Priorities

We may have seen RET dismantled, ferry fares spiraling, ferry services getting worse and ADS stopped for business travel, but if anyone needs to know about the potential frequency of non-existent flights from Prestwick to Ekaterinburg, then Angus MacNeil is your man.

Perhaps he could ask the Secretary of State to lobby the Scottish Government to reinstate RET and ADS, if he has nothing better to do.

Fair Fares

A news release hits my inbox:

Proposed changes to Road Equivalent Tariff (RET) for commercial vehicles
 
The Outer Hebrides Transport Group (OHTG) has recently been formed with the aim of working together to fight the Governments decision to remove RET for commercial vehicles from island ferries.
 
The OHFG would like to hear your views on how it will affect your business, your customers and the economy of the Outer Hebrides.
 
Please contact Gail Robertson, Co-ordinator of Outer Hebrides Transport Group

Tel: 01870 602916
Mobile: 07919 622377
Email:  outerhebridestransportgroup@aol.co.uk

The horrendous impact of these price increases of up to 175% will make the small savings on the pseudo-RET scheme look like small chage.

The 'extension' and the 'permanance' of RET has been announced in glorious technicolour by the Government, the MSP and the MP on a number of occasions,   Without a concrete promise of implementation, far less an implementation date.

The penalising of everyone who relies on the freight traffic has been introduced immediately.

David Wood, owner of Lewis haulage firm, Woody’s Express said: “This proposal from the SNP Government is economically illiterate and will have a devastating impact on the islands. The Scottish Government sneaked out this massive price hike without the courtesy of consulting any of those who will be affected.  

This will have the impact of making all the incoming food deliveries, all the fish and shellfish exports, tweed exports and every other product coming from the islands much more expensive.  Indeed, the much vaunted designation of Arnish as a centre for renewables will be undermined by this very policy.

Our MP briefly spoke out against the policy (after being severely bollocked in Barra by businessmen), before being gagged by his own party, whilst our MSP seemingly has no view on the matter.  None of the would be SNP Council candidates has had anything to say on the matter - with one notable isolated exception - despite their planned campaign slogan of "Fighting for the Islands".  The slogan is now being changed to "Tutting quietly, as instructed, in the islands."

One major area of concern is the inter-island commercial traffic, which is likely to be decimated by this increase.  One businessman has told me that he will now turn back to the mainland, rather than locally, as it is going to be more efficient overall.  10-20 years of hard work developing the inter-island business destroyed by a Government who say one thing and do another behind your back..

Now the Council and sitting Councillors need to get behind this campaign, which has the potential for inflicting serious economic damage to the islands.

Remind me again how this SNP integrated transport strategy works?

"Climate justice"

A headline without a concept of how it is to be delivered, but necessarily full of lovely warm abstract words from the First Minister..

"I believe we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity to enshrine this important principle - that economic development should be linked to human rights - in global energy policy, ensuring that countries and communities least able to cope with the extreme weather events climate change brings are not further disadvantaged."

As this statement was delivered from the luxury of a hotel in Abu Dhabi, perhaps the FM should be looking a bit closer to home.

Recent hikes in the price of domestic oil have left the Western Isles facing staggering new levels of fuel poverty, with estimates that 60 per cent of households are now classed as being in its grip — and the figure for pensioners is even higher at 86 per cent.

Before the rest of the world gets a lecture, how about doing something in your own back yard?

Warm words doesn't make for warm houses.

Would you like salt with it?

I went past Market Stance a dozen times in the past few days, and was - like most of Uist - awe inspired by the veritable Mt Everest of road salt that had been shipped in, and is now left to be rained upon over the winter, and lose it efficiency with every raindrop.

Today, the following email was issued by the Council....

A notice that you have registered an interest in has been cancelled. The notice details are shown below.

   Notice ID: JUL095586
       Title: Ice Gritting and Snow Clearing 2011 – 2015
   Authority: Comhairle nan Eilean Siar

Reason:

This contract has now been readvertised. See new advert 29.09.11

Are any Councillors interested in the reasons for this contract being withdrawn?


Perhaps the question is, how could the very senior persons involved in this get it so fundamentally wrong?

BTW, Councillors and contractors may also be interested to know that many of the scores achieved by the original tenderers are in the semi-public domain.

