Bernard Moffatt's blog

I suspect the bods down at the Chamber of Commerce agree with the Chief Minister's views on food poverty. As I indicated ‘the great man’ averred some months ago that it was a ‘complex issue’. It doesn’t seem so complex if you are at the sharp end I’d wager.Sadly it's not an issue that's likely to go away so perhaps the politicians, the mainstream media and the Chamber could mull it over.

Back in June the Chief Minister Howard Quayle MHK said that food poverty was a ‘complex’ issue and fair enough you don’t want the government to throw money at an issue without understanding it. Here’s what he said:

https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/food-poverty-needs-to-be...

I have written to the Chief Minister and COMIN members asking them to take action to address issues of food and fuel poverty before the winter bites.

Text set out below:

“The Chief Minister (Mr Howard Quayle MHK)
and Council of Ministers of the Isle of Man
Government Offices
Douglas

By email

18th September 2018

Dear Chief Minister,

I note your response in a written answer from the Member for Garff Mrs Caine on the issue of Syrian refugees.

Daphne Caine MHK is getting it in the neck for raising the Syrian refugee issue again. On IOM Today the comments section has gone of the scale and one Facebook site ditched comments completely they were getting so zany.

Some people say this will cost Daphne her seat at the next election and for good measure they throw in her interest in ‘feral goats’ although what that has to do with it I don’t know.

I’m surmising that if you walked past the Claremont last week as ‘the Chamber of Nonsense’ were holding their AGM you would have heard a rousing chorus of ‘for he’s a jolly good fellow’ as Chief Minister Howard Quayle MHK was carried round the room shoulder high.

There’s an added media bonus for me today on the mainstream media in the Manx Radio video portal. The good thing about the mainstream is you get ‘the facts’ from them not the ‘fake news’ Chief Minister Howard Quayle MHK tells us that people ‘with their own agenda’ (like me) are peddling on social media - while he pulls one of those curious inflective grimaces.

Its an overcast morning I smell rain and immediately regret devoting yesterday to ‘arts domestic’. However I’m up early and raring to go so its the North and a bracing walk with a coat or retail therapy in the covered confines of ‘the citadel of shopping’ - I’m a wimp I opt for the latter.

I just knew that there would be a raft of intolerant comments from some under this story about refugees. By the way is the title right have we taken in any refugees I didn’t think so.

‘in the ‘old days’ before there was social media people sometimes let of steam by going around burning houses down - do you really want to put the clock back’

A former head of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon and long time participant in Irish Army UN peacekeeping operations Major General Michael Beary has been presented with the Distinguished Service Medal by the Irish government.

During the ceremony at Cathal Brugha barracks at Rathmines, Dublin at which the Irish Defence Minister Paul Kehoe presented the award the United Nations paid tribute to Major General Beary. A message from Under Secretary General for Peacekeeping, Jean Pierre Lacroix, was read which stated: