The continuing fiasco at a Port Glasgow shipyard is a stain on the reputation of Nicola Sturgeon’s government. Ferguson Marine was handed a lucrative contract to build two large CalMac ferries for a combined fixed cost of £97million.
Almost eight years later neither vessel is finished and the total bill is already north of £300million. The yard went bust in 2019 and had to be nationalised as it struggled to complete the ships to a novel design never used before.
The Scottish Government effectively ordered and paid for the ships through the state-owned CalMac operator. It now finds itself in the situation of also owning the shipyard where the ferries it ordered are repeatedly delayed.
As political scandals go, nothing sums up the years of confident over-promises made by Sturgeon and her administration better than this. Fergusons has designed and built CalMac ferries for decades.
But the yard had never attempted to build two ferries of this size at the same time. The warning signs were all there and SNP ministers chose to ignore them.
We’re now left with one of the biggest wastes of public money since the project to build the Scottish Parliament building. Scotland is the most highly taxed part of the UK.
That’s fine if public money is spent wisely. But the Ferguson debacle is yet another example of money being poured down a very big hole.
As the First Minister prepares to stand down, we still can’t say for sure if these ferries will ever set sail.
Boot BoJo out
Boris Johnson’s performance before the Privileges Committee was typical of the former prime minister. He had previously denied parties went on in Downing Street during the pandemic despite all evidence.
His claims the gatherings were “work meetings” insulted the millions of Britons who stuck to the rules. Johnson now admits he misled parliament but said he didn’t mean to, essentially pleading ignorance of the guidelines he set.
The man whose job it was to tell the country what it should be doing offered up the defence that he hadn’t a clue what he was doing. The only thing he has ever kept socially distanced from is the truth.
People like Pamela Whyte from Glasgow who had to say goodbye to her dying father via WhatsApp, are understandably sickened by Johnson’s dishonesty. The truth is, while the rest of the country played by Johnson’s rules, he never bothered.
He deserves to be booted out of parliament.
Don't miss the latest news from around Scotland and beyond - sign up to our daily newsletter here.
