premature death, before it escalated to mass extermination camps across Germany and Austria. The T-4 programme acted as the catalyst for the horrors that followed and the methods developed throughout the stages of the programme provided the Nazis with their murderous blueprint. It didn't happen all at once. Following the loss of the First World War, 1920s Germany was characterised by intense social, political and economic unrest. Enter the National Socialist German Workers Party. A racist movement that in its infancy was unpopular, but that slowly fed on instability building as a result of national unrest and discomfort amongst the German population. If alarm bells are not ringing for you yet with regard to present-day politics – they should be. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler's methods are being echoed today, Kelly Given writes (Image: free) The Nazi party promised to save Germans from the economic ruin of the Great Depression and the international isolation that had followed the 1919 Treaty of Versailles. They falsely laid blame at the door of Jewish people and Communists, and Germans who had felt unfairly treated by the international community and who were feeling the wrath of economic decline seemingly welcomed someone to blame. By January 1933, Nazi leader Adolf Hitler was appointed the chancellor of Germany. He would use this position to wield existing German law to accrue himself more power, before the death of the sitting German president Paul von Hindenburg that ushered in the dictatorship of the 'Fuhrer'. A well-timed rise to power on the back of racist and authoritarian ideology. So, in short, amidst social, economic and political crises, a far-right movement emerged with a minority scapegoat to boot and promised to save a desperate population from spiralling decline? It should definitely sound familiar now. It would be October 1939 before Hitler officially approved the euthanasia programme, ordering the systematic killing of disabled people, some six years after he was appointed chancellor and over a decade after the Nazi party had first emerged. He didn't assume office and immediately start implementing genocidal policies – he wasn't actually even elected. READ MORE: John Swinney warns summit 'just the start' in combating rise of far-right He little by little fostered a culture that turned people against each other, exploited instability and othered marginalised communities to such an extent that he would eventually justify their extermination. Through the use of degrading language and othering tactics – much like we see now being employed towards the trans community – asylum seekers and refugees, he dehumanised marginalised groups, a process that started long before the murders started. A process that depended on the instability of a society plagued with problems, the making of poor political choices, and which exploited the desperation of average citizens. What started as a loudly racist minority, over time became a trusted and celebrated movement, that over time became the genocidal, mass-murderous regime that came to define them after the fact. The thing is, each step in the process was vital to the end result – and its future prevention is only possible if its infant stages are identified and forcefully rejected. Almost a century down the line and following a global pandemic, a cost of living crisis, war in Europe, and pivotally, a livestreamed genocide in Palestine that has normalised the mass-murder of an entire people, we are arriving at a similar station. US president Donald TrumpThe far right is once again rising from the ashes of global instability and diminishing communities. Personified by the likes of Donald Trump and Nigel Farage, it is gaining ground in the very same way. This week, following a slew of ugly remarks about the autistic community and RFK Jr's burning desire to understand and eradicate autism, the Trump administration announced a new 'disease registry' that will track autistic Americans and will give the American government access to their medical records. Remember when I said that T-4 started with a process of identification? This isn't just a mild similarity, it is a carbon copy of Nazi ideology. It is the same beast, in the very same outfit and our failure to identify these precursors for what they are will be our downfall. One of the questions so often prompted in discussions around the Holocaust is 'but how could it have happened?' Or 'where were all the good people?' READ MORE: SNP MP among Scots newly sanctioned by Russia for 'hysterical statements' It happened little by little, through an intentional process of dehumanisation. Good people were complacent, radicalised by their own desperation and brainwashed by propaganda that exploited their circumstances at the expense of marginalised communities. If we are actually to stop this kind of rancid ideology in its tracks, we need to stop looking at the Nazi regime and others like it as something exceptionally evil or out of the ordinary. It was a far-right, racist, eugenicist ideology then, and it is a far-right racist, eugenicist ideology now. It is not enough to identify it after the fact, we have to identify the precursors and fight against them with all of our might – and the time for it is now. Pretending this modern breed of fascism is different or leaning too much on the complacency of 'it can never happen again' is how we will willingly open the door and roll out the red carpet for the unforgivable mistakes of our past.
