Indeed. Maybe the politicians could say if they felt that it was sustainable to have two operators going head to head on MME-ABZ in the medium term and if so, could they give examples of a similar situation (ie 2 operators both flying from the same tertiary airport to a secondary one) happening in the UK today.
Loganair have long coveted the MME-ABZ route, it has been a cash cow for Eastern for a long time and Loganair have now won the battle - for me it is as simple as that.