Election leaflets

I'm repeatedly being told that, in a fit of piety, one candidate has had his election address reprinted and is redistributing it.

Although in common with most leaflets he put his name with "1" beside it to indicate that he was asking for your first vote in a multi-member ward, he has decided that to do so in some way suggests that he is equal to Jesus Christ who, of course, is the first.

I'm not mocking his religion, just the complete lack of common sense which suggests that anyone things that the individual concerned could have any kind of Messianic Complex, or that by asking for a vote he is in any way being heretical.

If anyone can get me a "before" and an "after" leaflet, I'd love to see them.

It is going to be some patter at the doorsteps: "I'd like you to vote for me with a number higher than that which you use for the second vote you cast, but not one that is not a singleton. The number shouldn't be unity, the sole member of set {0} in the von Neumann representation, nor e. It shouldn't be it's own factoid, nor the first two members of the Fibonacci sequence, nor the value of sine at π/2. Finally, under no circumstances would I expect you to vote for me using the value of -1²."

Presumably when this person goes to vote on Thursday then he is going to vote "2,3,4,5" rather than dig an even deeper hole for himself?

Windfarm policy (3)

The best until last.

Whatever one thinks of windfarms, there is one undeniable truth: the energy companies are prepared to pay substantial sums to use the land in Lewis to increase their profits.

We, as a community, are on the cusp of enjoying substantial sums for the exploitation of our land.

Statement 5: If the developments are prevented - by a political decision - then the Government should compensate the people of the Western Isles for taking care of the land for the benefit of the people of Scotland. Any politician advocating refusal of the planning permission should also be offering equal compensation to the communities for the new responsibility for looking after the land.

In essence, the people of Ness and Barvas - whatever their views - should be arguing for the same thing: £10m per annum for the next 25 years either from the developers or the Government. Any politician seeking election who is offering to give away these economic rights is costing you £5,000 per annum or about £125,000 in total, and is not even pretending to represent the best interests of the Western Isles.

We have two weeks to force every political party into that corner.

Travel chaos

If it wasn't bad enough that the airport is understaffed, just think of the pressure this situation puts onto the poor one individual who is the Air Traffic Controller.

If he doesn't feel 100%, does he come in to work and try and land planes when he is perhaps very ill? Or, does he stay at home and be single-handedly responsible for the closure of Stornoway Airport?

How long before he goes off with stress, and the airport is in even more difficulty?

Moral dilemma

I've only had to delete one comment in the past six months (other than two which were entirely infantile swearing). A great many of these comments have been personally insulting to me and/or my council colleagues as a body corporate.

It's what happens when you are in the public domain; you are rarely - if ever - off duty. I've just done eight years of it, and I can tell you it is very wearing, but comes with the territory.

The previous post on "Polling Cards" (which I have just suspended - not deleted) included some rude comments about a candidate in the coming elections. I'm going to decide whether to delete the comments, or let them stand later.

Rather than censoring the postings, I'd rather give people a right of reply and let them shoot their critics down in flames.

My problem is that a previous blog posting attracted a threatening (but ultimately empty) lawyers letter in an attempt to gag me.

Unfortunately, in order to fully explain the situation, I'll have to place some more information into the public domain, and I'm not sure about the correct way forward.

Decisions, decisions.

Update 10.40am : phone call wanting me to disclose the identity of those who were making comments (Answer, I can't and I wouldn't). Complaint about my website hosting these *defamatory* comments (Answer, I don't host them, Google do). Perhaps I need to place all the facts garnered through FoI requests into the public domain, but I suspect that this isn't what was intended either.

Polling cards

I got my polling card today, which has thrown me into ever more of a dilemma about who to vote for. I'm desperately reading the manifestos to see who might have some policies I agree with. I know who I'm not going to vote (since you ask, hypocrites, idiots and those without coherent policies - and I mean that in the nicest possible caring and inclusive way) for in some of the ballots, but that doesn't really help.

As I'm away on polling day, I'm also applying for a postal vote, which has to be in by Wednesday.

So far, I've had two Council leaflets and two Constituency leaflets through my door. One of the four has been inspiring and interesting, whilst the other three are tedious and hackneyed. I fear I am going to have to vote for the ones I dislike least, which is better than not voting, but not by much. A large number of candidates have been in to see me with their leaflets either prior to printing or just immediately after. Very flattering for me (and, please, I am no guru) but also quite difficult when they are competing in the same ward.

