Island communities are being devastated by the SNP’s ferries fiasco

On a recent television tour of Britain’s coast, Michael Portillo found himself in awe of the Outer Hebrides. Why would more people not live and work in this ‘paradise’, he wondered from a vast sun-kissed beach near where I live on Lewis.

It was a fair question on such a day but the intrepid traveller had struck it lucky. Living on an island involves a high degree of dependency on ferries. And the reliability of the service provided by the state owned Caledonian MacBrayne, known as CalMac, on Scotland’s west coast is at an-time low for reasons that go far beyond the uncertainties of weather.

This week alone brought news of further disruption after ‘corrosion’ was found in a 24 year-old vessel during annual maintenance. Lochboisdale will be without a ferry at all for another month. Last week the island of Colonsay had to go without supplies for eight days straight because of weather and vessel issues.