NEWS FROM THE MANNIN BRANCH CELTIC LEAGUE
When retirement beckons it’s always difficult to work out what to give the person who has been a ‘good servant’ as a parting present.
I can well recall how pleased I was when standing down after over 20 years as President of the Isle of Man Trades Union Council I was presented with a beautiful painting of Eary Cushlin which coincidentally is one of my favourite walks on the Island.
The gift was all the more pleasant because I knew my colleagues on the Council had clubbed together to get it for me.
I was reminded of this when I read the report of the recent Tynwald sitting where unusually the Lt Governor ‘popped in’ to say goodbye (pity there’s another one coming on but there you go you can’t have everything).
Obviously Tynwald thought that giving the Lt Governor half a million a year for five years and spending another half million plus on him (Total approx £7 million) was not enough so they gave him a nice parting prezzy and what better than a painting.
He’s a report from ‘the Nations Station’ or in this instance perhaps a more appropriate title would be ‘the Tynwald footman’:
https://www.manxradio.com/…/president-pays-tribute-to-outgo…/
There’s just one problem I don’t think Christian and Rodan ‘put the hat round’ and asked their handsomely paid Ministerial colleagues, their extradorinarily well paid Tynwald colleagues or the excessively well paid First Deemster to put a few notes in. No you guessed it just as with those lovely oil paintings they like to commission of themselves such ‘sundries’ come out of the public purse.
I don’t know about you but I’m just about sick of this shower ‘maxing out on the public credit card’ for Xmas parties, hols, portrait paintings and ‘gifts for their favourite Governor’.
As for the paining ‘The Manx Shearwater’ it seems singularly appropriate especially as the species cleared of to live somewhere else a while ago.
Photograph: Lt Governor Adam Wood laughing all the way to the bank – “goodbye suckers”!
BERNARD MOFFATT
Issued by: The Mannin Branch Celtic League
17/03/16
THE CELTIC LEAGUE
The Celtic League established in 1961 has branches in the six Celtic Countries including our own Mannin branch. It promotes cooperation between the countries and campaigns on a range of political, cultural and environmental matters. It highlights human rights abuse, military activity and socio-economic issues
The link for the main web pages is below:
