Six thousand Hebridean islanders and millions of pounds of whisky and seafood shipments face transport turmoil this winter after crisis-hit ferry firm CalMac slashed its timetable.
Residents of Islay and Mull will see services cut after Scottish Government-owned CalMac revealed that each island will be served by just one vessel instead of the usual two over winter.
This after that remarkable feat of the govt owned ferrry company bankrupting the govt owned shipyard over a contract to build new ferries.
Governments just aren’t competent, see?
We looked in to crossing to a few of the islands when we were touring Scotland in our motorhome earlier this year but the eye watering cost put us off.
Those wishing for the IoW ferries to be nationalised should be very careful what they wish for.
Just wait until they renationalise British Rail.
BiND
My parents live on the IOW and we have the ferry discussion every time I visit. They seem to believe the government can wave a magic wand and make the crossings cheaper and more efficient
Maybe not all governments are incompetent, the Chinese have a superb railway system. Covers the nation with high speed rail, fast, clean, punctual, cheap. Not much delay due to NIMBYs, strikes, et., so there is hope for the UK. Maybe not the Scottish bit.
China Railways owned by the Ministryof Finance.
@Jimintheantipodes- maybe now, but give it a few years and we’ll see. In addition the Chinese wouldn’t put up with crap British unions pull, although I suspect there is a fair bit of overmanning (the CCP would rather everyone had a non-job than sitting around unemployed getting ideas) Plus the Chinese built them partly out of prestige so it’s questionable how many of the lines are viable
The level of corruption and money involved in the ferries scam is probably so vast that no one wants to look into it. Least of all PlodPWland…
I think politicians have learned the basis of many conjuring tricks. Lacking the skill to produce sleight of hand, they fall back on distraction. “Look at this big shiny motorhome here…”
BiND,
The thing when people complain about profit making business is that when government runs things they’re never as good value. I see this with all this continental rail. It’s a total pisstake compared to easyJet. And I love the TGVs. If it was slightly more, I’d do it. But it’s often like double or triple the price.
Andy, good points. Makes sense to have people doing something, rather than nothing, maybe one reason cities are so very clean. I gather that railways in China re built for several reasons, one being national unity…they are not expected to return a cash profit, but trade, national unity….when the money is spent, they have something to show for their cash. .
The trouble with the “at least they have something to show for their cash” argument is that governments can use it not only to justify spending your money on things you might like (trains), but also on thing you might not like (e.g., wind turbines).
When the lights have gone out in 2030 as the wind turbines stand idle, Miliband will still be saying it was money well spent. After all, it was thanks to his foresight that the UK will have the wind turbines ready to go for when the wind starts blowing again. The evil Tories would have just let wealthy taxpayers keep that money for themselves.
Paul,Somerset…..Here in Australia we have windmills and solar panels in large amounts (I have solar panels, as do most)…..yet we export our massive amounts of coal, gas and uranium to more intelligent countries, while we close down our own coal power stations.
That’s the trouble, Jim. You live at approx. 25 degrees south, and most of you have taken the decision for yourselves to install solar panels. No politicians needed.
I live at 50 degrees north, and wouldn’t spend the money on installing, maintaining and eventually replacing solar panels. But the state takes my money off me and concretes them into the surrounding fields anyway. And when the output at this latitude turns out to be only a fraction of the nameplate capacity, the state can say, well, at least you’ve got something tangible to show for the money we’ve taken from you, even if it’s only a fraction of what we promised. Much the same as when communists build railways only a fraction of the population use.
Sorry. I’m not trying to get at you personally here. I do understand that money spent on unneeded railways is a better waste of it than on, say, housing unneeded unneeded Muslims. But that argument gets subtly altered into one of ideological support for the state wasting money as long as it involves a physical structure.
That sounds like a business opportunity for a shipping company.
I can just about accept that there is probably a case for a subsidised public ferry for people who live there, but why should business get cut-price transport for their goods?
And why are we subsidising a durable luxury product anyway? Alms for the rich!
“I live at 50 degrees north, and wouldn’t spend the money on installing, maintaining and eventually replacing solar panels. But the state takes my money off me and concretes them into the surrounding fields anyway.”
I don’t think thats true, not any more anyway. There used to be subsidies for solar but FiTs were abolished for solar in 2019 and now solar farms are only installed if the sums add up on the costs vs the sales revenue from electricity generated. Now you could argue that the State is artificially inflating electricity costs and thus you are indirectly subsidising solar farms, but you aren’t actually being taxed to pay subsidies to new ones. Old ones maybe…….
Paul,
I don’t want the government running the things I like because they don’t run them well.
Like rail would work better if we just sold the lot off to Michael O’Leary
Typical government – this is only happening so that they can say they “stopped the boats”.