RET story leaked

At the weekend Mr Angus and I were sent a press release from HQ about RET which was so secret and confidential we were not allowed to see it, and had to fill in the blanks for our comments with our eyes closed, before faxing it on to Donnie MacInnes at the Stornoway Gazette.

Mr Angus made a clever and intelligent comment about RET being able to "lower the water table" or "taking water off the table" or something similar, whilst I just praised Mr Alex for bringing the needed rains to the islands using publicly subsidised ferries, and reminding the voters that under Labour there had been no rain on the islands in living memory, and no ferries either.

It then turned out that we were calling for Road Equal Travel to be introduced on all the ferries that Mr Alex has brought to the islands. This will be a wonderful scheme if it were introduced, but I have not been told yet what it will involve, but I know that if Mr Alex and Mr John are involved then it will be wonderful, as I told them both.

Mr Stewart is coming to the islands next week to make the announcement, and hopefully I will be told the details before the meeting. I think Mr Angus might know something as himself and Rhona are having private little meetings in the cupboard, which is obviously very warm as Mr Angus is always having to button his shirt up when he emerges.

But then Kenny draws my attention to Voldemort's website where he has published full details of the scheme, including the prices, which shows that it is more expensive for some of the journeys which seems to send Kenny into a spin. He was cursing in some kind of weird Ness Gaelic dialect which neither Alan nor I could understand, except for the occasional obscenity.

I phone Mr Stewart in tears (that is to say I was in tears, he was just furious and shouting) to explain that the details of what he intended to say appear to have been leaked and to apologise for being the bearer of bad news. After listening to a mere two-hour dressing down, he promised to be able to deflect this bad news story with some other good news which he would pass to Mr Angus later.

Rhona took me aside later and announced that she had been appointed as mole-finder General, and would be tapping all the phones, faxes, mobiles and emails and she would be in charge of opening all incoming post and ensuring that outgoing messages had a secret code embedded into the print to allow us to identify the sources of information. I had nothing to worry about, she said, "As you never say anything interesting anyway", and, "I'll make sure that you receive only the bare minimum of information, relevant or not."

Mr Angus has already left a message from Rhona on the new recording equipment as a test, he said, and she goes bright red and blows him a big kiss to indicate that the equipment is working.

Kenny returns to advise that six new infra-red cameras have been installed in the toilet.

Constituents met: 1
Journeys more expensive under RET scheme: 4
Cups of rosehip, fennel and peppermint tea drunk: 1