That'll engender confidence in the fairness and confidentiality of the process.

It could be worse.....

Much as we might like to have a go at the Council, we could be in Edinburgh, where they can't find their St Andrew's Sq with both hands.

No-one, but no-one, but no-one is coming out of this with any credit.

"It's everyone else's fault" will be the refrain as they all independently change their minds, in light of the change in circumstance and exactly as instructed by the Party hierarchy.

Latest estimates to complete the scheme range from £700m to £13.7/6 and a bag of wine gums.  However, the price will have to include humiliation for the Council group leaders and a few heads of Councillors and Officers.

Blar Buidhe

Here is a tale of murky financials; tax dodges; and financial engineering above and beyond the call of reality.

Let's deal with the facts, first.  The property is owned by NHP Securities No 3 Ltd, a name that is as vague as the ultimate ownership.

NHP Securities No 3 Ltd have fixed assets worth £540,000 (recently - desperately - revalued from £535,000) which surely has to be Blar Buidhe and Blar Buidhe alone.

NHP Securities No 3 Ltd is ultimately controlled by Libra No 2 Limited, registered in the Cayman Isles, and hence to Delta Commercial Property LP, and limited partnership based in the Isle of Man.

At this point forget trying to find out who owns these companies; you can't unless they want you to.

But that's not the shocker.

Against the asset of £540,000 the company has borrowed £215,000,000; yes, a leverage ratio of 400 times assets, most of which has been used to invest in other apparently associated companies through loan notes, guarantees etc etc.  Unsurprisingly, you will find that the company is insolvent by £215,000,000, although various guarantees and promises seen to imply that these debts will never be paid.

So how and why does this make any sense.  Well, of course, in the real world it doesn't.  But here is how it works in practice....

Company A buys a property

Company B buys that assets from company A

Company A lends the money to company C in the Cayman Isles

Company C lends the money back to Company B

Company C charges 10% interest for the loan

Company A charges no interest

The interest is earned offshore, and as ultimate control resides outside the UK the interest is not taxable in the UK

The interest paid by B is a tax deduction, and the tax losses can be used to create a tax refund or tax deduction in other companies.

As the profits pile up, the loans get bigger and bigger, and the interest all moves tax-free offshore; to fund the next property.

Blar Buidhe apparently paid £24,050 rent, which has probably, ultimately, ended up tax-free in either the Cayman Isles or the Isle of Man.  If it hasn't, I'd be astonished.

That's £24,050 that could have gone towards care in the home.  That's £24,050 that has been paid by pensioners out of their meagre assets.  That's £24,050 that should have been taxed and been used to fund care, education and public services.

And multiply that through by 700 care homes, most of which are very considerably bigger.

Isn't it a scandal that the public sector is effectively funding and encouraging [perfectly legal] tax-dodging?  Bizarrely, it all started with the Inland Revenue and Mapeley Steps Ltd.

At it is going to get worse.  There is a current active proposal, which is out for consultation, allowing offshore UK-controlled financing companies to pay a tax rate of under 10% on the money they draw out of the public and private sectors.  And almost no extra tax on trading income 'earned' in tax havens.

If there is a lesson to be learned from Southern Cross, and an opportunity to be grasped, it is that public sector funded transactions must be transparent, and must avoid tax-havens.  It is easy to do; just write the conditions into the tender and demand the waiving of 'commercial confidentiality' and rebuild trust between providers and funders.

----

All this, and still on holiday too.

How the Council works

I have been sent a copy of the top secret submission by the Council to the Audit Commission demonstrating it's good practices.

This presentation is to be the subject of a three day seminar to members.....

Pulling together


Thanks to the assistant depute to the depute assistant manager in the Sideways-Looking Navel-Gazing Team for the leak.

Minimum booze pricing

It's going to happen; although if it is per unit of alcohol based, it is not going to affect the cheapest and nastiest of the own brand spirits and luminous concoctions on the shelves.

Unless, of course, having set the principal the unit price is then levered up until such time as the booze run to Carlisle becomes an attractive option.

It will be highly symbolic, but utterly ineffective.

Broadband

Isles MSP Alasdair Allan has today written to Connected Communities to raise the capacity issues which are now occurring on the BT link from Stornoway to London, which provides the internet connection for customers of Connected Communities.

