Not only do people here deserve high fuel prices, that is what they really, really want. It is the only conclusion I can come to.
The editor of the local paper in Uist has put a petition up on the Scottish Parliament website calling on our politicians to take firmer action to get our fuel prices here under control. Otherwise, these islands are going to be cleared of people. Businesses will not come here. A place for rich southerners to retire but no businesses and no industry. And no work.
Yet the locals from the Butt of Lewis to Barra just do not care. They are not interested in signing the petition by Helen Coxshall of Am Paipear.
They simply do not care that fuel is already more than £1.40 a gallon - and rising. What is the other explanation? At the time of writing, only 744 people have bothered to sign up and show their support. And plenty of them do not even live in Scotland.
Make no mistake, we are being ripped off by our own government. Firstly, they add fuel duty. Then, as if that was not enough, they add VAT. The higher the basic price, the higher the taxes. They could reduce both these taxes if they wanted. They do it in other European countries and this government has voted for that to happen. But not for their own Scottish islands. No way. Not enough votes in that. Our politicians have raised it, of course. Briefly. Then they promptly went back to the usual phoney inter-party wars.
Government ministers will not do it out of the goodness of their hearts. Why? Because so few in the islands will even take two minutes to put their names on an online petition. Why should the government lower these taxes? No-one is creating a fuss about it. Islanders are so complacent. If this was the price in London, thousands would be protesting up and down Whitehall and blocking the gates of Downing Street. Cockney lorry drivers are already protesting - and their diesel is nothing like as expensive as here.
With an adult population of 20,000 in the Western Isles, you would think most people here would want to be associated with what this petition calls for. But no. Oh well. Sorry Helen, it must have seemed like a good idea but the people have spoken. Or, rather, they can’t be bothered to. If anyone is even remotely interested, here’s the link:
http://epetitions.scottish.parliament.uk/view_petition.asp?PetitionID=250
1 response so far ↓
Archie // October 2, 2008 at 12:16 pm
Well, it looks like someone must have taken notice of your comments!
We eventually managed to get 6,000 signatures and, strangely enough, most of them via paper copies of the petition. And that was enough for the Petitions Committee at the Scottish Parliament to take the issue forward.
So hopefully we will see something being done about the cost of fuel in the islands.
Maybe the number of online signatories (which eventually reached about 2,500) tells us a little bit about how many people go online in the islands, or at least how many engage in island issues online. Maybe they’re all too busy ordering food from Tesco and jeans from Next!
But they did sign in large numbers when the petition was in front of them on local shop and Post Office counters, so I guess that does say that the issue is an emotive one.
Maybe our next petition should be to ensure that local people engage with local issues when they connect to the internet?
Thanks for highlighting our campaign and for your support.
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