Once upon a time as all good children’s stories start …  things were nice and cosy in the Cayman Islands. Government got on with their job, the media obeyed the unwritten rule “don’t rock the boat” meaning don’t ask questions and you won’t get told lies, and the Islands’ inhabitants went about their way of life happy and contented.

Then one day a big bad wolf appeared. His name was Desmond Seales and he started an online newspaper called Cayman Net News and heavens forbid he started asking questions!!

Oh no. The peace of the Cayman Islands was shattered.

Then worse happened. Cayman International Television (Caribbean) Network CITN/Cayman27 started broadcasting video for the whole of the country to see –LIVE. Yes, as it happened.

Even worse radio call-in talk shows appeared and became very popular.

But we weren’t finished then. Online blogs became the new parlour trick. People could say what they liked under pseudonyms and anonymity and it was there instantly on the Internet – a medium that changed our lives forever.

Under intense pressure and largely by wannabe politicians who got into power and immediately, not realising they were holding a dragon by its tail, initiated a Freedom of Information initiative complete with an Information Commissioner.

I am betting that from whatever side of political party government members come from they wished they could turn the clock back to the ‘once upon a time’ beginnings.

What hasn’t changed is the mind set of the civil servants and the prompts they get from their ministers.

The number one rule is delay and the second rule is when that fails answer in the language of gobbledygook.

If you have been delaying answering a touchy question under this Freedom of Information after ten months and you are condemned for it by the Information Commissioner, you can answer with glowing and touching sentences praising yourself for some of the things you have responded to. This would have been mentioned by the Information Commissioner even if you have tried to delay and block and send the wrong documents before coming up with the goods. Of course, you don’t mention that.  Then when it comes to the strong words and actual condemnation by this dragon now pouring out fire from its breath you can show surprise and shock and use the word ‘disappointment’ and gobbledygook it with terminology such as relevancy to legal issues and the importance of legal principles surrounding legal principles without actually defining what they are. You deny strongly with other words saying you deny you have “breached either the spirit or the letter of the FOI Law, and any suggestions to that effect are strongly rejected.”

Then the final piece of this nonsense, even though you are supposedly answering a Freedom of Information Request FROM THE MEDIA you say you do “not believe that it is appropriate at this stage to debate the issues in the media.”

Once upon a time, the Port Authority of the Cayman Islands didn’t have to worry about the media and a body to actually make you tell the truth that was set up by government.

Can’t Sleeping Beauty go back to sleep and didn’t St George once upon a time kill a dragon?

Please see today’s top story in iNews Cayman “ICO and Port heading for stormy waters”