A Place to Stand

Dear Nicol Stephen (formerly LudDim Transport Minister & then party leader),

You may have noticed this report in the Herald recently.

The controversial decision to scrap the Glasgow Airport Rail Link (Garl) has cost the taxpayer £40 million...

The figures detailed in Stevenson’s parliamentary answer show that the costs incurred relating to “the close out” of the Garl project were almost £19m on branch line works, £7.6m for combined work on the Glasgow to Paisley main line and branch line and around £6.75m paid for land, legal and consultancy bills.

The figures do not include VAT, which would add another £5m, nor the £3m cost of the original Bill to allow work to go ahead.

Alexander said: “SNP ministers have now admitted their decision to cancel the Glasgow Airport Rail Link has cost over £40m.

As you know some years ago I wrote to you, while you were the Scottish transport Minister (& before it had been officially decided that being in favour of running the country competently was "illiberal", "too right wing" to be contemplated & "incompatible with (my) party membership" suggesting that a better option would be an automated monorail. You will recall that the in initial reply you had sent was that this option would be considered but only if I could find some company will to timider for the job. When I did indeed find such a company, ULTra, who were doing a similar job at Heathrow & who expressed their willingness to tender for a price around £20 million, you will recall that I received a 2nd letter advising that the statement that you would be willing to consider this if I found somebody should not have been taken to mean that you would consider this if I found somebody. Instead I was told that the government would only ever, under any circumstances, be willing to look at any new ideas if they had been brought up by the leaders of the parties in government.

That certainly provides full inoculation against any form of innovation.

I do not know if congratulations are in order or not. By your personal decision you have cost the Scottish people, in this case alone, over £41.3 million to achieve absolutely nothing when, for the price of £20 million, you could have had the airport link which was the alleged intent of this project. If the real intent was to corruptly defraud the taxpayer to provide money for your friends & for government workers then you have indeed achieved a very clever fraud. If, on the other hand, you ever had the remotest intent of doing your job honestly you have proven to be an incompetent & indeed blithering idiot who, along with the party that subsequently made you leader, should never, under any circumstances whatsoever be trusted with anything more complicated than a knife & fork.

I do congratulate you on the decision of yopur party to elevate you to the leadership, thereby proving that they believed you to be the most competent person in that party.

I ask you to let me know if you, or anybody in your party, wishes to claim that you were not engaged in deliberate theft of public money.

Whether we are dealing with moronic incompetence or deliberate fraud, or indeed both, I trust you will not dispute that this & your subsequent elevation to leadership, proves that under no circumstances can any member of your party credibly claim to be fit for any responsible role in government.

Hopefully, at some stage in the future some part of the Holyrood "numptocracy" will be willing to show some interest in achieving competence & value for money (or at least something more than the -200% level you have achieved. For example we both know that the laws of engineering which allowed this airport link to be built for £20 million still exist & as has been proven at Heathrow, this project could still go forward if any significant part of Holyrood actually wanted this link rather than merely to divvy out the cash.
Neil Craig

Sent to him & CC'd to some associates. I apologise if this seems a bit of a rant but the fact that useless morons like this (omitting mention of their, at best, moral blindness in promoting genocide) are responsible for running our country into the ground offends me.

Continued next day with what that lost extra £20 million could have done.

Labels: Government parasitism, Science/technology, Scottish politics