(update) The polling card is actually misleading as it tells me I have "3 votes". Actually I have up to 8 votes in 3 polls. Cue more spoilt papers.

The whole Holyrood campaign is one of tedium and the parties not really trying (as far as I can judge), with everyone trying to get by on their reputation - or who they are NOT - rather than anything positive, and I find that demeaning and irritating.

Perhaps I'm just getting old and sensible. :-) But perhaps the picture says it all.

Jaded and jealous? No, just glad to be out of the fray.

Tabloid journalism

I've just finished reading "The Name of the Rose" by Umberto Eco. It is the one major novel by Eco that I had not read, and I was desperately trying to shed the memory of the movie (and especially Sean Connery playing a Geordie in a Scottish accent) so that I could come to the novel afresh.

As a professor of semiotics, Eco is an expert in meaning and creating (mis)understanding with excellent use of language to confuse, obscure and entertain.

I think I missed much of the skill as the excessive use of Latin somewhat hindered my understanding. Not even our teacher, Cicero, was able to (metaphorically) beat the language into my head at school.

However, the exquisite use of language to hide the truth is something that politicians tend to be well versed in.

The tabloids lied to the girls. Is anyone surprised? The families would have been well advised to stay quiet and ignore the mistakes, rather than stoking the flames again, as I think that this will simply give the story "legs".

But why was the location misreported, and in such a way as to make it easily deniable? Simple; it was to hide the role of the source and start people looking in the wrong direction. The fact that the apology didn't deal with this will just cause more questions to be asked, rather than closing the matter off.

So why am I bothered? Self-interest. I became "collateral damage" thanks to this individual leaking the story, and I don't like that in the slightest.

Story closed, until I get an opportunity to "restore the balance".

Election

Is there actually an election going on somewhere???



It's oh so quiet, apart from Calum MacDonald pressing the flesh on Cromwell St.

Isles FM

I was invited on the "pundit" slot tonight to replace Alasdair Nicholson, whose family had suffered an unfortunate bereavement.

It was an interesting knock-about evening with my old adversary and friend and neighbour, Callum Iain MacMillan.

The funniest part was after the programme when we saw the "complaints" file. "Unbalanced", "unfair" "why didn't you have xxx on?" were some of the comments. Somewhat hysterically, the comments came from a husband and wife of a certain political persuasion (and very close to a certain candidate), and to try and disguise the connection he had given his mobile (which we recognised) and she had given the house number (which we also recognised). If you are going to stand for Council and be successful, you need to be smarter than that.

Harris Tweed

The industry is bought by John Haggas of Yorkshire, and we all breathe a sigh of relief that it is secure.

Release that breath.

Now single-width looms are to be phased out and the mill in Shawbost is closed. Some of the competition were bought up at the same time (no doubt in a very nice deal for them) and the capacity closed, and the building put up for sale.

Anyone who had any doubts about his intent (and I was one) need only look at the incorporation of the company Harris Tweed Scotland Limited (number: 05987374) on 2 November 2006 with a Registered Office at Haincliffe Road, Keighley, Yorkshire, where Brook Taverner are headquartered.

I would guess that this is the new parent company for the Kenneth MacKenzie group of companies, and the ability of the HTA to prevent a Yorkshire company using the trademark protected name, shows just how toothless the body actually is.

The future? Like too many of our assets, they have been sold to off-islanders to exploit mercilessly, with profits going elsewhere and with the weavers - once again - getting the shitty end of the stick.

As the product range is "slimmed" (read: slashed, with no investment in anything other than the bog-standard, mass produced, unexciting range for the aspirant generation with no interest in tradition) the skills will be lost, and the industry will chug along doing nicely, but without any real prospect of significant growth. I'll almost guarantee that profits will rise in the short-term as risk and the range drop, but that in the medium term the industry is doomed.

Someday I'll recount HIE's role in making this happen in the guise of "rescuing the industry".

Local shops for local people

John Kirriemuir in Berneray has an excellent analysis of the difficulties of shopping in these islands, and trying to balance the desire to spend your money in the community in which you live against the constraints of supply.