Didn't our MSP promise that the SNP would solve all the Broadband issues?

Shouldn't he be writing to the Minister?  Surely his mate can have more influence to fix the problem.

Pairc - the latest

I can see where this is all going, and it isn't going to be pleasant.

It does, however, underline one simple fact.

The legislation and it's subsequent amendments are incompetent and not fit for purpose, and the actions of the Government in making a last-minute decision demonstrates that this is the case.

If these legal actions are resolved before the end of the coming Holyrood Parliament then I will be surprised.  Two years for the Judicial Review and a couple of years for the most recent action to come to closure, through all the stages, and they are likely to run consequetively, rather than concurrently.

All the time the estate value will rise as the planning consents move forward and deals are done, until lo and behold at the other end Pairc Trust cannot afford the now vastly larger sums.

Cue more legal actions and shouting, but little success.

At which point the Minister will promise new legislation to stop this ever happening again.

Pairc - heroes and villains

Yes, I was duly embarrassed by the wrong call I made at the beginning of the week when I claimed the buy-out was to be refused, much to the amusement of some commentators

If I were infallible, there is probably another calling that I would be encouraged to follow, but yes sometimes I get it spectacularly wrong.  The erroneous post haves been suspended (not deleted) and the mocking, abusive and humorous comments preserved for all posterity, or whenever I feel less red-faced about the whole episode.

However, as the process moves on, let's see what the landlord has to say.

There are some pretty serious allegations in the document that require to be - and must be -  properly investigated.

It is also important to examine the landlord/crofter share from the Pairc Windfarm and Pairc Trust’s urgency to obtain the interposed lease so that it can deny the landlord any value from it. Two of Pairc Trust’s directors were present at the original meeting on 04 March 2003 when Pairc Liaison Group declared the issue of crofter income share to be a matter, not for Pairc Estate but, for Pairc Liaison Group alone to consider. The result? Two director’s families are in line to receive one fifth of the windfarm benefits, whilst some two hundred crofters and the landlord are intended to receive nothing.

If it is true that directors of the Trust - and I have heard it repeated from a number of sources - were to receive 20% of the benefits, directly or indirectly, then this requires to be placed into the public domain.  As a publicly funded body, and one seeking huge public assistance, it is only right that any potential benefit to the directors/trustees or their immediate families should be made widely known.

If it is fairly, openly and correctly awarded to them, then that is fine.

If the landlord is lying, then his standing will be fatally undermined, and such libellous suggestions could prove very expensive.

If the situation is not investigated and resolved, and if it later proves to be true, then the community and the whole rational behind community land purchase schemes will be undermined, and previous land acquisitions will be tainted.

The claims have been made and the must be rigorously investigated to clear the air.  If they are not, then they will be raised in Court by the landlord, and any failings of the funders will be exposed to public ridicule.

Take note: there is only one course of action that must be followed, however difficult and embarrassing.

Council cuts

One area not affect by the looming cuts is the Twinning Budget. 

I understand that despite a failure of the Councillors to agree or approve the use of the funds, the default option prevails and budget for visits to South Carolina and Ireland remain untouched.

Licencing Board - sobering up

So today (Tuesday) is the first meeting for the Licencing Board since some of them threw the toys and the lawyers out of the pram.  And it is likely to be an entertaining affair for those invited to be inside the room.

An astute adherent to one of the local Churches posed some thoughtful points about the application for the Sunday licence for the Chinese Restaurant that is being heard at the Meeting, for which he had no answers, but lots of philosophical thoughts, in light of the illegal refusal of the Golf Club licence.

Let me summarise them, whilst removing his more florid and identifiable phrases:

• Even if there is a good reason to refuse the Sunday licence, will anyone believe that the Board has followed legal advice in coming to this decision?
• Does anyone really believe that the Free Church Five can be objective after their last performance?
• Just how much fun are the lawyers for the applicants going to have when addressing the Board?
• How many Board members are going to ask for the legal advice to be in writing from now on?
• When will the Free Church Five realise that they have effectively neutered any influence or respect by their past actions?
• Have they actually committed a criminal offence?

