I ENJOY a ferry journey, no matter the weather.
Standing at the back of a boat – large or small – and watching the wake with the mainland behind me and an island destination in front I always feel a sense of freedom and excitement, perhaps born out of the five years I spent living in Uibhist a long time ago. As the constituency MSP who represents more ferry routes than any other member, I am therefore in my element when working with and for the 25% or so of my constituents who live on islands – and I very much miss not being able to do that face to face at present.
Dealing with immediate issues for real people in real places is the day job of politics, and the closest of engagement and identification with a constituency and its everyday life is the best antidote to political cynicism and the social media bubble.
Such identification and service is not new. Edmund Burke wrote about it in his “Address to the Electors of Bristol” almost 250 years ago, claiming (rightly) that it “ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents” and asserting that “it is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to theirs; and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own.”
The last bit covers quite a lot including, for me, standing in a shopping mall in the north of Italy trying to persuade Cal Mac to find – from somewhere or anywhere – a replacement vessel for Islay during a holiday weekend when the service was under severe strain owing to a mechanical fault on one of the boats.
The pandemic has of course produced a huge upsurge in constituency work which was already, for most MSPs and their dedicated teams, a big task. Before March we were dealing with about 200 new cases a month but that is sometimes the weekly figure now. Some of that is still about ferries. During the lockdown there was restricted access to and from the islands and despite superb work by individual Cal Mac staff at every port (and Cal Mac does provide a great service nearly all the time) it did cause tension and sometimes hardship. Getting to urgent medical appointments, seeing loved ones for a final time, and even accessing things urgently needed but not available locally were all issues that had to be addressed and assisted.
Now there is also a desire to look ahead and hope that next year there will be the resumption of a full summer service – unlike this year – and a new wave of fresh visitors and old friends.
For island communities ferries are literally lifelines and it is thus essential that those elected by them are always arguing for continuing investment and continuous improvement. When I first lived on a small offshore island (because we all in Scotland live on a big one) in the late 1970s the introduction of Road Equivalent Tariff was seen as the holy grail which would transform island prospects. It was therefore very gratifying to be in a government that introduced this means of charging and as a result has reduced ferry fares .
It has, by and large, been been a success even if in some places it increased incoming demand to the extent that it was hard to get a booking – though that has been responded to by increasing sailings and even routes.
There has also been some investment in new boats, though the saga of the two still building at Fergusons has been dispiriting. More are needed and I am very supportive of those on the islands who want cheaper, more flexible and faster solutions like that provided elsewhere by off-the-shelf building of new vessels, including catamarans.
Standardisation of vessels and piers and the end to the destructive split between the operating company and the asset holder would go a long way to making the service more sustainable and expenditure more effective and of course there is much work to be done to make the fleet part of the drive towards carbon neutrality. If there was a Cal Mac frequent sailor golden ticket, I think I would have one by now and I shall miss that part of the job when I cease to be the MSP for Argyll and Bute. But perhaps then there will be time to to discover ferry routes I haven’t tried – yet.
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