I WAS rather disappointed by the behaviour of Jenny Gilruth MSP, the recently appointed Transport Minister, in her gleeful announcement to the Scottish Parliament that the missing document in the Ferguson ferry fiasco had been found. Strangely enough, it was in the form of an email between two officials who had since left government, and had been found by chance because a copy had been retained by someone in the Scottish Government’s finance department.

She said she had “good news to share with parliament” and went on to waft it in the faces of the Unionist MSPs as if was the final answer to the long-running saga, solving all the financial and political problems associated with it, including a refund of the millions of pounds of overspend and the launch of the two ferries in early June. Gilruth went on to say, with a smile, “the decision was made rightly and properly by the then Transport Minister Derek Mackay”.

I am not sure if this latest twist in the tale is anything to smile about or to be proud of. No doubt over the coming weeks, months and possibly years the truth will leak out, but is it difficult, possibly naive, to believe the blame lies exclusively at the door of Derek Mackay.

Mackay’s meteoric career rise in the SNP and the Scottish Government led him from schoolboy to a short time at university, to councillor, to council leader, to MSP, to junior minister, to Finance Secretary and potential First Minister. It did not include a three-year degree course in naval architecture.

READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon insists John Swinney did not give crucial final ferries sign off

I have no doubt there is plenty of blame to be shared around, and hopefully any future enquiry can apportion it in suitable quantities to all those concerned. I rather suspect that ministers were poorly advised by officials, some who should perhaps have known better, but led by a heartfelt, overwhelming, genuine political desire to save hundreds of jobs at the Port Glasgow yard.

The Unionist opposition at Holyrood will continue to make the most of this situation and milk it for all the political gain they can make. We will never know, but I can only suspect that in similar circumstances, they would possibly have made the same decisions.

Iain Wilson
Stirling

I CANNOT comprehend how the BBC can call itself an impartial news reporting outlet. In the run-up to the council elections, the ongoing saga of the ferries was top of the agenda on the evening news and on the website.

A story that unfortunately is as old as time, but not content with that we have the BBC bringing on Jim McColl (who was proven to tell a lie about his signing of the contract) willing to accuse the First Minister of telling lies. This was a deliberate act by the BBC for no good reason other than to say “SNP bad” and keep the ferries in the headlines.

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Then this week we have the infamous Glenn reporting on the finding of the missing document “apparently” found – it was not apparently found, it WAS FOUND.

By adding this adverb he is giving his opinion not reporting the news of the find, but never mind – another excuse to go for SNP bad. His anti-SNP and anti-Scottish Government bias is now so glaringly obvious that his reports should come with a health warning.

Winifred McCartney
Paisley

IT has been reported that some Conservative and Unionist funding has come indirectly from one of Putin’s blokes? Who would have thought that this most sleaze ridden political party and the government it formed would be a front for money laundering? Please excuse me if I do not appear to be surprised as it is yet one more tick in the box for Johnson and his cabinet of the damned as they continue their journey to the outer extremities of the ultra right-wing regime. They have for sure ripped up the book on acceptable behaviour in UK politics, if indeed such a document existed in a country without a written constitution?

Many months ago, I wrote a piece that described life in the UK post-Brexit, with food shortages, black and white TVs, Vera Lynn songs on a loop and played from speakers hanging from disused streetlights. What I also included was how in their gated communities, the elite, the unholy trinity of the aristocracy, Westminster and Whitehall would be remote and oblivious to daily life. It does now seem that we are heading towards that Orwellian vision, 1984 done on the cheap because Johnson knows a bloke that can arrange it! Time to end this Union, time to call time on those that would seek to blindside us, lie to us and time to be rid of those who forget that they work for us. Our future is bright, independence is right.
Cliff Purvis

IT’S wonderful that the UCI Mountain Bike World Cup is returning to Fort William this month for the first time since 2019. The initials UCI actually come from the French and stands for Union Cycliste Internationale. This translates into International Cycling Union or ICU – not initials you want to think about when riding a mountain bike. Let’s wish all the competitors a safe ride.
Bill Drew
Kirriemuir