Doña Hyslop's Tilting at Windmills
SNP attempts to distance itself from the ferry fiasco resembles Don Quixote's eponymous hero. But as ferry infrastructure crumbles, ScotGov's flights of fantasy on memory-holed projects begins to bite
Publicly owned assets are in disarray and island communities discontent. The SNP's penchant for pursuing impractical projects has left Scotland's transportation infrastructure floundering. It will take more than our Quixotic Doña Hyslop's tilting at windmills to rescue the situation
SCOTTISH GOVERNMENT Transport Secretary Fiona Hyslop has been attempting to feign critical distance from ongoing Calmac travails in recent weeks. By speaking as if she was commentator as opposed to Cabinet Secretary in charge, she hopes nobody will realise it’s really her own party which is singularly failing to pass muster.
Watching her saying how “pleased” she was to “welcome the introduction of CalMac's new enhancement and change plan” sounded as if Don Quixote was suddenly claiming he never tilted at windmills.
Calmac is publicly owned, as is the shipyard responsible for the interminably delayed ferries. The mutinous unhappiness among island communities at non-consultations and status-quoism in contract awards is at her government’s door directly.
Tilting at windmills in a Don Quixotesque fashion truly describes this SNP administration’s raison d'être in government over the last 17 years. They have used their time (and your money) to routinely pursue issues more reflective of their own hubris and power than any desire to charge at any of the real giants undermining contemporary benighted Scotland.
Sure, the panache and flamboyance of the Salmond-Sturgeon public relations years impressed many voters in the moment. But time, growing accountability and political gravity has exposed the extent of ministerial attention misdirection.
Instead of modernising the nation’s ferry service for example, they opted instead to tilt at legal windmills in hopes of pushing the envelope on the remits of their powers.
Tilting at Memory-holed windmills
One sterling example of the windmill tilting by our Don Quixote government is the Named Person fiasco which the SNP has strangely memory-holed in recent years - never to be discussed again.
The time and taxpayer money wasted tilting at the Named Person legislative windmill is genuinely shocking. Especially when considering the SNP during the period in question (2012-2016) were presiding over a local government Revenue settlement decreasing at a much faster rate (-7.1% or -£744.7m) than the Scottish Government Revenue budget at the time (-1.8% or -£547.3m).
The amount of taxpayer resources hurled down the drainpipe pursuing Named Person during the local government revenue squeezing is incredible.
A total of £479,461.50 lost on legal defeats by November 2017. An initial £31,546.40 lost in the Outer Court of Sessions, followed up with $257,369.60 in the Inner Court of Sessions before a final tranche of £200,545.50 was wasted at the Supreme Court.
Naturally that does not include the £10.2 million wasted preparing to implement a scheme the Supreme Court decision effectively deemed complacent and as having obvious flaws.
Ultimately by the time Christian Institute and others v The Lord Advocate (Scotland) saw the striking down of central provision of the Named Person scheme, the taxpayer money wasted totalled £61 million ultimately allocated for the deeply flawed scheme.
How is that for tilting at windmills? And all in pursuit of a policy seeking a mandatory state-imposed guardian on every family with children.
A scheme so inherently flawed at the time that the Supreme Court ultimately ruled on its unlawfulness on the precise grounds the-then Lord Advocate Mulholland (of Rangers botched prosecution infamy) had been warned about in 2014.
Giants in the distance: Ferry fiasco
When the eponymous hero Don Quixote and his loyal servant Sancho Panza “came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that rise from that plain”, the would-be-knight rallies crying out “Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished. Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants?
As Quixote prepared to do battle, little Sancho queried “What giants?”, as he could see only windmills…
Cabinet Secretary Fiona Hyslop told the nation she “is absolutely committed to ensuring that our ferry services are reliable” and is “pleased to welcome the introduction of CalMac’s new enhancement and change plan”.
But I cannot escape the thought that our hapless Ms Hyslop is a tad like Don Quixote.
As she looks upon the Calmac change plan, she sees the answer to her prayers. It’s akin to the eponymous hero laying sight upon the windmills only to see the giants that - if slayed - would be answer to his plight with “spoils we shall begin to be rich”
For all the boasting about responding to public consultations, one does have questions. I interviewed the Shadow Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero, Energy and Transport Douglas Lumsden MSP not too long ago on this subject. The full interview had two segments, first relating to the Scottish National Investment Bank and a second focusing on ferries. To see the full episode click here, as I’m only including the ferry segment below
A point which came in the interview involved the thoroughgoing absence of planning or joined up thinking. Douglas Lumsden observed that the infrastructure needed for the new ferries in Ardrossan had not been put in place; despite the ferries being delayed by years. “You wouldn’t buy a car that is too big for the garage that you’ve got at your house”, he observed with the slightest hint of a wry smile.
The Clyde Hebridean Contract was another issue we discussed. We explored how Fiona Hyslop had run down the clock on the contract thereby preventing it being put out to tender; despite clear wishes of service users desiring change from a failing status quo.
Given all of the issues explored in the interview, forgive me for viewing our hapless Transport Minister as attacking imaginary enemies more than real ones. She has been quick to aim her rhetorical lance at Peel Ports (who owns Ardrossan harbour), but says nothing about the reported “endless tinkering” by her SNP predecessors in the Transport brief.
Silence when confronted with the ludicrous reality that the 6 years-delayed ferries will still face further problems due to even worse delays to the physical ports and harbours infrastructure.
Not a word about the absence of any serious project planning, appraisal and implementation of new ferries through to port infrastructure necessary. Nothing about the obvious fear of rocking the boat by her joust-shy government, resulting in a status quoism regarding Clyde Hebridean.
And remember that ferry operators Calmac, the shipbuilding yard Ferguson Marine (FMEL) are all publicly owned assets.
These giant obstacles to the lifeline transportation arteries to the highland and island communities are literally subject and directly accountable to herself and the wider SNP government.
There’s a case to be made for the sentiment ‘you bought it, you broke it, you own it’ when it comes to our troubled caballero andante (knight errant). The patience of the wider Scottish electorate is rapidly running dry for our very own Lady from la Mancha, Doña Hyslop.
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