Not that long ago, a prominent former Councillor related to me a tale about a call he received from the Lords Days Observance Society in which he was told to instruct a friend who sat on the Licencing Board how to vote at a forthcoming meeting, under threat of being voted out at the next election.  He refused point blank* and told the LDOS never to contact him again; and perhaps a question for the lawyers is to find out just how many sitting Board Members have been contracted on the same basis before previous meetings.  These contacts should all have been logged as attempts to influence a quasi-judicial process, in exactly the same way that a publican slipping a Board Member a bottle of Whisky would have been shouted about from the rooftops.

Still, if your lobbyists are pushing at an open door ..... they aren't lobbyists, but friends.

* Personally, I would have gone to the press and the Police.  But, as the person concerned never told his volatile, nay explosive, colleague for pretty good reasons it was a dilemma he faced alone.  However, I am sure he will testify to the attempts to bring undue influence, if required.

The real cost of living

Fascinating analysis by the Joseph Rowantree Foundation and the Commission for Rural Communities on the cost of living in rural areas.


Anyone who lives outside the big towns will know that the financial impact of rurality is quite severe, and that costs are loaded on individuals and public services.

Assuming life in the Western Isles needs 20% more income to give a standard of life equivalent to the cities, and on the basis that actual income levels are 66% of the Scottish average, then income per head in the Western Isles needs to rise by 81% for us to be on a par with Glasgow or Edinburgh.

The real failure of all Governments - Westminster and Holyrood - is that income levels in the Western Isles have not risen over the past decades, and that economic decline has been allowed to continue with seemingly no interest in reversing depopulation and poverty.

Perhaps the Council should grab hold of these statistics and use them as a big stick to beat Holyrood to argue that sparsity of population has now been better quantified and that further support is necessary to keep schools and communities alive and active.

Let's hear the outcry from our elected representatives.......

Tax breaks....

Whilst massive cuts are being forecast for every aspect of the economy in Scotland with the prospect of 20%-25% job losses, then you have to say "WTF?" to the latest political stunt.

Scottish sports minister Shona Robison is to meet senior Westminster politicians in an attempt to gain a tax exemption for Commonwealth Games competitors.
[...]
“I’m going to ask for an exemption for the Commonwealth Games in 2014, and Ryder Cup the same year, along with a number of events.

“A number of English sporting events are exempted, but none of the major sporting events in Scotland.

“We expect parity for major international sporting events.”

Get a grip, FFS.

Millionaires fly in and earn vast sums of money fora few hours work, and our Government wants to exempt them from tax.  Not mitigate their tax.  Not limit their tax liability to income earned in the UK.

No, let's make it all tax free.

This all smacks of NuLab's idolisation of Hedge Fund managers and other obscenely rich ponces and the subsequent tilting of tax laws in their favour.

A simple question: would you rather have a home help for your parents, or watch a millionaire hit a golf ball around for a vast tax-free lump sum?

Now ask: are these guys paying tax anywhere?  The answer is almost certainly that they are not paying very much tax anywhere. The sponsorship will have been sold to a BVI company, where vast sums roll up tax-free, and by judiciously moving around the world, nowhere - bar tax-free Monaco - will be home.  For tax purposes.

And our pensioners die unable to afford their heating bills......

In Government but not in power (?)

From the BBC web site:

Scottish government legislative programme - key details

• Budget Bill
• End double jeopardy
• Scottish Water Bill
• Long Leases Bill
• Local Electoral Administration Bill
• Public Records Bill
• Health (certification of Death) Bill
• Forced Marriage Bill
• Private Rented Housing Bill
• Reservoir Safety

Wipe me down wwith a damp cloth. I can barely contain my excitement.

Is this what three years of a 'radical' new Government comes to..... Is there such a paucity of ideas that mere administrative trivia become a 'highlight'?

All together now: "What do we want?" - "Legislation on reservoir safety!". "When do we want it?" - "Actually, I don't give a stuff!"

Not quite RET 'pilot project' to be 'extended'

I've had to rewrite this posting a number of times, and temper my disgust. I'm not sure I succeeded.

One cheer for the blatant electioneering that delivers nothing much, but the opportunity for the next Government (whoever they might be) to cancel the 'pilot'.

The fare reductions are A Good Thing. But, by themselves they achieve little of lasting benefit for the islands. It is only as part of a wider strategy that they will actually be of great and lasting benefit to the islands.

