Letters / What the Dickens?
Perchance SIC has been misrepresented in the media regarding their £40 million housing debt incurred at Westminster’s request to expedite the 1970s oil boom.
But it was reported widely, was it not, following talks with the Scottish and UK governments, that SIC had proposed Westminster and Holyrood each put up £10 million and then SIC would find the rest, externally, and from reserves?
Was it not also reported that this idea found favour with the Scottish government provided London paid up?
Was Alistair Carmichael not asked to use his good offices to persuade the Treasury to put up their £10 million and has he not delivered what was asked?
Jonathan Wills, a very senior SIC councillor, now thinks Westminster should refund the rest of the £40 million because his SNP “friends” are – unsurprisingly – trying to wriggle out of their part of the deal (I’m not angry; SN 13/12/13).
And perhaps he’s right, maybe Westminster should…..hmm, wait, let’s think about this for a moment?
If memory serves me right the story goes that Westminster caused the debt to be taken on during the 1970s oil boom and in the best traditions of political “pork-barrelling” expediency, found it easier to pay the interest on the loan via the housing support grant than to fork out the capital in full.
Previous SIC administrations, feebly, accepted that and but for the intervention of the devolved Scottish government who, misanthropically, seized the housing support grant money for their own purposes, that situation could have continued happily, in perpetuity.
Westminster are still paying SIC’s interest money to the Scottish government (who will now be keeping it for themselves) AND thanks to Alistair Carmichael, Westminster has also put up their £10 million as requested by SIC.
Now, I’m just a country boy but this seems fairly generous on the part of Westminster?
Yet here stands Jonathan Wills, Oliver Twist-like, palm outstretched, demanding more and disparaging his “friend” Alistair Carmichael for not forking out the lot.
What are we to make of this? Jonathan appears to be confusing his Dickens story plots here.
He shouldn’t be asking Alistair Carmichael for more as if he were Mr Bumble the Beadle in Oliver Twist, he should instead be taking his pro-SNP cronies “Bob Cratchet” Adams and “Tiny Tim” Smith down to Edinburgh to sing a Christmas Carol outside the Holyrood premises of “Ebeneezer Salmond-Scrooge” who crossly “scrumphelt” SIC’s letter tae Santy and stamped off, muttering “Bah! HUMBUG!”
God bless us, one and all!
John Tulloch
Lyndon
Arrochar
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