ISRAELI military action laying waste to north Gaza is testing the moral limits of ‘self-defence’ and causing catastrophic harm to civilians already suffering the devastating consequences of the Hamas terrorist attack.

The overwhelming majority of Palestinians played no part in that atrocity. The UK Government insists that Israeli forces must “adhere to international humanitarian law” but starving the population, blocking aid trucks and bombing refugee camps are moral outrages.

Fear of escalating tension in the Middle East should not prevent the UK calling out barbaric acts perpetrated against innocent civilians.

Different understandings of moral obligation also put the Prime Minister at odds with the leaders of the Commonwealth’s 2.7 billion people. Keir Starmer declined both to apologise for slavery’s abhorrent enforcement and address reparations because this would entail “very long endless discussions about reparations on the past”.

He was rightly overruled by Commonwealth heads of government, who recognise the UK doesn’t decide Commonwealth policy and insisted those conversations must now start.

In 2021, Holyrood debated the relationship between slavery and land ownership in Scotland. Scottish institutions and organisations have apologised and/or taken steps to address slavery and the colonial past, including Edinburgh and Glasgow city councils; the universities of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen; National Museums of Scotland; National Trust for Scotland; Church of Scotland; and Scottish Episcopalian and Wee Free churches (Pope John Paul II apologised in 1985 for the role of white Christians in the slave trade).

The UK Government’s staggering arrogance and cultural insensitivity regarding slavery’s pernicious legacy must not be in Scotland’s name.

Starmer is also out of touch with “working people”, a manifesto catchphrase he has been slow to define, along with a misleading National Insurance promise. YouGov polling on debt found 41 per cent of those interviewed in Scotland were finding it difficult to meet bills or credit agreements and 23 per cent – nearly a quarter – would be unable to pay an unexpected bill of between £250 and £1,000.

The Scottish Government warned consistently about Labour’s continued austerity. Cutting pensioners’ winter fuel allowance was the first step. Drugs deaths in England and Wales, hitting their highest level for 30 years, are linked directly to austerity by research at the London School of Economics, and campaigns south of the Border have called for more services such as Glasgow’s proposed Safer Drugs Consumption Facility, scheduled to open imminently.

Gandhi believed “a nation’s greatness is judged by how it treats its weakest members”. No society should neglect its most vulnerable citizens, nor fail to acknowledge responsibility for historic errors.