{"id":1235,"date":"2023-11-07T16:26:43","date_gmt":"2023-11-07T16:26:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/?p=1235"},"modified":"2023-11-07T16:26:43","modified_gmt":"2023-11-07T16:26:43","slug":"were-still-here-even-as-the-world-appears-to-be-crumbling-around-us-all","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/?p=1235","title":{"rendered":"We’re still here … even as the world appears to be crumbling around us all"},"content":{"rendered":"

IT has been a long time, but it\u2019s late and I can\u2019t sleep. However, I find myself wondering just where to start.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Every time you look at the news it gets worse \u2014 the horrors of Gaza with thousands of Palestinians, including children and the elderly, slaughtered as the obdurate Netanyahu pounds the region with firepower, paying only lip service to the fate of Israeli hostages as he tries to rid the world of Hamas.<\/p>\n

The war shows little sign of ending any time soon and, if that weren\u2019t bad enough, we have witnessed world leaders sitting on their hands instead of supporting calls for a ceasefire.<\/p>\n

Rishi Sunak, for instance, standing on his tiptoes amongst world leaders looking like a startled schoolboy, when the best he can do is sack Tories who have the impertinence to demand a truce.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m no great fan of the SNP, but I did feel for our FM Humza Yousaf, with his in-laws stuck in what is an occupied territory. Thankfully they returned home safe.<\/p>\n

Yousaf handled his family crisis with dignity while his party was crashing and burning around him as the chickens came home to roost.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve watched hours of news programmes about the Gaza crisis but the BBC seem to be quite in Jerusalem judging by the output of their correspondents. Compare their output with that of ITV News or Al Jazeera.<\/p>\n

Israel\u2019s PR machine is well oiled, slick and you can usually work out where the Israeli Defence Force media folk have been leading the journos, who are fed a constant diet of interviewees and pic opportunities with Israeli victims of Hamas. I\u2019m not denying that there are casualties of the war on both sides, but the IDF media operation knows that news organisations don\u2019t want to see their people hurt and takes every opportunity to make their lives easier.<\/p>\n

However, we are so consumed with the war in Gaza that we are in danger of forgetting about the continuing horrors of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Have we become so inured to such examples of inhuman atrocities that we consider them a fact of our daily lives?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know \u2014 I\u2019m merely posing the question because that\u2019s what it looks like.<\/p>\n

Returning to domestic politics, I\u2019m delighted to see the SNP given some comeuppance after years of failing to properly address \"\"the question of Scottish independence.<\/p>\n

Ash Regan was always a favourite to jump ship to Alba after her failed bid for the SNP leadership, and it doesn\u2019t matter that she\u2019s \u00a0their sole MSP \u2014 and therefore group leader \u2014 she will have the right to question the First Minister at FMQs. That will soon become required watching.<\/p>\n

Still on the defection front and SNP MP Lisa Cameron has jumped to the Tories for some strange reason, followed by Chris Cullen, a councillor who\u2019s joined Alba \u2014 all despite SNP attempts (particularly from MP Pete Wishart) to rubbish the new party and its main figures.<\/p>\n

Keep shouting into the void Pete!<\/p>\n

Pip pip.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

IT has been a long time, but it\u2019s late and I can\u2019t sleep. However, I find myself wondering just where to start. Every time you look at the news it gets worse \u2014 the horrors of Gaza with thousands of Palestinians, including children and the elderly, slaughtered as the obdurate Netanyahu pounds the region with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1083,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1235","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/gregrussell.scot\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/ash_regan-dot-scot-headshot_600x800.webp?fit=600%2C800&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1235","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1235"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1235\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1235"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1235"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregrussell.scot\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1235"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}