Letters / The choice is simple
With a few notable exceptions, like Geordie Jacobson (Reject nationalism; SN, 06/05/15), it seems the nearer the election draws, the more bizarre and hyperbole-laden contributors’ letters become.
In fact, the choice for voters is simple.
Are you angry enough about anything in politics to vote against the interests of Shetland? I guess that depends on how badly Shetland’s interests might be affected?
The sitting MP Alistair Carmichael is also Secretary of State for Scotland and should a repeat of the Con-LibDem or possibly, a Lab-LibDem coalition transpire, there’s a decent chance he will continue in that position.
Serving as MP and especially, during his short period as Scottish secretary he has brought great benefits to, especially, the Our Islands Our Future (OIOF) island groups, notably, Shetland, arranging top level access for their negotiators at Westminster and bringing many benefits, including, crucially, official Westminster recognition that remote islands face much higher costs of living and providing services, as well as much more extreme levels of fuel poverty.
These benefits plus other, lesser, concessions made to OIOF by Holyrood, have materialised only because Mr Carmichael and the OIOF negotiators have been able to play Westminster off against Holyrood, ahead of the independence referendum and its aftermath of the continuing drive by the SNP to break up the UK.
Had the SNP enjoyed power at Westminster during the negotiations, they would have used it to fatally weaken the OIOF negotiators’ hand and their achievements would thus have been fewer and less valuable.
The importance to OIOF of having two interested, competing, parties, especially, with the sitting MP as a cabinet minister in one of them, cannot be overstated. It is imperative that that arrangement be maintained. Hold that thought.
It seems the only realistic alternative to Mr Carmichael is the SNP’s Danus Skene.
The problem with Mr Skene is not personal; it’s with his party. The SNP’s governmental track record in Shetland has been atrocious.
I have written many times about the SNP Scottish government’s damaging actions in Shetland and interested readers will readily find my detailed reasoning in the ‘Letters’ archives of the Shetland News so I’ll limit myself here to summarising a few:
1. In 2008, the SNP Scottish Government set up an arrangement with COSLA (Scottish local authorities organisation) for distributing government funding “fairly” among local authorities. As a result Shetland’s education system is being funded on a ‘per pupil’, as opposed to, a ‘needs’ basis, leading to under-funding by £19.3Mpa (40 percent of spend). This is a staggering figure which has since been reduced to £10Mpa by swingeing SIC cuts, leaving the council no alternative but to use oil reserves to make up the deficit, cut services or close rural schools.
Had the recognition afforded to OIOF by Westminster (higher costs of providing services in remote places) been in place in Scotland, this under-funding could never have occurred. That is how valuable that recognition is.
2. Immediately following election as a majority government in 2012, the SNP stopped the SIC’s £2.3 Mpa housing support grant, intended by Westminster to cover interest on the SIC’s £40 million housing loan, taken out at government request, to assist the 1970s oil boom. This loss again, forced the SIC to spend oil reserves, make service cuts or raise rents. And the money is still being paid by Westminster, to Holyrood.
3. Shetland and Orkney are the only islands excluded from ‘Road Equivalent Tariff’ (RET) scheme for ferry travel. The SNP Scottish Government claim the islands would be worse off with it while critics argue the SNP has manipulated the calculation formula to make this appear so. In fact, only main routes like Lerwick-Aberdeen would lose and the discrimination has been ongoing for several years.
RET, in reality, seems very high, corresponding to several times the actual cost of driving 370 miles, the equivalent of a direct return trip to Aberdeen.
However, this vexed saga has been overtaken by the explosion of another scandal; namely, the alleged returning unopened of a cheaper bid from NorthLink than that entered by Serco, who won the Scottish government’s £243 million Northern Isles ferry contract.
4. The SNP’s energy policies of obtaining 100 percent of electricity from renewables (twice to three times the price of conventional energy) and banning the use of modern oil and gas drilling techniques have contributed to the soaring cost of energy.
Higher energy prices lead directly to an increase in fuel poverty and via the desperate daily dilemma ‘heat or eat’, to increased demand for and use of, food banks.
As stated, Westminster has formally recognised that OIOF islanders, including Shetlanders, face significantly higher costs of living and endure more extreme fuel poverty than those in more accessible locations, such as the central belt of Scotland.
Similar recognition by the SNP Scottish Government should lead, automatically, to increased pay for islanders, possibly, by the introduction of an ‘Island Allowance’, yet they have not responded to Westminster’s action. Why should they, were they to win power at Westminster, they would be able to block further progress?
Gaining such power would enable the SNP to force lower offers from both Westminster and Holyrood, effectively, ‘sandbagging’ the OIOF negotiators at the most opportune moment for improvement in the entire history of the islands.
It follows that the most favourable outcome for Shetland (and OIOF) would be the election of a coalition involving the Liberal Democrats with, either, Labour or the Conservatives, and including Alistair Carmichael as Scottish secretary.
The best way for islanders to secure that is by voting Liberal Democrat, for Alistair Carmichael.
John Tulloch
Lyndon
Arrochar
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