'The East African Groundnut Scheme' meets 'Howards End'!

Just when you think that all the Manx ‘politicos’ are packing their trunks, buckets and spades and heading for the beach there is a political frenzy in Tynwald.

Of course as the Chief Minister averred in one of his recent MTTV interviews everyone remains glued to their desks during the summer recess and ‘the business of government goes on’. However we all know that’s a load of tosh because it's obvious they are in holiday mode already DEFA Minister Geoff Boot has even had his first barbeque while singing: ‘I don’t want to set the world on fire’.

Anyway as a diversion from scary videos demonstrating police skills at apprehension the latest political ‘cat fight’ is between Kate Beecroft and Bill Shimmins (MHKs). It started of with Kate asking her 2046th question about the film fund questions which I thought the former Treasury Minister Eddie Teare had answered ad nauseum (see link):

https://www.energyfm.net/cms/news_story_357175.html

However Kate is determined to flog a dead cat and although a Minister for a brief period doesn’t see to realise that the Manx governments raison d'être is to lose money.

Bill thinks that inquiring into the Film Fund - which was the Manx equivalent of the UK's 1940s ‘East African Groundnut Scheme’ - is a waste of time. I tend (much to my dismay) to agree with Bill. Let’s face it the Manx government lost a couple of million because its currency conversion was not up to scratch when the Airport runway extension was built and what happened then - ‘lessons were learned’. The only sensible outcome of some self important group of politics on some useless Tynwald Committee looking at the Film Fund debacle is - ‘lessons have been learned’.

I mean even if its a cocked-up election that makes the democratic system of North Korea seem like a model to be emulated the only outcome of a Tynwald inquiry is - ‘lessons have been learned;

In the meantime it seems Kate Beecroft despite her time in the room at the top has not learned any lessons. She is now asking for Shimmins head on a platter. I doubt he will oblige but it should keep the entertainment in ‘the portal’ running for a while (link):

https://www.manxradio.com/news/isle-of-man-news/mhk-asks-for-apology-fro...

Footnote 1: Chided by Paul Moulton to watch ‘Howard the Interview 2’ I did so. It's worth a glance as ‘the great man’ speculates about the future. In one sense it could be entitled ‘Howards End’. Sad really if the Beecroft/Quayle saga could have been converted to film it might have been the blockbuster that saved the Manx Film Industry and Kate would have been delighted to share the accolades with the Orson Welles of COMIN.

Footnote 2: The juxtaposition of the Beecroft story with the item about the gentle lemur created an interesting visual - they are ‘cards’ in that Manx Radio newsroom!

Bernard Moffatt