We all try to buy locally, but some products are not always available, and other times the choice just isn't what you want. I get a lot of my wine direct from Italy at £3.33 a bottle, and it is excellent quality, direct from the wineyard. I've never used the omnipresent Tesco for deliveries to the islands, and I'm vaguely depressed to see they deliver here.

The serious message is that if we get faster and more frequent ferries then the opportunity for what economists call "leakage" will occur. In the wonderful, big, bad world of the very near future, why go to the Stornoway from Ness, when Tesco will deliver to your door? I look forward to part 2 of John's cathartic self-expose, but worry that Ardmaree Stores may blackball him.

The above photo was taken at M&S, Taransay.

Planning permissions

The Comhairle have confirmed that neither Party have applied for Change of Use permission, and that both need this permission before they can use DD Morrison's and Lewis Carpets as election offices.

How many times have I been approached by constituents complaining about the time required to get Planning Permissions; about the need for Planning Permission in the first place; about conditions put in place; or, how to appeal against an Officer's decision? Countless, but these rules are in place for a reason. My business has had to go through them twice recently.

So why do some think they are above the law? Is it a case of one rule for political parties, and one for the rest of us?

Political parties should have to apply for planning permission and abide by the legislation like everyone else
Yes
Definitely
Absolutely
Who do they think they are?
Bloody chancers!
Damn right
They make the law, they shouldn't have to obey it too. That's a bit much to expect.
See Results

Let the public decide!

Windfarm policy (1)

I make absolutely no apology for returning to this topic again, as the coming election is the key time for all the local voters to make their views known and to determine our future for the coming decades.

But, I am now going to try to lay out - over the next few days - a coherent policy that I hope everyone can sign up to. I was asked to do this a long time ago, so it is not spur of the moment, but as those who asked me then didn't want to hear the answer, I haven't given sceptics a full chance to dismantle/destroy my ideas.

Criticism is therefore welcome, nay, demanded.

Policy 1a: A public inquiry is a bad idea. The Comhairle will have to pay for it, and forget any change out of £250,000 (that's £27 on the Council Tax). Moreover, any Public Inquiry will consider the process only and not the principles behind the decision. As the Chief Planner for Scotland has already said that the process was exemplary, the realistic prospect of any flaw being found is negligible.

Policy 1b: A time-limited public inquiry is unknown in Scots Law, and appears to be totally contrary to the legislation. For the reasons given above, any Public Inquiry is a Bad Idea.

Policy 2: A referendum is a bad idea. Who sets the question? The Comhairle?? Who is able to vote (Ness only, or the entire Western Isles)? What other decisions of Councils are to be removed from public democratic control? Why should a planner from Edinburgh tell us what is best for us.

Policy 3: The Scottish Executive should urgently determine a Scottish Energy Policy. They should "redline" areas for protection and designate areas for windfarm development. This latter area should be subject to very significant compensatory measures for the affected areas.

So endeth part 1. I'm going to post part 2 shortly, and I really would welcome constructive criticism of my attempt to find a majority position. Supporting or opposing the above statements won't commit you to supporting or opposing the final complete version, but I am trying to clarify the main issues step by step, by looking at the components before considering the whole.

I know there will be some (a lot) of doubt about my motives, but please do treat it as an absolutely open attempt to find common ground.

Council candidates

Word on the grapevine reaches me reporting that the SNP have selected a bare half-dozen candidates for the Council elections, and bizarrely it looks like no less than 4 of these candidates will be fighting each other, meaning that they might manage to contest as many seats as the LibDems.

On the surface this appears to be an appalling state of affairs. But look deeper, and it is even worse.

About 18 months ago I outlined a strategy which would have resulted in 15-20 candidates across virtually every ward. The Branch Executive promised to come back to me about the strategy, and when they didn't I realised that there was an active policy to disempower the SNP Council group. This was rammed home when a very, very, very, senior of the local branch told a number of MSPs to ignore a Council Group initiative to introduce RET throughout the islands with the words "Just ignore them". And here's us naively thinking that policies were there to be supported and introduced.

