Dave Thompson MSP

The Editor.
West Highland Free Press.

Dear Sir.

I hope Brian Wilson has had time for reflection after his intemperate article on Raasay in last week’s Free Press.

Brian and I go back a long way, having first met in the seventies when I lived in Stornoway, and I have respect for his undoubted journalistic abilities. Unfortunately, Brian let his bitterness towards the SNP and Independence cloud his judgment and resorted to abusing me in the article in an unfortunate personal way.

I give credit to him for often writing good material on Highlands and Island’s issues and it is unfortunate that he couldn’t engage the Highland electorate sufficiently to get elected. He eventually abandoned the attempts when he moved to a Central Belt seat whilst I remained in the North and have been a Highland MSP for the past 6 years.

As far as Raasay is concerned, the matter was first raised with me on 14th January and I immediately vigorously pursued it. The difficulty was that a legal contract had been entered into and the only way out was to go back on that contract. As your readers will know, such a course of action can prove to be difficult and expensive and it is to the credit of the Minister, Paul Wheelhouse, that he managed to reach an amicable agreement with South Ayrshire Stalking which has allowed us to reinstate the rights to the Raasay crofters for a year. This will allow consultation over the best way forward for the Raasay crofters and the community as a whole and I still hope that Community Ownership of Raasay is seriously considered as one of the options.

Brian Wilson also claimed in his article that the Minister’s letter of 22 February clearly implied that there was “no room for manoeuvre so let’s move on” but he obviously didn’t read the last sentence which said “If there are any further developments in the dialogue with South Ayrshire Stalking, I will of course keep you informed at the earliest opportunity”. That dialogue, which I was strongly encouraging, paid off, and the Scottish government corrected its mistake.

Surely that is one of the marks of good government, and is the difference between what this SNP government does and what our predecessors did.

As the MSP for Skye, I am proud to have played a part in ensuring that the right thing was done on Raasay and will continue to stand up for my constituents whenever needed.

Yours faithfully.

Dave Thompson MSP