We started this blog with the intention of providing more robust reporting on some of the 2021 election issues and also to create some more robust and direct conversations around some of the individuals standing for election and their various campaigns, claims and policies. Because one platform has to try to say it how it is with as little filtering as possible.
But to do this you also have to keep check of what some of the old guard are saying when it comes to offering critiques of those standing for re-election and sadly today this led us to the musings of the IOM's bargain basement 'Red Ken' Livingstone - the far from affable or reasonable (or even interesting) Chairman Bernard Moffatt.
Curmudgeonly Trade Union pensioner and self claimed expert on local politics despite never once having stood for public office himself Mr Moffatt opined on 3fm today that so many of today's politicians are too thick skinned and can't hack any form of scrutiny
He then took the opportunity to hark back to the halcyon days of Donald Gelling and Sir Miles Walker in tones vaguely reminiscent of the Fast Shows uber boring football pundit Ron Manager. In fact at one stage we fully expected his next sentence to include a reference to using jumpers for goal posts as he droned on in deference to his former political sparring partners' apparent willingness to answer difficult questions as part of their public profile.
But is it really that different now?
We don't really think it is.
Not once during his musings does Mr Moffatt consider that throughout this whole pandemic it has been our press that's really been the major reason for the widespread lack off scrutiny and probing. From almost day-one there was an effective open goal presented by the Cabinet Office at most press conferences hosted by Quayle and Ashford and yet we don't seem to have one person employed in local media who can kick a ball into a completely open net. Or one who even seems to possess any willingness to try.
In hindsight almost all the real probing and the difficult questions have been teased out by Tynwald's own PAC with the press seemingly reluctant to report even half of it most of the time. Which brings us back to the point at hand. Have current politicians really got such incredibly tough skins as Chairman Bernie claims? Or have the people whose role it is to bring government to account just largely bottled it of late? And if they have bottled it where will this lead in relation to the election reporting around some those who will be seeking re-election?
Of course Mr Quayle has now announced that he has no intention of standing again so we will never know but we eagerly await what Mr Ashford [MBE] has to say to the people of Douglas North about his past performance in the next few weeks and whether the press will be there to help people remember some of the appalling oversights and brazen cover-ups that seem to have happened on his watch?
As for Mr Moffatt and his views which unfortunately the IOM press still find far too easy to publish. They mean nothing. Its token opposition. In fact its not even that. Its an acknowledgement of how lazy political opposition in the IOM has become. Just wheel out the Young Mr Grace of Manx politics who has been pumping out the same angry outdated nonsense for decades for a few column inches and then go down the pub. We'd much rather read the political views of someone like Peter Karran or even (for their all too frequent unintentional comedy value) MIchael Josem in the mainstream press as at least they might be challenging or relevant to today. But sadly the only option to receive any form of alternative opinion on Manx politics remains the equivalent of having to listen to your Granddad howl at the moon - and it just shows how dire the local press situation has really got.