Letters / Stop begging for crumbs off the Scotsman’s table
I wish to support and add to Mr W. Polson’s contribution in Shetland News (28 April) capturing the essence of the Whalsay ferry/tunnel fiascos, and Flossie’s unacceptable situation which continues to be endured by all travellers.
Governments have found time and billions of pounds to provide money/credit for inter alia: Forth crossing, Channel Tunnel, HS2, A9, A96, QE money, Covid-19 financing, energy crisis support, Lochaber smelters, two white elephants at Fergusons plus two white whales masquerading as aircraft carriers, subsides to on and offshore wind farm developers, and jalopies for tanks etc to Ukraine.
Include also the odd missing camper van, £600,000 (look down the back of the sofa) plus the sleaze at Westminster (PPE contracts comes to mind).
Very little of it is identifiable to Shetland, which provides oil gas warmth and fish to all the UK, and in return expects a decent internal and external transport system to all which includes the likes of Flossie.
This has been a requirement for a century or more together with adequate fishery protection vessels. Further billions are earmarked as subsidies or bribe to develop oil/gas fields within Shetland’s areas, but a few bawbees cannot be found to modernise its transportation requirements.
Why does Shetland tolerate being at the bottom of governments’ list of priorities, when it should actually be at the top of it for national security and energy reasons.
Presently Shetland is governed by an incompetent bunch of chancers in Edinburgh and Westminster of various colours or allegiance. Time to take back control.
Where has all the oil revenue/taxation money gone? In inflated house prices starting in Southeast England financed by questionable Russian money to the benefit of the already rich, and prices are morphing ever northwards.
Result: In Shetland – needless distress, poverty, financial insecurity and threatened depopulation amidst God’s abundance. A very ominous situation.
Shetlanders should be able to commute safely (like many do so in mainland Britain) through tunnels on electric vehicles (courtesy of Viking Energy) even ‘ida mirk o a winter’s night‘ to work or reach hospital (a new one) which should be completed within a decade with dentistry included.
Islanders should not be begging for crumbs off the Scotsman’s table to provide adequate transport/ferries and if historic Nordic links were extant, tunnels would have been constructed long before now to augment and or replace the ageing ferry fleet.
Shetland is not clan or tartan territory, and Holyrood and Westminster should be reminded of that fact continuously by the SIC, MSP, MP and media sources.
Nae knappin.
Cecil Robertson
Inverness
