Letters / Food for thought
Well, with the way “majority” gets banded about in these letters, why I am not surprised that Mr Tinkler is carrying the torch for the 7,000 to 8,000 people who didn’t bother getting involved in the campaign.
After all, he did after all get a “majority” during the local council election, so who better to represent the bulk of Shetland’s population.
Rosa, let’s look at the facts:-
Population of Shetland – 22,000
Population of age to vote – 12,000
Against Vote – 2,700
For Vote – 1,000
People who didn’t vote – 8,000 plus
The actual majority did not vote for or against, which means they either didn’t have time, got better things to do or really don’t care.
Mr Gibson raises a very, very good point. “Sustainable” Shetland claim 2,700 people out rightly object to VE, but the truth is some people only object to parts of it, as the planning process allows.
This makes interesting reading when you also take into consideration how many people objected to the project that have no links to Shetland and permanently live outwith. This could be said for both sides of the campaign but I very much doubt someone on mainland UK took the time to say they thought it was a good idea.
Finally, I would like to use recent events on the stock market to compare the risks of investing. If the charitable trust had decided VE was not the investment that suited them but instead was advised that First Group transport, which were bidding for the west coast rail franchise, were a far better investment, would there have been the same outcry?
First Group won the west coast rail franchise, and then lost it due to negligence from the government during the bidding process. Their yearly profits have dropped by £100 million, they have cancelled the dividend and have issued a share dilution to raise £650 million to service debt. On top of all this their share price dropped 30 per cent.
Food for thought.
Best Regards
Craig Johnson
Northmavine
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