"THE last thing the Northern Isles want is to be ruled by Glasgow trade unionists and Edinburgh lawyers.”
Wise words spoken by my Liberal predecessor but one, Jo Grimond.
Jo was a life-long advocate of Home Rule but, like many in the Northern Isles, was suspicious of how it would work in practice.
That suspicion shaped in many ways the debate in first the Campaign for a Scottish Assembly and then The Constitutional Convention. The election of a Scottish Parliament by proportional representation was designed to provide some reassurance that it would not open the door to domination of the edges by the centre.
The argument worked and by 1997 the islands were prepared to join the rest of Scotland on its devolutionary journey. In recent years, however, the old fears have arisen again and, when viewed from our end of the telescope, look increasingly justified.
It was never the intention of those of us who campaigned for Home Rule or Devolution (depending on which part of the political spectrum you came from) that we should replace a highly centralised model of government from London with the some model just run from Edinburgh. Since 2007 and the election of an SNP Government in Holyrood, however, that is exactly what has happened.
Piece by piece control of vital public services has been sucked upwards away from local communities.
It is often said that power without accountability is a dangerous thing. Scotland’s councillors now find themselves in an even worse and more dangerous situation – accountability without power. A once proud and world leading model of economic and community development in Highlands and Islands Enterprise (and, before that, The Highlands and Islands Development Board) has been stripped of its power and driven from Edinburgh.
Looking ahead, Highlands and Islands Airports (HIAL) is hell-bent on removing air traffic control from local airports to a single site in Inverness – deaf to local concerns about safety and the quality of service and indifferent to the impact on communities of the loss of so many good quality high paid jobs.
It was a surprise to few in Shetland that earlier this week Shetland Islands Council voted overwhelmingly to support a motion calling for greater autonomy for the isles.
The motion reflects the frustration that has been growing for years at the imposition of “one size fits all” solutions but it is more than just an angry cry. It is a demand to do things differently and a recognition that services designed close to the point of delivery will always be better than those designed and delivered from the centre.
The case for better and more local control of public services is one that will be heard and understood across the Highlands and Islands, in the Borders and the North East too.
Scotland’s greatest strength is its diversity of communities, languages, cultures and economies. Cramming them all into a single box of “One Scotland” hampers creativity and leaves us all worse off as a result.
Alistair Carmichael is the Liberal Democrat MP for Orkney and Shetland
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel