Harris Tweed
If you read the Gazette you will have seen that our MSP interrogated Jim Mather on the plight of the weavers (at last in the view of reporter Donnie MacInnes). If you read the Official Report, you will see that it as just a very bland question tabled in response to a more incisive question by Jamie McGrigor, who showed his real understanding of the situation by asking a follow-up question to the Minister.
The sheer pathetic and mechanical nature of the question asked by Allan is the worst sort of soft-ball questioning started by the Tories fawning to Maggie, and perfected by arse-licking Labour MPs during the Blair Reich. The nature of the planted question (for that is obviously what it was) signals the end of any hope of an investment fund for Harris Tweed (as I forecast), which never even merited a question in Parliament.
But, but, but, this is a reserved matter, so where the hell is the Barra Bhoy in all of this? He should be raising questions in Parliament, discussing the matter with officials of the Dept for Work and Pensions, and generally being active on this issue. Unbelievably, Mr Allan has done us all a favour in pointing out that MacNeil is doing nothing on the matter. But then MacNeil and Allan seem to inhabit different realities for a lot of the time.
As someone pointed out to me, the £350k for an Weavers investment fund that MacNeil sees as the salvation of the industry would give 200 weavers weeks work maximum, and what happens then? No-one knows, because no-one has bothered to think it through. Weavers need about £5k income extra each or perhaps 30 tweeds for 400 weavers = £1.8m annually which shows the real size of the problem.
The Government are not even being addressed on this issue with our politicians preferring to make soothing and meaningless noises.
The sheer pathetic and mechanical nature of the question asked by Allan is the worst sort of soft-ball questioning started by the Tories fawning to Maggie, and perfected by arse-licking Labour MPs during the Blair Reich. The nature of the planted question (for that is obviously what it was) signals the end of any hope of an investment fund for Harris Tweed (as I forecast), which never even merited a question in Parliament.
But, but, but, this is a reserved matter, so where the hell is the Barra Bhoy in all of this? He should be raising questions in Parliament, discussing the matter with officials of the Dept for Work and Pensions, and generally being active on this issue. Unbelievably, Mr Allan has done us all a favour in pointing out that MacNeil is doing nothing on the matter. But then MacNeil and Allan seem to inhabit different realities for a lot of the time.
As someone pointed out to me, the £350k for an Weavers investment fund that MacNeil sees as the salvation of the industry would give 200 weavers weeks work maximum, and what happens then? No-one knows, because no-one has bothered to think it through. Weavers need about £5k income extra each or perhaps 30 tweeds for 400 weavers = £1.8m annually which shows the real size of the problem.
The Government are not even being addressed on this issue with our politicians preferring to make soothing and meaningless noises.
1 comment:
I visit this blog regularly because it's informative, provocative and entertaining. The level of political insight in this particular piece is pathetic and it's becoming a regular pattern with LazyChicken.
The whole piece is poor: there isn't time for responses to all the drivel but here's one for starters:
The point about questions in Parliament is that the answer generally doesn't matter at the time. Sounds cynical, but it's true. The worst mistake a Minister can make isn't avoiding difficult questions or not doing his job very well, it's LYING TO PARLIAMENT. A good question is one that forces a Minster (and, by assocaition, the Government)to make a specific promise or take a definite position (which may come back to haunt him).
Jamie McGrigor's question ('share concern', 'reconsider') was as bland as Alasdair Allan's because it allows the Minister to nod gravely and mumble about shared concerns, difficult times, no stone left unturned, urgency blah, blah.
I'm a rock solid Labour voter, but if this piece is the standard of criticism of our SNP representatives, we'll all be voting SNP soon. What has the Barra Bhoy done on the issue? Nothing? Well, he raised the matter of weavers' benefits in January 2007 in Parliament, in as bland a question as LazyChicken could imagine. Anything before or since? No. Surely that's a more effective criticism of the MP than the puerile rubbish here.
Do some research, credit us with some intelligence, lay an egg occasionally, or lay down your pen.
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