SNP MSP FERGUS EWING: Constant and persistent questioning of the ‘powers that be’ is essential
Proper poetry rhymes, as my late father used to say. Rudyard Kipling was a favourite, and, like father like son.
Indeed, Kipling penned four lines which contain this useful advice for us all: “I keep six honest serving-men / (They taught me all I knew) / Their names are What and Why and When / And How and Where and Who.”
These were the “serving men” in my own Father’s “Army” - as he and his generation strongly believed that education should teach people how to think for themselves.
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A society where questioning is forbidden is a tyranny not a democracy. And in a democracy constant and persistent questioning of the “powers that be” is essential.
Perhaps our political leaders in Scotland and the UK should ask more questions of themselves too? For example, who amongst the very “clever” people that devised the poll tax in the ‘80s ever stopped to ask themselves: “How will they collect this tax down Brixton Way?” Good luck with that, as they say.
Here in bonnie Scotland, those behind the original commissioning of the Calmac ferries were seduced and beguiled by the notion that they would be fuelled by LNG - initially hailed as greener than marine diesel. Hmm. Not sure about that. But did anyone stop to ask if this pioneering new design of ferry would cost rather a lot more? Were we aiming for marine versions of the Rolls-Royce when the humble family saloon would have done perfectly well? Who did the sums? And who failed to ask whether there would be the infrastructure at our ports to supply the LNG to the ferries? Cos there ain’t!
Thinking things through and getting them done properly is a product of thorough and sustained questioning. To re-think a flawed plan is not failure but the only way to avoid it becoming even worse.
So, 2024 was for me, a year where I asked questions of the “powers that be”, whether in Holyrood or London.
For example: Why can the dualling of the A9 not be completed before 2035, when many in industry say it can? Why is there, even now, still no plan for the dualling of the A96 and Nairn bypass? How, moreover, has Transport Scotland managed to spend £89 million on the A96 when not a centimetre of tarmac has yet been laid? Maybe if this quango were based, at least partly, in Inverness, not Glasgow, they may have performed better.
Ironically, the truth about much of the costs and timetabling both of the A9 and A96 dualling projects has been withheld by the government and Transport Scotland from public gaze. Why? Because in the standard pro forma answers to Freedom of Information requests, they contend that to reveal these facts would “impair the high quality of policy and decision-making”. By that pretext they avoid making the truth public. Not sure they can say that with a straight face, but I kid you not.
When in Holyrood in the last week before Christmas, I quizzed transport secretary Fiona Hyslop on why there is still - after 13 years when the promises were made - no progress and no plan for the Nairn bypass despite the costs - she said that it was because progress must be “orderly” and the mode of funding had not been agreed.
I pointed out that the “orderly” process had now taken 13 years and also that the mode of funding the A9 dualling north of Drumochter had not been agreed either, but there was a timetable for that. So if there is a plan for the A9, why not for the A96? Answer: there was none.
As your man in Holyrood, it’s essential I ask these and other questions. It won’t and hasn’t made me popular - at least not amongst the ranks of the government front benches. My Christmas card haul received from them this year was much depleted! As Lance Corporal Jones in the TV series Dad’s Army somewhat indelicately put it: “They don’t like it up ‘em sir!”
Actually, I am trying to do them a favour. Honest. But to quote my late father: “Never do anyone a favour, they will never forgive you!”
Tribute to Harry Gow and Jim Walker
Over the past weeks we have lost two of the most hard-working, distinguished and generous people in business that we have seen in the Highlands and Scotland: Harry Gow, of bakery fame, and Jim Walker, of Walker’s shortbread.
We are all indebted to them for creating two hugely important businesses. Their great success was built on hard work and devotion to making things work in practice.
They will have, throughout their long lives in their businesses, asked the right questions at the right time, and so found the correct answers. Our thanks to both fine gentlemen and condolences to their families.
A very happy New Year to all Courier readers from myself and my team of Becca, Danielle and Rosie.