From having 17-19 SNP supporters in the Comhairle over the past 4 years, I would estimate that the deliberate policy of ignoring and undermining the Comhairle by the local SNP has caused the active support to drop to 7-8 Councillors. And that includes the 3 in the Group.

The anti-windfarm policy has been such a "success" that not one person from the west-side tried to become a candidate, and of those selected, I make it that a majority support the developments.

I know that one leading anti-windfarm campaigner who had indicated to me that he would stand as an SNP candidate, is not now voting SNP as a result of policy flip-flops.

Free school milk

I have just become aware that free school milk is being cut for Primary pupils from April. I've been trying to get more information, but a comment has prompted me to post, partially in ignorance, and partially in embarrassment.

It appears that this proposal went through in the budget for 2007/08 passed by the Comhairle last month, and I freely admit that I didn't see it in the budget paperwork, nor did I attend the Finance Working Party at which it would have been discussed, as the meeting clashed with my busiest time at work.

So a huge mea culpa from me for my sins of omission, but I am going to try to find out what I can do to reverse this decision. However, I may have a conflict of interest which will result in me not being able to raise the issue in Council, which means that I couldn't have objected to the cut, even if I had seen it.

Half down

Well, at least BT have got our email and website back up, but www.angusnicolson.com reamins down, possibly as there is a fault at the BT DNS server.

However, our office Broadband is still down meaing wwe are having to go home to receive and send email, or use a very slow and expensive dial-up connection to receive it in the office.

Still BT are getting a bill for all of this....

BT - it gets worse

The @r$e$ have disconnected our new broadband connection and not our old one - and apparently it takes 7-10 days to fix this. No sense of urgency then.

Next, they decided to cease our service, as we were moving from one building to another and had signed up for the "overlapping" service to ensure no business interruption.

Now, they have removed us from the DNS servers, so our website is down and our Static IP address will take 5 working days to be reinstated. Which means no incoming emails, which we could check via webmail at home.

This despite an email yesterday promising that nothing would affect our new business.

I've just spent the past hour faxing increasingly irate letters to various departments of BT demanding that they sort the problem immediately. Bizarrely, the website is still available at the BT parking address and I have received acknowledgments of my complaint from 2 BT departments by email.

BT get it wrong!

After prolonged negotiations with BT over the moving of our phones and Broadband from location 1 to location 2 within the same exchange area, it seemed reasonable for us to believe the following:

• BT didn't have too much notice of our move - apparently the 21 days notice we gave them was too much
• They knew where we were and where we were going
• No, we do not need a new phone system
• They knew we were keeping the same phone, fax and email details as before
• Yes, we did want a transitional period where we had Broadband in both places to ensure a smooth handover (as it says on your website as one of the benefits!)
• No, we do not need a new phone system
• Yes, what we have (Featureline) works ideally for our needs
• No, we do not need a new phone system, however good you make it sound
• Please! Just replicate what we have
• No, we do not need a ******** new phone system, just read the ****** fax we sent to you three times
  
• Dennis in Newcastle is an angel, who didn't try to sell us phones, understood what we were trying to do, and rewrote the contract to ensure it met our requirements. The best advice he gave was to ignore the Aberdeen office and speak to him directly
• Lynn who wired our phones was a gem. Looking like a trainee lumberjack, she scaled the poles to fill the instructions she had been given, which were not quite the instructions we had contracted to pay for. Thankfully Dennis saw her through and she worked like a Trojan on something she hadn't been trained to do.
• Today BT disconnected the Broadband in our old offices
• Today our broadband went down in the new offices as they had pulled the wrong plug. Right number (but that is because it had moved) wrong location
• Apparently this is a fault on the line as it is "out of sync", and not their mistake
• Except we can see they have pulled the wrong line and our old offices work fine
• Cue swearing, shouting and much abuse
• It will take 48 hours for them to get back to us, and possibly 10-14 days to fix it, except as it is a *fault* and not a new installation we might, just might, get it done sooner
• No-one else can give us a service in less than 10 days

Today was stressful, and tomorrow will be worse if the b******ds haven't got it working properly.

On the upside, it is a voidable contract, and we'll get our costs back --- or else

Off-roading

I’m barely home before I’m away again. This time business takes me to Skye and Uist with a large number of clients to see in a very short period of time – as usual.

