Humbug to rocket range claims 1/8/14
Sir,
There are few things in life more humbling than an election defeat. It would make any individual, even one with the thickest of skins, feel and rejected, especially when this defeat occurs twice within a community they have known, worked in, and loved all their lives. It is this rejection that provides the reason why, over the past few years, I have not issued any comments or written letters that are concerned with the politics of the Western Isles. Enough, I have felt, is enough.
However, this is one occasion where I must make an exception to my rule. Over the last few weeks, I have been aware that certain individuals have claimed that my former opponent, Mr Angus B MacNeil MP 'saved' the Range. There has even been a letter written to the local press expressing this rather dubious 'fact', backed up by a statement issued recently by the MP which takes his talent for fiction and fantasy to a whole new level.
Can I ask what evidence lies behind this extraordinary assertion? It appears to me that there is none. I would like to challenge Mr MacNeil to open up all the correspondence relating to the threat of closure to the range.
I still possess copies of mine. This includes all correspondence, letters and emails, and records of meetings connected with the threat to the existence of the range, as well as access to all the interviews and statements, whether to press, Radio Nan Gàidheal or BBC television, that Mr MacNeil was involved in at that time.
It would also be of interest to discover just how much interest in the range, and
the 200 people employed there, Mr MacNeil has displayed since his re-
Surely the moment is overdue to establish the truth of what exactly went on when the jobs (and future) of the people of Uist were under threat? At the moment, all we are receiving are the words of the character Bumble whom Mr MacNeil quotes in his recent, ridiculous statement about the range.
Complete and utter humbug!
Donald John MacSween,
Lower Bayble ,