Statement by Alasdair Morrison, Labour Candidate
Parliamentary candidate Alasdair Morrison has written to the SNP urging them to support him in a cross-party initiative that would focus on improving ferry services to Uist and Barra. He has also demanded that the Lochboisdale – Mallaig route be an integral part of the tender document the Scottish Government is due to publish shortly.
See text of letter to Alasdair Allan MSP & Angus MacNeil MP below:
Dear Angus and Alasdair
Sadly, you have failed to reply to any of my reasonable requests to co-operate on a cross-party basis on issues of importance to the people and communities of our islands. Notwithstanding your baffling silence on these matters it is my intention to campaign positively and work with any like minded person, regardless of political affiliation.
Can I once again appeal to you to support our communities and insist that the Lochboisdale-Mallaig ferry route be part of the tender document the Edinburgh Government is putting together? You will be conversant with the shambolic three year winter trial your Government imposed on South Uist. It simply isn’t working. However, we should now work together to rectify the situation.
Councillors, community councils and tourism organisations have all stated that they want to see a proper all year trial on this route. Can I ask you to publicly state that you will urge the Transport Minister Derek Mackay to put in place a meaningful trial and that he also puts the Lochboisdale – Mallaig route in the ferry tender document that will shortly be published.
I would also urge you to insist that the tender process be completed before the Scottish Parliament elections so that the people of theses islands can clearly see which parties and representatives are actually fighting to improve services.
I do hope that you will respond to this request.
Leis gach deagh dhùrachd,
Alasdair Morrison
He //is// tied up in your shed, isn’t he?
Alasdair!
If you really want to win the election then may I suggest you Challenge Angus Brendan to a set of debates, one in each region of the island, stornoway , Harris, benbecula and Barra!
The debates will no doubt be packed out and without a doubt Angus will run a thousand miles, maybe to London.
Whilst I am bitterly disappointed in our current MP, I also regret that it may be some time before we can find another person of Donald Stewart’s outstanding qualities. Being that as it may, what choice are we left with?
We obviously cannot vote for the likes of the Tories as their main aim in life, with their cabinet of millionaire posh boys, is to enrich themselves and their bankster and financier chums; and who consider Scotland only of use as a playground and for stealing Scotland’s money and resources.
We cannot vote for the Whigs as, apart from toadying to the Tories for cabinet positions, have and will do nothing for the people of Scotland (or any other country in this disunited kingdom). In addition, if, God forbid, that they got into power under their own steam, we would be paying £50 a litre for fuel, living in caves and being forced into being vegetarians.
That brings me to the Red Tories (who also have a shadow cabinet full of millionaire posh boys and who, like the Tories, want Scotland for the money and resources they can steal from us; as well as to prop up their numbers in the Westminster parliament). The Labour MPs we have had in the past have done next to nothing for the islands or the islanders. That goes all the way back to Malcolm Kenneth Macmillan who, in his 35 years as our MP, hardly ever showed his face in the islands other than at election time. He spent all his time in enjoying the high life in London.
Perhaps, given the inactivity of our current MP, it is time we voted in an independent candidate. One who would realize his responsibilities in that an MP is elected to represent the wishes and needs of his constituents, and not revert to being a party hack and drone who blindly follows his party’s line even when it goes against his constituents.
I think Guga you should look at our previous MP’s records before coming out with your accusations having done next to nothing for the Islands.
The infrastructure of the Islands have a lot to thank M K Macmillan and Calum Macdonald for. M K was the man who gave us the Bernera Bridge, numerous causeways in the Uist’s. Also our Islands had the best water and sewage of all the Islands and Highlands while others were still having very little running water well in to the 1970’s thanks to the work of MK.
While Calum was our MP in opposition and in power he managed to deliver 2 new hospitals the Scalpay Bridge, The Eriskay causeway. He was also the first MP for the Islands to have Private Members Bill through the House of Commons, “the Crofter Forestry Act”.
I will say this though. Donald Stewart was a Gentleman who had time for everyone regardless of your political leanings and was a good constituency MP. I am of no doubt he would have been ashamed of our current MP who is a disgrace to his Party and our Islands.
What a good idea Ex-SNP supporter!
I am more than willing to organise the one in Barra, and I am sure Ronnie will organise the one in Lochboisdale ( on the ferry?).
I fear that Angus Brendan will do as his friend Cameron has done, and duck it with some lame excuse.
Perhaps he will do as he did in 2008, when he abandoned his constituents to go campaigning with another of his Tory friends David Davis, MP in a pointless by election?
Good luck with that Alasdair, but I am afraid that the deals have already been done to sell us down the river.
Agency staff are now used extensively throughout the CalMac fleet, on lower wages and poorer conditions than the rest of us. The MSP, and the MP already know this and have done nothing about it.
I will be retiring in a few years time, so it doesn’t matter so much for me, but I am afraid that young people looking for a good career, good conditions and a good pension will no longer get that when CalMac is privatised, with either Serco, or worse still Souter, running our lifeline services.
The SNP are desperate to recover some of the money they spent some years ago to reduce fares (now back at the same level) and they can only do this by a combination of privatisation and reduced services.
Talk comes cheap before act,what about the closure of ness secondary—silence may be golden,but also very revealing
Although Convenor ‘ Dokus’ is being blamed for the Ness Secondary closure,he is no more to blame than each of the other councillors who voted for closure. They must all share collective responsibility because each of their votes added up to the total needed to trigger the Convenor’s legal requirement to give his casting vote.
Yeah But he voted Twice!
Twice damn it!
So Dokus gets Double the Damnation!
Dave’s arithmetic just doesn’t add up . Lionel secondary school is due to close as a direct result of fifteen of the thirty Western Isles councillors voting for its closure.
Once it became known that the ballot was a dead heat , Convenor Dokus had no choice other than to use his casting vote for closure. Otherwise he would have been voting against himself : a practise which we must presume the Comhairle constitution prohibits, and rightly so.
Convenor Dokus can certainly be criticised for voting the way he did ,but anyone who does so must also criticise Councillors’ Campbell, MacCormack, Crichton, Mackay, Stewart…. etc in equal measure.
The insinuation by Dave that Convenor Dokus is doubly responsible for the closure of Lionel secondary is not only ridiculous ,but mathematically incorrect. If this is an example of the arithmetic taught at Lionel secondary, for the sake of young Niseachs who aspire to the accountancy profession, the sooner it closes the better.
The Comhairle does not specify that the Convener must vote the same way when using their casing vote. But if they did change their vote, they would look like a complete idiot, wouldn’t they?