ALEX Salmond declared that Inverclyde can become a world-leading shipbuilding and re-industrialised powerhouse during a campaign visit to the district yesterday. The Alba Party leader pledged to strive to harness the potential of Ferguson s shipyard and Inchgreen Dry Dock with a view to creating thousands of skilled jobs. Mr Salmond in Greenock to support local candidate Chris McEleny also slammed the bosses of a Scottish Government, Port Glasgow-based procurement quango embroiled in the Ferguson s ferries fiasco. He said that Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited (CMAL) was the winter on Inverclyde s pastures and that the body, which is also in charge of Scotland s ferries fleet and harbours, must be abolished.
HAULIERS in the Scottish islands are not surprisingly “through the roof” after ferry services were decimated amid a series of breakdowns. Tourism businesses getting ready for the reopening of the isles are concerned the Scottish Government’s plans for exiting the pandemic may also be curtailed. Four lifeline CalMac ferries have broken down in three weeks, freight has been disrupted and the redistribution of what’s left always leaves someone without. The fleet’s largest vessel, the eight-year-old MV Loch Seaforth, was due back on Monday but now it looks more likely to be some weeks away, with CalMac so far unable to source a temporary replacement.
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The focus must be on how to preserve the Ferguson yard and jobs, whatever happens from here Picture: Jamie Simpson By Ian McConnell A “MUCH more ambitious” industrial policy was one of the big ideas included in the recent Hunter Foundation-commissioned report examining how Scotland’s economic growth rate might be raised, and it looks well worth pursuing. However, one big question on this front is whether, if the type of large-scale state intervention suggested as an option is adopted, politicians across the spectrum can be grown-up enough when this leads to failures as well as successes to deal with this constructively. After all, some failures seem inevitable when trying to boost the economy by picking future winners, whether this is through backing specific companies or broader sectors or technological niches.
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