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Am Bratach No. 213
POSTBOX SNP seemed to draft bill with a ‘degree of militancy’ We are not only in the “silly season” but living in “strange times”, when on the one hand the Scottish government produces a “Shucksmith crofting bill” in bold defiance of crofter opposition to the Shucksmith Report last summer, but then the Northern Times keeps out of harm’s way by failing to report the more than lively meetings at Lairg and Durness, on June 9 and 10 respectively, when the consultation road-show reached the Raggie’s patch. (So far, we have had to make do with a pertinent letter from Iain Mackenzie of Elphin, on June 19.) Another bizarre thing is that the SNP government had no responsibility for the original report, yet is now promoting the sequel, a complex piece of legislative drafting, with unusual speed and an apparent touch of militancy. But will SNP fare better at Holyrood than the Labour/Lib-Dem coalition with their original bill? It was like old times when John Farquhar Munro, MSP, convenor of the cross-party group on crofting, popped up on the BBC’s Highland News on Wednesday morning, June 17, to declare that he had serious doubts about the latest one. He is a formidable fighter for the survival of crofting, whether in face of a surge of speculation (2005); a predicted worsening of this situation from an aspect of the would-be antidote, the first Crofting Reform bill itself (2006); or the cutting off of capital flows for crofters by a draconian law to stop virtually any sale of land (2009). Mr Munro’s very willingness to risk accusations of inconsistency and defy on occasion his own party make him a real force to be reckoned with. The reputedly “pro-Shucksmith” Patrick Krause of the Scottish Crofting Foundation, cross-party group secretary, may find him difficult to circumvent. All this being said, it would
be a sad irony if crofting were to finish up with no sensible
regulation of land use and land sales, simply because of the
ingenious abstractions of civil servants, and the gyrations of
political personalities who started out from similar positions
and shared ideals. |