Professor John Robertson OBA

The MV Alfred, leased to CalMac by Pentland Ferries, is back in Ayr dock today.

Two years ago, she was tied up for gearbox problems in Ardrossan and was the cause of multiple cancellations on the Arran crossing.

The MV Alfred was cheap. Only £14.5 million in 2019.

It’s not clear what either the Communist Government subsidy, the wages rate or the death rate of workers in the Strategic Marine Shipyard was. It is also not clear just how much is lost to the Scottish economy by failing to build ferries here.

On 5 July 2022, the Alfred grounded on the uninhabited island of Swona while enroute from Gills Bay to St Margaret’s Hope. It resulted in damage to the port bulbous bow and no reported water ingress. There were 84 passengers and 13 crew onboard at the time of grounding. Some passengers sustained injuries, such as fractures, sprains and soft tissue damage, one passenger was hospitalised. There has not been one serious passenger injury on a CalMac ferry in living memory.

Just after completing berthing trials across the CalMac network, in 2023, the Alfred was laid up at Ayr in order to carry out repairs to her hydraulics system and make adjustments to her stern ramp.

The MV Alfred was cheap but is barely 5 years old. The average age of a Calmac ferry is 23 and the oldest is 36.

7 even older Calmac ferries built in Scotland are still working in Ireland.

And:

Restrictions on political and civil rights in Vietnam continued in 2022, especially as regards freedom of expression and association. The space for civil society is continuously shrinking. Several new laws and decrees introducing further restrictions in areas of cybersecurity, the work of NGOs and freedom of religion were either issued or under preparation. Journalists, bloggers and human rights defenders, as well as environmental activists, continued to be arrested and prosecuted on vague charges of crimes against national security or tax evasion and given long jail sentences in trials with little or no public access. During the year, appeal courts upheld several high profile convictions…..Vietnam is ranked 174th out of 180 countries in the Reporters Without Borders 2022 World Press Freedom Index.

https://www.eeas.europa.eu/human-rights-democracy-2022-report-vietnam_en?s=184#:~:text=There%20continue%20to%20be%20numerous,including%20through%20punitive%20transfers%3B%20and

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