Ferries inquiry

JIM McColl’s latest intervention in the deepening SNP ferries scandal is by far his most excoriating.

In an astonishing broadside, the billionaire accused the First Minister of lying about the viability of his former shipyard.

Amid bitter claim and counter-claim over the fiasco, Nicola Sturgeon had suggested Ferguson Marine might have closed without her government awarding the yard a £97million contract for two ferries in 2015. Neither ferry has been completed and the cost has spiralled to £250million – for which the taxpayer is on the hook, of course.

It also transpires that ministers proceeded with the contract despite warnings from their ferries agency. Meanwhile, the order giving the go-ahead has vanished.

To all this, as to all things, Miss Sturgeon offers a practised tip of the head and an affected chuckle. It is not simply that she wishes to avoid scrutiny – all politicians do – but that she regards scrutiny as something beneath her. The First Minister displays utter disdain for accountability.

Scotland is at risk of becoming a country where every major public infrastructure project becomes subject to a public inquiry. It has taken such probes to try to get to the bottom of failures at Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth University Hospital, the Edinburgh Sick Children’s Hospital and the Edinburgh trams.

It is with a heavy heart that we say a public inquiry is now needed into the ferries debacle. That is clearly the only way the truth about this embarrassing farrago will ever come to light.