SNP government is “hammering the Western Isles” 16/2/12
Sir,
I see the local SNP is trying to deflect attention away from the pitiful the Scottish Government has handled the fallout from the RET debacle by hysterically attacking the Labour Party. That is amateur, saddening but typical.
It is their own SNP Government that wants to dismantle the most important component of this policy and the one that by its removal has the most severe economic implications for all islanders. It is not the Labour Party that wants to do this.
The Labour Party was the first political party to make a commitment to make RET permanent four months before the last Scottish Parliament election. It was just weeks before the poll that the SNP gave a late undertaking to do the same.
We entered the 2007 election with commitment to introduce a scheme to reduce ferry fares. So which ever party was in government the Western Isles would be enjoying reduced ferry fares after the 2007 election.
Far from criticising RET we recognised that it was successful and sought to make it permanent.
So the apologists for messrs Brown, Allan, Macneil and Manford in the local SNP should really redirect their anger to those who are responsible for this sorry affair – the men named above.
But the handling of the ferry charges for lorries is symptomatic of other ways that the SNP government is hammering the islands. To regard increases in charges as limited to 50% increase in a year as a “step forward” is pathetic.
Given the recent restrictions to the Air Discount Scheme, again introduced by the SNP government, the imposition of the Barra SAC and the refusal to consider a Mallaig ferry link – again both decided by the SNP government – shows that the SNP are taking the people of the Western Isles for granted and hitting islanders harder than those on the mainland.
What we need are people standing up for the islands not politicians who are more concerned about currying favour with their government than defending our community.
Matt Bruce
Chairman
Western Isles Labour Party
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