Cromarty Rising

Some of you may have seen the Herald’s story today – “Ministers misled parliament on oil transfers at prime dolphin site” http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/15356177.Ministers__misled_Parliament__on_oil_transfers_at_prime_dolphin_site/

It tells the sorry tale of how we’ve been sold down the river by the Scottish Government. We’ve tried playing politics and have had enough – its about time this is out in public and we are glad that the Herald felt they were able to do that.  Here’s the statement the Scottish Government gave the Herald:

“The Scottish Government was not invited to respond by the Department of Transport during the original application process. As has already been made clear, Marine Scotland officials were included in a mass email from environmental consultants, with no direct approach. There is no evidence to support these allegations and it is simply wrong to suggest a response was blocked. As is normal practice, civil servants in different policy areas discuss and exchange views on matters of overlapping interest.”

Enough is enough – the whole issue hangs on whether the Scottish Government (via their arm Marine Scotland) were consulted or not.  We have a number of emails to support our assertion that they were consulted – these have been obtained by FOI. They clearly show that consultation was undertaken between Intertek and Marine Scotland – we published the MS response last night, so MS must have thought they had been consulted in order to prepare such a detailed response but for some reason our own Scottish Government deny they were “invited to respond” but were part of a “mass mailing”. How can we be wrong to say the response was blocked when MS prepared one but didn’t send it? What would be the point in going to all that work? What kind of idiots do the Scottish Government think we are? We are going to publish these emails for the next 8 nights or so. See for yourself – are we lying or are own government lying. Remember these emails were obtained from a Marine Scotland FOI – so although a lot of the details have been redacted they all come from within MS. Rumours of the CFPA lobbying Scottish Government are rife around the Port and environs – we don’t know how much truth there is in that but is there are other reason we have been sold down the river by our own Government or are we missing something?

Democracy – a definition: A system of government in which power is vested in the people, who rule either directly or through freely elected representatives.

Not a system of government vested in the interests of an autonomous trust created to manage a public asset.

EXHIBIT 1 below: