Why do Scots keep voting SNP when they waste so much public money?
It has always been one of the mysteries of political life, certainly to this observer, that taxpayers continue to vote for the people who waste their hard-earned cash in the most profligate of fashions, time and time again.
It is difficult to countenance a better example of such behaviour, in separate administrations and under three different first ministers, than that of the SNP over the network of ferries, large and small, that are supposed to be the lifeblood of the islands around Scotland's coasts.
Far from honouring their responsibility to those often remote communities, the SNP has put on a show of unparalleled incompetence seldom seen in public life. And yet, time after time, in election after election, their supporters loyally troop into polling stations to put their crosses against the nationalist party and give us another Nat government.
Don't they care about their cash being thrown away like a drunken sailor's? Apparently not; just as long as they gain their only priority of Scottish independence they'll waste any amount and suffer any humiliation to get their way. And prodigious waste and extreme international humiliation is what we're talking about here, because of the vast sums – vast in relation to a small country of five million people – that they'll never see again because of what's become known as the 'ferries saga'.
There have been any number of tallies of the amount thrown away with the latest being only a pound or so short of one billion pounds.
Half of that comes from the £500 million spent on the repair bill in keeping the CalMac ferry fleet at sea while the other £500 million is the new estimate for the latest ferry's completion – eight years late, from its Clyde shipyard. Well actually it's only £460 million, but what's £40 million amongst friends?
The ' one billion-pound ferry fiasco ', Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader called it and, personally, I can't think of a better way of describing this farce which, as Russell Findlay, leader of the Scottish Tories, insisted should have been used to fix the nation's roads and schools.
First Minister John Swinney, as his wont, accepted that as the head of the Scottish Government he takes full responsibility for everything that's gone wrong but made plain, as is also his wont, that there won't be any SNP ministers being sacked for that responsibility – least of all, himself.
He did insist that many of his ministers had been visiting island communities to help them with the difficulties of their ferry service, but said that very few of their cancellations had been caused by ferries breaking down. Most had been caused by bad weather, to which the Labour leader asked if the islanders should vent their anger at the elements, instead.
'Not up for the job'
This was a pretty good example of Tories and Labour joining forces to lay into an administration that is extremely good at talking a good game but which over a wide range of policies has proved itself time and time again, as Clement Attlee said, to 'be not up for the job'.
They may not wish to do so, but with Swinney insisting that he plans to launch another independence campaign – he has no alternative – I'd like to think that Tories and Labour would get used to joint attacks.
But this is probably a forlorn hope. So far, anyway.
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