The trip has proved very successful, seeing every client I expected to, bar one, and some new clients to boot. The absence of broadband, wireless connections or even mobile phone signals in much of the islands is frustrating, but it was only a few years ago that you could live without any of these, so it is a challenge to go back to the last decade and relive the hardships!

The ferry from Berneray is cancelled due to low tides, so I find myself with four hours to burn before the next, and after buying a newspaper in Lochmaddy I wile away a few minutes working out how the rudimentary SatNav works. Having got it working (and heaven alone knows why I bothered) it guides me in the quickest route from Lochmaddy to Stornoway, which as it turns out involves the ferry to Skye and apparently 11 hours of travel.

“Prepare to turn left”, I am instructed, and I do so early, stopping off in the Lochmaddy Hotel for some lunch, much to the apparent disgust of the voice. After lunch it is silent until I remember and switch it on as I pass Donnie Johnson’s quarry. I disregard the instruction to “Make a U-turn, if safe!” and carry on to Otternish, where apparently I remain “off road” until Leverburgh.

You couldn't make it up...

From Sunday Times Scotland

IT MAY be the protector of wildlife but Scottish Natural Heritage has a problem. Its new £15m HQ appears to be giving some species the bird.

Some of them can’t see the glass-fronted building in Inverness, and are killed crashing into it.

Since its opening two months ago there have been several fatalities, including a greenfinch and a gold crest. Cleaners have been hired to remove the dead birds.

Staff have been told to leave lights on at night to reduce casualty figures but other measures are being considered, such as erecting cardboard cutouts of hen harriers to scare the birds away, or introducing a real bird of prey to act as a natural deterrent.

“Birds are flying straight into the glass and dropping down dead around the building,” said a Heritage member. “One solution has been to leave office lights on but others, such as reflective strips and cutouts of birds of prey, are being looked at.”

The building has solar panels to reduce electricity costs and gathers rainfall in an underground tank to flush toilets. It won an environmental award last year and was commended by Rhona Brankin, deputy environment minister.

Widespread use of glass is intended to make the building energy efficient.

But critics say designers overlooked the effect of so much glass on wild birds, which fail to recognise the reflections of trees or sky and fly straight into plate glass windows.

Amanda Bryan, chair of SNH’s north area board, said the matter would be investigated. “Every step will be taken to resolve the problem. Clearly, people will not be happy about this,” she said.

A spokesman for SNH said: “We are monitoring collisions at Great Glen House with a view to targeting the areas of greatest risk to birds and will look into mitigation options to prevent further casualties occurring. At a local level such mortality is highly unlikely to have any effect on bird populations.”

Doreen Graham, of the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said: “Glass is a known killer of birds. A simple solution is to fit blinds which cut out the glare and can reduce collisions. That is something SNH may have to look at.”

Meanwhile, attempts to revive the great bustard, once Britain’s biggest bird, are floundering after most of those released into the wild were killed by foxes or crashed into power lines and fences.

Organisers of the project said last week that only 12 of the 55 birds imported as chicks from the banks of the River Volga since 2004 were still alive. They admitted that many of the ungainly 2ft 6in high game birds had died because radio- tracking devices fitted to them were too heavy.

The birds, weighed down by the transmitters, were weakened and then attacked by foxes. Others were killed on cables or fencing as they tried to gain height.

Carbon audits

Carbon audits sound like A Good Idea until you look a bit deeper and realise that it is nothing but hot air. The theory of checking every single home to determine their carbon footprint and improve efficiency can only help in the battle against global warming, but not by much.

There are already a number of these schemes on the go, for instance Tigh Blath in the Western Isles, but they need substantial inputs of cash to fund the improvements. The biggest single help to keep houses warm in the Western Isles is to have a porch to shelter the house. Unfortunately, when houses are being funded by Communities Scotland (and that means every single new public sector house) they is no financial provision for a porch, defeating all other energy efficiency measures.

The simplest solution would be to tax ordinary tungsten bulbs very highly, and use that money to subsidise energy efficient bulbs. The only way to persuade many people is financial, and the simple tools are the easiest.

Before Tony Blair gets too far onto his high horse, perhaps he should reconsider flying to the Carribean giving the heavily polluting nature of air travel. Oh, and get Prescott to give up his Jaguars.