David MacLean, Baron Blencathra, a Scot and a Conservative Party life peer, is coming here for a visit with three MPs from the all parliamentary party group (APPG) for Cayman.

Baron Blencathra will be arriving next week and will have some 35 meetings while visiting the islands. The three MPs will be arriving the following week.

His famous quote when exclaiming of beggars is, ‘I always give them something – I give them a piece of my mind.’

Another of his quotes was after he turned down a cabinet post after the Conservative Party’s defeat at the 1997 general election. He said, “I am a round peg in a round hole.” He made the UK headlines in 2007 when he proposed a private member’s bill that would have exempted the Houses of Parliament from the Freedom of Information Act. The bill proved controversial, with the government unofficially supporting the bill. MacLean said, “My bill is necessary to give an absolute guarantee that the correspondence of members of parliament, on behalf of our constituents and others, to a public authority remains confidential.”

He was given a life peerage after he stepped down from his political seat representing Penrith and The Border for the Tory party from 1983 to 2010 due to ill health. He has multiple sclerosis.

Baron Blencathra seems a very good choice to be director of the Cayman Islands London office as according to Labour MP Maria Eagle he is opposed to further regulation of what she called offshore tax havens when there was a push in the UK for more regulation of such jurisdictions.

He has already caused some controversy (albeit not from me) when he recently criticised Caymanians who he said are writing negative things online. As we reported at the time, he said they were undermining efforts to promote the jurisdiction’s financial services sector overseas. He said in an email interview to CNS that his aim was to “keep selling the positive messages about Cayman, again and again and again. But it cannot be done if it is undermined by things said and written by Caymanians. I am saddened by negative comments on the web as the Internet is read not just by local people but by politicians and global financial players as well. What appears on the web and the reality are poles apart but observers sitting thousands of miles away might be fooled into think that life is awful in Cayman.”

The three MP’s joining Baron Blencathra are Graham Brady, Conservative MP for Altrincham and Sale West, Brian Donohoe, Labour MP for Central Ayrshire and Andrew Rosindell, Conservative MP for Romford. Brady is Chairman of the APPG and Donohoe is Deputy Chairman.

APPG are informal, cross-party, interest groups that have no official status within the UK parliament and have no powers or funding from it. They act as a forum for contact and discussion with members of parliament and for action on behalf of the Cayman Islands.

Let us hope Baron Blencathra’s visit will be a successful one and pave the way for the APPG members who will leave with a very positive message to bring back to the UK.

Baron Blencathra said, “The meetings cover both the private and public sectors, and span subjects such as business and commerce, biodiversity, tourism and culture, and Cayman’s political and legislative system. By the end of our visit we should all be in a much better position to reinforce a very positive message about the successes of the Cayman Islands in the UK Parliament and media.”

Maybe our bloggers will help by stating all the good things there are in living here in the Cayman islands, but I wouldn’t bet on it.