MYSTIC Mark Blackmore struck again recently when he anticipated in a column a few weeks back the Falklands Government would launch their favourite trick, the seamless switch from “inappropriate to talk about an ongoing matter” to “inappropriate to talk about a closed matter” in relation to the Chief of Police.
And not only did FIG suddenly close the matter last Friday after refusing to respond to Penguin News’ months of constant questioning, but they closed it one day after the Penguin News deadline, ensuring the press release couldn’t be mused over too closely by the Falklands public. After all it’s old news this week right. Not worth bothering about any more.
Anyway the upshot is the most senior officer in our police force is leaving the Islands, and the public has been given a bland few lines: a “mutual decision.” No detail, no explanation, no context, simply the expectation that this community will accept the line and move on.
But this is not just any government post. This is the Chief of Police, the person who leads the service charged with holding the rest of us to account. When a figure like that departs under a cloud of silence, it inevitably creates the impression that something has been dealt with behind closed doors. Perhaps that’s true, perhaps it’s not, but the lack of openness makes people assume the worst. And in a community this small, assumptions run faster and louder than facts.
In the UK, senior officers face misconduct hearings in public as a matter of principle, here in the Falklands, a small and intimate democracy (where information can be made available quickly and accurately to the entire population if necessary) we are told almost nothing at all. OK that policy may protect reputations in the short term, but it does nothing to build trust in the system. In fact, it does the opposite. Because when information is withheld, speculation takes its place, and speculation spreads like wildfire.
The government’s “closed matter” might tidy things up neatly for FIG but out in the community it’s just more bricks in a rapidly growing wall between the two. And that’s a problem
Because the real question is this: does FIG believe the public can be trusted with the truth about those in the highest positions of power? Or has secrecy simply become the default setting, a convenient and easy shield to avoid the discomfort and hard work of openness?
Either way embarrassing press releases with phrases like “mutual agreement” do not qualify as answers. That line raises more questions than it silences. And when it comes to a departure like this, involving one of the most senior public officials in the Islands, the community deserves more than a fob-off phrase.
I’m going to finish with another quote from Mystic Mark: “Still, and I’m telling you guys this with love in my heart: when FIG and the MLAs talk a big game about government transparency, this right here is the reason everyone rolls their eyes.”

On the flip side, credit where it’s due, it was genuinely heartening to see the press release announcing grants of up to £30,000 for applied research and demonstration projects under the new Land Recovery Programme. At last, the Falklands is properly entering into the global conversation on land recovery.
One of my favourite non Falklands story of land recovery well ‘pond recovery’ to be entirely accurate are the so-called “zombie ponds” in Essex. Farmers there found that forgotten old ponds, left to silt up and vanish, could be revived with little more than a digger and a bit of patience. Suddenly the fields were buzzing with dragonflies and newts again, and other farms quickly copied the idea. It’s not flashy, it’s not billion-dollar carbon trading, but it works. There’s something appealing about that sort of down-to-earth recovery, and it’s reminds me of the kind of spirit that emanates from many of our own farmers.
That’s the real promise of the Falklands scheme: not grand gestures, but modest, clever interventions that show results people can see with their own eyes. If even a handful of projects prove that healthier land can mean healthier farms too, then this initiative will more than earn its keep. We may be latecomers, but we’ve got the advantage of learning from what’s already succeeded elsewhere – and shaping a Falklands-made approach to looking after the land that looks after us.