Maybe it’s because of Scotland’s fast-approaching independence referendum – a never-before-held popular plebiscite on the 300-year old’ ever-closer’, and ultimately consummated, political Union with England – but at least one Scottish Government minister is making sure that he fully dots the i’s and crosses the t’s in the run-up to the Big Vote in fully demonstrating his democratic credentials.
Derek MacKay, Minister for Local Government and Planning, recently gave MSPs an insight into his zeal for consultation when he admitted to Holyrood MPs’ on Parliament’s Energy committee that he himself ‘has been out canvassing members of the public at an Edinburgh shopping centre’ to hand out leaflets asking people to respond to the ScotGov consultation on the National Planning Framework and Scottish Planning Policy.
These acronyms mask a bitter underlying ‘jobs v environment’ debate about wind farms in sensitive rural locations.
So to paraphrase wartime prime minister Winston Churchill – who is perhaps the best-known defender of democracy the UK – if not the world – has ever seen, “Never before in the field of Scottish planning, has so much been consulted about by so few…”
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