Views
Improved basic services still needed - for The Inverness Courier
INVERNESS Chamber of Commerce has been highlighting the importance of broadband connections in the last couple of weeks, and the significant gap which exists between advertised speeds and the service which businesses in the Highlands receive in practice.
The Chamber is right to identify this as a big issue. It is already vitally important to the competitiveness of many local companies, and it will only become more so. Broadband is also important at home, as more and more culture and media becomes available online.
The Government showed some good intentions when it produced its Digital Britain report back in June — although there were also some ideas which raised concern.
There are two key areas where progress must be achieved in the new parliamentary term. The first is to make the 2Mbps 'universal service commitment' that the Government proposes a robust reality instead of a pipe dream. The second is to ensure that BT's upgrade of its network to 'superfast broadband' pays proper heed to the parts of the country which currently have the poorest service overall.
Both of these should bring improvement locally, but I suspect a great deal more honesty in the broadband sales department would also not go amiss, and I hope Ofcom will put strong guidelines in place so that happens — and so people only pay for what they are getting.
On another front, I am looking forward to meeting Scotrail in the near future, to discuss the service they provide locally, and the fare structure which they use.
A constituent recently drew to my attention that it is very often considerably cheaper to buy a ticket to Aberdeen from Inverness than from Nairn. Further investigation revealed that the same anomaly applies to journeys to Edinburgh and Glasgow, where passengers from Inverness and Aviemore can obtain 'Advance Single' tickets for £10, while passengers from other Highland stations along their route must pay £17.50 for the same ticket.
All of this is not so bad if you live in Inverness or Aviemore, but even then it reflects a rail ticketing system which is unnecessarily complex and all too frequently nonsensical.
Not long after I raised the point with Scotrail, a survey by Which? revealed that station staff themselves failed to identify the cheapest available ticket for passengers in a remarkably high percentage of cases. I can't say I blame the station staff, but surely we must be able to come up with a system which is easier for all — and that makes good value for money the norm rather than the exception.
So, in more ways the one, what we need to see is greater speed and greater transparency in the pricing process.
LOCKERBIE
The news as I write — and I suspect for some days to come — is dominated by news of the release of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi, the man convicted in 2001 for the bombing of Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie, with the loss of 270 lives.
Opinion is sharply divided over the Justice Secretary's judgement that Megrahi should be allowed to return to Libya on compassionate grounds, given strong medical evidence that he is in the final months of his life. The decision is made considerably murkier by the questions which have been raised over the years about the safety of Megrahi's conviction.
My own view is that Megrahi should not have walked free, and I do not feel comfortable about the way in which the decision to release him was taken.
People have talked about the virtue in showing mercy to someone in Megrahi's circumstances, and I agree very strongly that there is virtue in being able to forgive the people who have done even the greatest wrongs against us.
However, forgiveness is normally a matter for each of us individually. It is only very exceptionally something which a politician can extend on behalf of an entire country and — at least by appearance — on behalf of hundreds of bereaved families. It is even harder when the person involved has not admitted their crime, or shown any sense of remorse.
The sentence passed at Camp Zeist in the Lockerbie case was not an act of vengeance: it was an act of justice.
If he is responsible for the death of 270 innocent civilians — by far the biggest terrorist atrocity in Scottish history. It is right that Megrahi should have remained in prison until his death.
If he is not responsible, then he should have continued with his appeal. It is certainly not for the Justice Secretary to clear him of his crime, and he has not done so.
I hope that in the aftermath of this unsatisfactory ending to the Lockerbie case, the families of the bombing's victims may get some overdue answers to their questions – those who can forgive the perpetrators and those who cannot.
Posted on: 15/08/2009
