Harris Tweed

The shocking thing about the decision by Mr Haggis to stop doing what my constituents who weave would like is not that a mere businessman is trying to run the business in the way that suits himself, rather than as I would like but that there is only one beneficiary from this entire operation.

Like the devil machines they were proposing to build at Arnish, the unholy have many faces. With Al*sd*ir M*rris*n and Brain Wislon running the other Harris Tweed mill on the islands they can be the only winners from this, and that must be stopped. I have submitted the following motion to the Parliament for early discussion.

"We the undersigned call on the First Minister (Mr Alex) to instruct Mr Haggis to restart production of all tweeds in all colours and quantities with immediate effect to prevent the Labour mill in Shawbost from being viable. Further, we call on Mr John to instruct the Valuation Board to raise a punitive assessment on the Labour mill with immediate effect; to be followed by a rotation of Health and Safety inspections, tax investigations, Minimum Wage visits, Environmental Health de-ratting inspections, and a mass raid by the Police to round up the unlicenced migrant workers from Stornoway. A demolition order, implemented with extreme prejudice, would also be appreciated."

I have also asked HQ to expel the so-called SNP supporter Alasdair "Rae" MacKenzie, who forthwith will be known as Mr Quisling.

Motions tabled this week: 1
Motions signed by me this week: 37
Letters from constituents: 1

Wind farm decision

There is sheer delight and unmitigated dancing in the streets of Stornoway street of Bragar as the announcement that the windfarm is to be banned is made.

No word was due for another few weeks, but at the annual conference Mr Angus made a verbal misstatement in the presence of the press and things moved quickly from there to where we are today.

On Saturday night, Mr Angus and I were talking at the Conference about the important matters that concern us, such as his development of a perpetual motion machine aged 3 which powered the whole of the West of Scotland for a week before the dilithium crystals broke and the hyperdrive was never the same again. At that moment Kenny came to see us bearing some drinks and some food - it was good to see him in a slightly ill-fitting waiter outfit dispensing nutrition to the important people, whilst knowing his place - when he offered me a Cranberry juice and a Tofu and Chocolate vol-a-vent. Mr Angus liberated three large whiskies and a small plate of peat-roasted barley-meal Europie buffalo-wings, made with the finest Europie chicken i.e. beach sperm whale marinaded in Tennants Lager for three months, and then flash fried in guga oil, whilst announcing that they were to be charged to his John Lewis expenses.

Calling loudly for a piper, he passed the food and drinks to his two female colleagues, and announced loudly to the room that he "was going upstairs to explain to the ladies just how he had personally stopped the Lewis Wind Farm and how the women of Lewis would be falling at his feet when it was announced shortly." Unfortunately I think this might have been overheard by some of the guests at the press reception, who thoughtlessly carried the news the following day and started contacting Mr Jim.

Mr Angus was red faced the next day, which he explained as carpet burns, and an emergency decision was taken to rush out the refusal immediately, irrespective of the merits of the case. What power I have to influence the Minister into doing what he tells me he is going to do. MWT have already promised to hold a street party in my honour, to which I will have to invite Mr Angus, as soon as they all come to Lewis for their holidays. They have promised that all the school children at all the affected schools will throw palm leaves at our feet and carve our names with pride into the peat banks for posterity.

MWT have also asked me to campaign against the schools closures, which the Council claim to result from a drop in pupil numbers from 500 to 17 in the past ten years, with a projected role of not more than 3 by 2011. What rubbish - the absence of children shouldn't be a bar on keeping the schools open, and I am sure that the Council can find the money by cutting their non-essential expenditure on things such as Polish language bin collections, twining with Riyadh and Bora-Bora, translating everything into Gaelic and paying for Councillors to visit the offices in Stornoway.

Expenses claimed: £7,445
Windfarms destroyed: 1
Gauva and kiwifruit tea drunk: 1 pot

Ex-employee

I came into the office today to hear Rhona screaming down the phone, obscenities spewing from her lips like a wino in the Grassmarket. Nothing struck me as unusual until she burst into tears and ran to the toilet, pausing only to flatten Kenny with a right-hook and knocking him from his chair so that his head banged against the barrel of pickled hooper swans he keeps for snack-attacks.

As I tried to resuscitate Kenny - I drew the line at mouth-to-mouth, as he tastes of a mix of Embassy fags and illegally syphoned red diesel - Rhona reappeared having repainted her face and drawn a wide swipe of scarlet lipstick across her face, most of which was on her mouth, and tried to arrange a video conference call to Mr Angus, who seemed to be constantly unavailable.

After 15 minutes of reconnection and disconnection, 2 hours of support calls to Government IT (conducted at a disgracefully high volume, and with increasingly disparaging and rude terms - I do not think it is possible that Mr and Mrs Patel could do what she suggested with a tandoori oven and a gallon tub of rice) contact was finally made when the suggestion was relayed to Mr Angus that Rhona would have to phone him at home if he kept cutting her off.

Well, I have never been as mortified as today when I had to listen to some anatomically precise statements mixed with what Kenny explained to me later were the kind of endearments he whispers in the ear of the ewe before the 'special time'. I had to dictate again a number of letters as it was not possible to hear any of my words above the berating, pleading and crying from the other side of the desk. We were both grateful when Rhona bellowed "But I never liked you anyway!" before breaking the phone into small pieces across the back of Kenny's head.

It was bad enough that the handset was broken, but when she started with the base unit and then the wall mounted switchbox I was forced to intervene, removing the phone cable from Kenny's throat before he turned entirely blue. I had to revive him with a sweet cup of tea with seven sugars (the usual), a salt-herring in orange-juice and 20 fags simultaneously.

Later that day Mr Angus phoned to apologise for the loss of service on his IT equipment which he explained was due to a malfunctioning bi-location transporter part not being as good as the one he invented in Primary School, and explained that reluctantly Rhona had decided to accept another job underneath another SNP MSP and he had reluctantly accepted her resignation on the understanding that she say nothing about anything that ever happened anywhere, ever, and took a pay increase as compensation. He was sorry to lose her, but she wanted to have a permanent position, and it was all for the good, but we must never mention her name ever again, especially not in front of Jane.

Just then the door opened and the new member of staff arrived. Her name is Rona, which as Kenny remarked through the blood and bandages "Makes it easy to remember her name in the morning". I don't know what he was getting at, and before I could ask he lapsed into a coma.

Pieces of telephone found in office: 558
Pieces of telephone found in Kenny: 326
Pieces of Kenny found in telephone: 7