From KOMO News today:
Over the past few years, WSF has experienced crew shortages which have caused delays and cancellations.
A few weeks ago, KOMO News reported that WSF had 21 boats in its fleet, but only 15 were currently in service.
Oftentimes, when a crew shortage happens ferry riders may assume that a deckhand or other position they would normally see on board working, couldn’t make it to work. KOMO News learned from one of the unions that represents ferry workers, that many times the missing link in the crew is someone who works below deck, in the engine room.
Crew shortages? I am aware of not one example of a CalMac cancellation caused by crew shortages.
Almost a third of vessels out-of-service? CalMac typically has only 2 out of 34 in maintenance.
Talking-up Scotland 
in 2014, one of the unionist jibes against independence supporters was that it was Scottish ‘exceptionalism’, by which they were implying that we were claiming Scots were better than anyone else, i.e. we were blood and soil nationalists, which equated Scots with fascists and Nazis.
But, they were not averse at deploying exceptionalism to attack independence. Scots were not very good, not genetically programmed to manage our own affairs: Scots were exceptionally inadequate as a people.
There was also the jibe of ‘identity politics’ – we identified as Scots and nothing else (they claimed), so that was bad. However, having British identity was a good thing – ‘when Britain first at heav’n’s command/arose from out the azure main/this was the charter, the charter of the land/and guardian angels sang this strain/Rule Britannia, Britannia rule the waves/Britons never never shall be slaves’.
This was PATRIOTISM and patriotism was a good thing, because it was about pride in country, as long as that country is Britain/England. Independence supporters are nationalists and that is a bad thing because it is about pride in a country which is not Britain/England.
So, by these criteria Scottish, US, Canadian, New Zealand etc ferries are bad because they are not British/English, whereas Isle of Wight and Scilly Isles ferries are good because they are British/English and are affected by weather and wear, tides and tear, which are all natural things.
Alasdair Macdonald.
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O/T
MSM monitor twitter (X) account tweeted this today:
“Rachel Reeves has come to Scotland and is accusing the Scottish Govt of spending more than it should. Maybe someone will ask her why Anas Sarwar demanded the Scottish Govt quadruple the Scottish child payment. Nobody seems willing to confront this charlatan on anything”
Also via their MSM Twitter (X) account today:
“Some of Anas Sarwar’s spending demands & pledges”
“Quadruple the child payment
Increase the winter fuel payment
Universal free school meals
Supported a council tax freeze
£15/hr for social care workers
Buy up neglected houses and sell for £1
Backed council worker pay demands”
Included in these tweets is video evidence where the above is heard to come straight from the Horse’s, as in Anas Sarwar’s, mouth.
So MSM Monitor is correct.
Rachel Reeves from Labour HQ must then be either oblivious to the financial demands Anas Sarwar has made in respect to him demanding the Scottish government should spend spend spend or she, like Anas Sarwar, is playing politics to try and promote the Scottish government as being , in her opinion (as she from a opposing political party as in the Labour party), a devolved government that is supposedly mismanaging their budget.
Meanwhile the media plays their part perfectly , though not as how a (impartial and non partisan) media should actually behave, but instead they act as a media who are determined to replace the SNP with the Labour party in 2026 in the Scottish elections at Holyrood as the new Scottish government.
Conveniently today Rachel Reeves, while in Scotland, lays as much blame upon the SNP, a devolved government, as she does in respect to the Conservative party who were the previous UK government.
Also conveniently no blame , via her, is directed at either her party at Labour HQ as the new UK government or indeed directed at the Welsh Labour devolved government.
Of course all of this is pure deflection but realistically how long can this ‘Blame game via Labour’ last with all voters , with the Tory media and also with opposition parties to the Labour party.
I suppose with Labour currently deploying political scapegoats in both England & Scotland as a political strategy, they then hope that will see them somehow being excused from failing to actually “Change” much for the UK public, as the new UK government , which they promised in their election campaign that they would do when they were in power.
This though is all par for the course , via a UK party , and very much more so for Labour as far as Scotland is concerned.
As Scotland has of course been down this road before with pledges, promises and vows made to it, vows not worth either the paper they were written in (Daily Record 2014), or indeed the pledges and promises also made to Scotland from the mouths of Labour politicians (also in 2014) that also failed to materialise as promised and promoted .
So we, Scotland, are well used to being exposed to duplicity, double standards & let’s be honest downright lies via the Labour party.
I mean it is hardly breaking news is it.
A new Labour party Chancellor of the Exchequer from a new Labour UK government blames her party’s political opponents , the Tories and the SNP, while refusing to take any responsibility or accountability for her party on the promises that they made as a party, prior to the GE , to the UK public.
While also being in denial that they, Labour, were either very wrong to or naïvely presumptuous to promise so much would be done by them if the public elected them as the new UK government when allegedly they, Labour, had no idea of the UK Treasury’s true financial position (which as a fact has been disputed as in it has been argued Labour did indeed know prior to them taking office as the new UK Govt. that there was indeed a so called financial black hole).
It also now makes Anas Sarwar’s pre GE declaration to John Swinney where he said:
“Read my lips there will be no austerity under Labour”
Now seem, as a declaration via Sarwar, somewhat nonsensical as if Reeves is saying “the SNP are spending more than they should” well why would they, the SNP, not seek to “spend” as much as they want if , as Sarwar declared pre the GE, there was no need or no plan for “austerity” via his party as the next potential UK government .
So one assumes he then saw that no austerity would then be required via either his party as the new UK government or via the SNP as well. Surely ?
(Or was he, Sarwar, lying to fend off John Swinney who said that Labour’s spending plans will leave £18 in cuts )
I think Labour HQ and Labour in Scotland need to get their stories straight or at least be both ‘singing the from the same hymn sheet’ as clearly one of them is out of step with the other.
Pathetic they both are while also so very very obvious the game that they play at both HQ level and below.
It’s called “Playing politics” while we the public in Scotland must continue to suffer under a UK government determined to (yet again) implement a Austerity programme where the poorest among us must once more, pay the price , so that the rich can continue to flourish ( and the UK politicians and UK government benefits via the rich donating to their respective political parties and their election campaigns).
Also worth noting people like me, who are not defined as poor, but also are not defined as wealthy either , will also suffer via some of the cuts Labour intend to make.
Is that then what some Scots lent their vote for and to in the recent GE when they voted for Labour in Scotland ?
I hope not , but with some, I do sometimes wonder !
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