Well well. Wonder who else is reading this blog? Just hours after I mentioned appalling bullying by certain out-of-control Lewis grazings committee members – some of them who you would think would know better – the Scottish Government contacts a victim of these vicious bullies to confirm a proper map-based Crofting Register is being introduced as Part 2 of the Crofting Reform (Scotland) Act 2010.
Incoming crofters will soon be able to fix the boundaries based on the sale and other documents and objectors will have to come up with proper evidence if they think it is inaccurate. It may not completely stop the ongoing harrassment in certain Lewis villages but putting that into the Act instead of the current haphazard and unfair procedure by leaving it all up to the Little Hitlers on these committees is a splendid first step.
I have also heard today from people who have had to leave this island because of campaigns against them by these committees without shame. Nothing official, making life difficult, stealing, damaging, always at night. Drunkards and church-goers. They have all been at it. Makes you proud, eh?
As well as knowingly selling land they know will be snatched back by grazings committees, some solicitors know about the intimidation and turn a blind eye. If anyone else is unhappy about how island solicitors – and certain ones in Inverness – are handling these transactions, please let me know. Let’s build up some firm evidence – just like they would do. After all, one of these solicitors – who has obviously been watching too many Ku Klux Klan films – recently gave one woman the wonderful advice: “You’d better move on somewhere else. It is useless to complain. This is how things are done here. No one will listen to you – not even the press.”
Er, excuse me, Mr Dodgy Solicitor. That may have been the case then. Now some of us are definitely listening – and writing.
Grazing committees and their bandits, the “Ku Klux Klan” of the isles!!