Here's another scandal created by Nicola Sturgeon in her capacity as First Minister of Scotland. All those chickens Nicola hatched all those years ago are now coming home to roost and as was always going to happen.
Jim McColl, a Monaco-based businessman tax exile, SNP supporter and former proprietor of lower-Clyde shipbuilder, Ferguson Marine, said yesterday that the First Minister awarded the contract to build the new CalMac ferries Hull 101 and Hull 102 to Ferguson Marine to coincide the announcement with the SNP Annual Conference in October 2015. That is exactly what happened. While we are very wary of McColl generally - as we are of every other tax exile - we have no reason to doubt him on this.
The problem now, as then, is that awarding such contracts for political reasons, and thus excluding other yards from bidding, is seriously illegal. Not only was it illegal, it was also very much against the advice of the Scottish Government's own ferry-procurer agency as they knew that Ferguson Marine did not have the skills or financial resources to undertake this particular contract. The position now is that the five other unsuccessful shipbuilder bidders are in a good position to sue the Scottish Government for many £millions over the fiasco.
As we now know only too well, the Hull 101 part of the contract has become the semi-built ferry Glen Sannox while Hull 102 remains only on paper and still unnamed. This is exactly the sort of grossly irresponsible decision Nicola Sturgeon would take the credit for - and let everyone else face the consequences for the subsequent disaster. The woman is rotten to the core.
Have we ever seen a more unscrupulous operator than Nicola Sturgeon?
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