Crass BBC decision (Larraine Gray)

John, I have advocated autonomy for Shetland for many a long year now. I worked in the oil industry in various ways, my entire working life. When oil first came to Shetland, and Council Executive Ian Clark pulled off the coup of the century, I thought then was the time. Unfortunately after that, greed overtook some of those who should have been the saviours of Shetland. Since then, I have seen nobody coming forward with the breadth of knowledge and experience to run an autonomous Shetland (unless you start encouraging the many females in Shetland who are!) in my time in Shetland I knew and worked with at least six of them.
My comment wasn’t directed at Wir Shetland per se, it was directed at the dearth of local people capable of running it, and the perils of allowing the ‘carpetbaggers’ to take over. So John, I raise my Cafe Cortado ( not Solo) and slurp my Ponche Caballero (Pina Coladas are for wusses!) and wish you the best of luck in your endeavours, however I fear Shetland is starting to sound ripe for the blandishments of UKIP.

John, I am trying to keep quiet here but it is almost impossible when I read things like: “Councillors are part-time, poorly paid and expected to command a range of mind-bogglingly complex issues. They can’t lead the officials, they depend on them.” Is your tongue firmly in your cheek when you write this sort of thing? Or do you actually believe it? For example, what actual evidence do you have for implying a correlation between the level of remuneration for elected members – anywhere in the UK – and their ability to master issues?

The fact is that elected members in Shetland are all intelligent people. They are dedicated to their positions. They receive reports which set out the options and require them to make decisions. They are not misled or misinformed by officials, as you persistently imply. The reports are all transparent. It’s that simple. One can debate and question the decisions that have been made around the reports but not the process.

You can’t expect folk to agree with your predictions for an independent Shetland if your view of the present and past is so skewed.

John – what is yawn-inducing is your refusal to admit that elected members have final responsibility for the actions of the SIC. And I would quote back to you the “inability” of the SIC not to continually draw on the reserves over many years.

John – “Elected members are charged with final responsibility for the actions of the council, I have never denied that.” At last, we are in agreement. You do try very hard to deny it in the rest of your lengthy post, though. It makes the case for self-government trickier if one admits that successive councils have been less than perfect. Maybe councillors in Argyll and Bute are perfect too?

Don’t you think it odd, by the way, that not a single elected SIC member has ever posted on here in agreement with you (to my knowledge) when you have so nobly defended them?

@John Tulloch – “It’s clear from your post that you, either, know nothing about leadership and management in organisations or you are being deliberately obtuse for some imagined benefit to the SNP.” We can discount the latter, John – I don’t speak for the SNP: not everyone has a political agenda. I’ll leave that to SNP spokespeople. So maybe you can point out to me precisely and clearly where my post (or indeed any of my posts) shows a failure to understand “leadership and management in organisations”? To help you, I am saying that councillors in Shetland, like all across the rest of Scotland, lead their council through the policy and decisions they set and make; and officers advise them through reports. I would have thought that was pretty basic knowledge when it comes to “leadership and management in organisations”?

@John Tulloch – I asked you to point out to me precisely and clearly where my post (or indeed any of my posts) showed a failure to understand “leadership and management in organisations”, which is what you accused me of – and it’s a pretty serious and insulting accusation. And now you have nothing more to say? So am I to take it that you have nothing at all to back up your accusation?

Wir Shetland is approaching a crossroads. Mr Tulloch says that he has been looking carefully at what the political parties are offering Shetland. But all four of the candidates already selected want to stay in the Common Market. So presumably WS will have to back UKIP, if they stand this time – Wir Shetland has many characteristics in common with that party – or find their own candidate. Maybe Mr Tinkler?

🙂 Good one, Brian!

You’re right, all four parties advocate the UK staying in the EU.

Wir Shetland holds that, as things currently stand, Shetland would be better off outside the EU. No equivocation about that.

However, Wir Shetland is not campaigning, specifically, to leave the EU. We are campaigning for self-government with the power to leave the EU if the democratically-elected government and the population see fit to do so.

Ergo, the candidates’ positions on devolution of local powers to Shetland and other islands are our focus, not their views on “Brexit” or “Bremain” which are of little consequence to our campaign.

My apologies to “Shetland” fans for this continued intrusion into their thread, I can’t get away from ‘neo-Pictish guerrilla warfare’ 🙂 – they’ve chosen this as their field in which to make diversionary attacks.

“Hatred of the SNP”, Brian? Why, they make Wir Shetland’s job so easy!