The failure of RET has been that the necessary infrastructure - bigger and more frequent ferries - aren't even on the horizon with CalMac having announced that they (for which read the Government) hasn't got the cash.

We have ferries that locals can't get onto; tourists who arrive at the ferry ports to find that last minute bookings are impossible; and, a change in the nature of the visitors, with more camper vans arriving. I've had hoteliers tell me that they are regularly 'full' until the visitors reach the port of departure and find they cannot get on the ferry. One 'full' hotel in Uist lost over half it's guests the night I was there, for that very reason.

The islands need to adapt, and that means new investment in new hotels and new facilities to meet the new demand, and the unmet demand that is sitting on the quay at Ullapool, Oban or Uig.

A one year extension doesn't deliver that, and no developer in their right mind will pump large sums into renovating, extending or adapting their hotel or guest house on the back of such a vague and weak promise.

By providing the capital for better ferries and more frequent services, the Government should see the economic regeneration of the islands, which can only be good for everyone, and will be a constructive use of taxpayers money.

If you drive across the new, wonderful, causeways in Uist, you have a beautiful dual carriageway that is straight, smooth and safe; if you ignore the bizarre single-lanes at the bridges. But at either end you still have single track with passing places.

The cheap ferries are the new causeways, and their effectiveness is largely destroyed by the constraints at either end, which in this case is ferry capacity at one end and structural developments at the other. The solution is in the politicians promises that were made many, many years ago.

Oh yes, and why is the Uist-Harris ferry excluded from RET?

Stornoway Town Centre

I must confess that the works in Percival Square to create a 'Civic Square' look very nice; at least the bits that are now being exposed as the contractors remove the fencing and expose the almost finished design to the public.

Completion really cannot come soon enough, but I suspect the tourists will have gone long before it is ready.

You know my views on the whole matter - appalling timing (albeit forced upon the Council by the Scottish Government), not well thought through (toilets open closed and open again) and the loss of parking for why, exactly?

However, that being said, I think it will add to the amenity of the town, just as long as this seasons tourists don't think that this place is a permanent building site.

Now, just what can we use the area for?

Housing problems

In my role as a debt advisor to those who cannot manage their affairs properly, I am often asked to advise many who cannot see the wood for the trees.

Such was the case this weekend, when a new client approached me with an unusual problem.  Mr MacNeil, as I will call him to maintain his anonymity, was being forced by his employers to stop receiving a tax-free sum of £300 per month in housing subsidy, and having to accept a tax-free £1,450 per month instead.  He was at his wits end, unable to balance his budget and facing a continuing life of taypayer funded luxury.

"Angus", I said, "Get a fucking grip and stop acting like a completely sanctimonious arsehole."

"You choices are:

• Pay for your own property in the same way as everyone else has to, or
• Find a new flat; get £1,450pm in subsidy; rent out your old flat for £2,000+ pm; and you are still quids in, or
• Put your money where you mouth is, and sell your flat, and give the profit to the Treasury."

"You earn £66,000 and whatever your wife gets from the public purse for her non-job as your 'constituency assistant', and all your travel costs are paid, along with subsidised food at work, and numerous other perks"

"The flat you own was almost totally fitted at the taxpayers expense, and the fitting of any flat you move to will be paid for too. Although perhaps not quite so generously."

Another case solved.

"By the way", I asked, "Did you see the report that 25% of the population of the Western Isles live in poverty?"

"No", he replied, "I was too busy submitting my expenses claims to worry about something as minor as that."

Legal action in Uist

I am told that Angus MacMillan, the Chair of Storas, has commenced the first stage of a libel action against Calum MacMillan.

The grounds appear to be that Calum has claimed that Angus has profited personally from his position as Chair of Storas, and with particular reference to the ongoing wind power disagreement/dispute.

No doubt this will be a very entertaining process - at least for those not directly affected - and it will undoubtedly touch on the issues of fish farm leases; unsigned agreements; conflicts of interest; the role of a shadow director; that directors of Storas have been acting with probity in every situation; and acting for the benefit of the community as a whole.

In the interim, given the obvious conflict of interest, Angus will have to be kept away from anything to do with Calum dealings with Storas, and the other directors and staff will have to do their utmost to maintain the Chinese walls.

As soon as copies of the documentation are available, I'll post them here.

"War is a continuation of diplomacy using other means." Carl von Clausewitz