Letters / As I see it
Reading the latest ShetNews comments on Alistair Carmichael’s episode of playing fast and loose with the truth during the General Election has prompted me to think further about what’s really at issue here.
I feel that most thinking people may now have gone beyond the point of simply putting up apathetically with the British assemblage of grasping, two-faced, shoddy, lying jacks-in-office (of all political colours), to the point where they feel that something radical needs to be done about the entire Establishment. (My feeling is that Hercules’ method of cleaning-out the Augean Stables might be a good starting-point – see http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/Herakles/stables.html for details.
The next question would be: how would our new Hercules extract payment for this service? Because there’s no reason on Earth why he should do the work for free.)
In spite of new Labour’s traitorous best efforts between 1997 and 2010, Britain (and by that I mean ‘all of Britain’) is still one of the safest, most stable, most equitable, most pleasing, most logically-run, most affable and above all most secure nations on Earth – if not THE most.
That state of affairs didn’t come about by accident; but as a result of tens of generations of men and women of the utmost probity and clarity of view making sure that Britain as a whole did the right things at crucial times in its history.
In my view, anyone in the government – or the Civil Service – whose efforts don’t contribute positively at all times towards maintaining (or improving) all of those attributes of what used to be called ‘Great Britain’ needs to be displaced, in favour of people who are prepared to give best value for the money they’re paid out of a sheer sense of patriotic duty. That would mean – none of the present incumbents.
Anyone who’s lived both in Britain and on Shetland will know that there’s still a gap of about 60 years between the two, in terms of social ambience and how far Britain has slid down the scale in relation the Shetland’s generally still-safe condition.
More than that – anyone whose employment situation has straddled Shetland and mainland Britain will be fully aware of what’s completely wrong with one place and practically completely right with the other.
Some of those people may even have got as far as realising that Shetland’s social pre-eminence over mainland Britain is to do with a practical appreciation of the need to show genuine consideration for one’s neighbours, associates and co-workers, which by and large is missing from UK mainland thinking (mainly because the place is grossly over-crowded, and good manners and consideration for others are perceived to be signs of weakness).
This ‘consideration’ includes honesty in business and social transactions, rigid truthfulness, and an instinct for fair dealings. (That’s not to say that Shetland doesn’t have its fair share of shoddy trade men and other types of twister – it most certainly does – but they probably don’t get much repeat business, and in any case time will sort them out.)
As I see it, the problem under consideration at the moment is that Alistair Carmichael and his supporters seem to think that division of the word of truth, in the sense that lying for advantage is an acceptable ploy where political objectives are at stake, is something that the public (who pay their salaries through taxes) should, for some reason, be prepared to put up with and shut up about ‘for the greater good’.
In my opinion, this is twisted and dishonest thinking, besides being stupid – because it makes the people who behave this way look untrustworthy and unbelievable.
It’s my further opinion that, contrary to my half-humourous previously-expressed view (see http://www.shetnews.co.uk/letters/10713-condign-punishment), Carmichael and his supporters/apologists should now all do the right thing by resigning immediately – because we can’t afford them, we don’t need them, and some of us don’t want them misrepresenting us.
In Shetland terms, this means a vote of no confidence at the Constituency level, leading to ‘ Carmichael out Scott out – now’. And in case anyone thinks that this is a personal attack on the LibDems – go back to the start of this letter and re-read what I’ve written.
I don’t want to see the SNP to get a shoo-in from Carmichael’s stupidity and low standards – but that’s what it could lead to, and it’ll be entirely the LibDems’ fault if it does.
Philip Andrews
Unst
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