Statement by Alasdair Morrison, Labour candidate
With Lewis businesses reporting a severe slump in trade due to the disruption of ferry services, Western Isles Labour candidate Alasdair Morrison said that the SNP deserved to pay “a political price for the shambles that they bear responsibility for creating”.
Mr Morrison said it was “inconceivable” that Stornoway would have suffered the current chaos and loss of trade if it had not been for the centralised control insisted on by the Scottish Government and the exclusion of islanders from the oversight of ferry services.
He said: “This is a classic example of what happens when politicians serve only their party and not their constituents. As this unnecessary fiasco has unfolded, there has been nobody to fight our corner, nobody to challenge Ministerial authority or the blundering incompetence of the quangos they appoint.”
Mr Morrison said that while Stornoway was already facing shop closures due to economic conditions, the ferry situation had slashed around one-third of retail turnovers during a key part of the season.
Current disruption is caused by ongoing work at Ullapool
“Previous years have seen buoyant visitor numbers between Easter and the peak summer season, but this year has seen a sharp downturn entirely due to the ferry chaos.
“We have seen and heard absolutely nothing from the local MSP yet CMAL, the quango which has created this situation, is entirely a creature of the Scottish Government. Its membership is totally anonymous and the Danish industrialist appointed by the SNP to chair it is unknown in the communities which are suffering at its hands.”
Mr Morrison said that tourism businesses were facing “significant loss of bookings” as people found out that they would not be able to drive to Ullapool and cross to Stornoway, as they had assumed. He said that there had been only “handfuls” of foot passengers on some of the non-vehicle crossings operated by the Loch Seaforth.
He pledged that Labour would ensure the inclusion of islanders on relevant public bodies, as it had done in the past. It was only since 2008, when the SNP took over in Edinburgh, that the “veto” on islanders being appointed to the CalMac and CMAL boards had taken effect.
Planet Earth calling Alasdair Morrison, he was never in touch when he was an MSP, So why should he start now???
Sadly, Morrison fails to recognise his own part in the ferry fiasco, as a serving Board member at Stornoway Port Authority. Had the Pier works in Stornoway been concluded on time (the work was five months overdue) the new Ferry would have been on the Sy Ull run in October, before this work in Ullapool was even thought off. Now we are reaping the fruits of his and his colleagues incompetence. This is not something he can dump on the SNP! Why is no one asking what all this is costing and who is footing the bill instead of trying to score cheap political points??
Well it seems to me to be another right mess the powers that be in Edinburgh have landed us in with ferry services going full speed astern and at this rate we will be back to a fortnightly visit from the Loch Dunvegan, and the SNP are trying to blame the SPA for something that’s not happening in Ullapool fast enough!
I hear a lot of grumbling on my wanderings down the town, with many shopkeepers and business operators blaming you know who the Barra man ( ABM!) who spends his time tweeting and not working for us.
The huge man trying to keep order at the pier with the yellow jacket fifteen sizes too small for him is getting redder and redder, and I fear he might do a Mr. Creosote unless the Calmac boys stop shouting privatisation at him, and he will have no chance at all of getting a jacket big enough to fit.
Won’t it be me who will get some peace on Friday when it is all over, apart from Manford’s enquiry, and he should look at why some people like the Returning Officer and the yes signs now up for almost a year without permission are allowed to do so when my husband can’t even build a simple shed out the back without planning permission and a warrant.
He built it anyway, and I don’t see why anyone should ask permission from the council when they don’t even obey their own rules.
Who paid the political price? Years of lies and deceit have have come back to haunt the Labour Party.