It may have escaped your notice that the SNP are the government of the day, the “power that be’s”, the effects of whose actions on SIC funding, education, ferries, emergency services – and…. and… and.. – have been extremely damaging for Shetland.

Throw in their unctuous, ‘kicking the can down the road’, response to Our Islands’ Our Future’s Oliver Twist-like plea for increased local powers and you have something which must be campaigned against with every fibre of our being.

Brian,

That,’s certainly an option and presumably you think it’s a logical one, at least, from Wir Shetland’s perspective?

Wir Shetland is not ready to announce its electoral intentions.

(BTW, you’re right, we’re unlikely to back Mr Skene – damn, how did you work that one out?)

If you were in my shoes, what would be your argument for going the Scott route, as opposed to supporting, say, Labour’s Robina Barton – or even an independent?

Whatever we do, you may rest assured it will be in what we perceive to be Shetland’s best interests; for we have no other axe to grind, it’s why we exist.

Ah, here it comes, the SNP’s adaptation of Norman Tebbit’s notorious “cricket test”.

The point you spectacularly miss Gordon [like SO many others] is, whatever figures are presented to ANY economist on the planet, they will ALL come to the same conclusion. Does this then mean that the figures they were presented with, ALL had to be correct in the first place?

We’ve already seen – and it has been proven time and time again – that the OBR/IFS figures are guesstimates at best, we already know they have never been right in their entire history, we already know that ALL these guesstimated corporations were politically created by the very people that needed to manipulate economic figures for their own agenda.

And yet here you are, spouting these SAME old tired guesstimates based on pretendy facts?
The ONLY ‘unbalanced views’ we have here, are your own, your gullibility is frankly mindboggling?

Do yourself [and the rest of us] a favour Gordon, look to the source of why, who and where these corporations began? Perhaps then, that elusive light bulb may suddenly click on for that rare eureka moment?… [although I don’t think I’ll hold my breath somehow?…./Sigh]

Gordon

That is the very reason why I asked you to ‘look to the source of why, who and where these corporations began?’ Don’t take my word for it – or anyone else you imagine has a hidden agenda – they were created by our London – centric establishment.

I don’t dispute the findings of the ‘economic consultants Europe economics’, But, much like our GERS figures, they have come to their conclusion based on ‘given’ figures, in other words, who presented them with their figures in the first place?

The ‘Only’ smoke and mirrors being used are by the very companies supplying us with guesstimates pretending to be facts. You could be the best economist in the world, but you’re Only as good as the information you’re given.

Gordon

Have you ever heard the expression ‘Even a broken clock is right twice a day?’

‘The GERS figures published last week were for 2014-15. Three years ago the OBR forecast that they’d be £6bn. A year later it had slashed that prediction by over 33%, to under £4bn. A year later it had cut it by another 50%, to £2bn.
Over the same period, the OBR’s projections for next year have plummeted from £4.5bn to zero.
The OBR’s 2013 prediction for 2016-18 oil revenues has now been “revised” from £8.5bn to MINUS £2bn, which is an ludicrous 124% margin of error.

Now that we’ve just confirmed how every oil expert and ‘economic think tank’ in the world got it wrong, [especially the OBR] would you like to show me the figures over the last 30/40 years?…OR, perhaps you’d like to take a stab in the dark and predict when the price of oil will go back up to $150 per barrel? And, when it does [which it will] does this then mean that independence is inevitable?

Ian

‘Fat Alex, nippy and Ewing’, …Really?….. I’m not entirely sure what your own issues are, [although I have a fair idea] but to resort to the level you’ve stooped to, does not warrant a civil answer.

Generally when someone is blinded by their own hatred of a thing or person, they resort to personal insults which have no bearing on the conversation, this is – more often than not – seen as losing the argument.

Nicola, not having any children [as you pointed out in a previous post] or Alex being overweight, are both irrelevant to their political beliefs…. Sometimes Ian, it’s far better to put your foot into a shoe rather than in ones mouth?

Robin, even a stopped clock is right twice a day, not a great analogy to make your very poor point. Its meaning is thus; A normally unreliable person or instrument can occasionally provide correct information, even if only by accident. This is more fitting to an industry which is so volatile and unpredictable. Had you listened to the better Together campaign you would have understood the message we put out and realised we were so right. Oh and I exclude Cameron, the OBR and many others from the Better Together campaign.

No defence of your wild oil price prediction then Robin?