Why the facts sink this bizarre CalMac attack

by the paper's associate editor, George Kerevan, was so dire it seems the hapless Kerevan would be hard-pressed to tell a bowloader from a paddle-steamer.

CalMac, apparently, runs a ''lucrative monopoly'', threatened by ''up to a dozen rivals who are expected to bid for the state-owned company's network'', according to a ''leading maritime expert'', Professor Neil Kay of Strathclyde University. Portraying CalMac as a subsidy junkie fast alienating the public, Kerevan forecasts its doom before European demands for compulsory competitive tendering.

That is what Kerevan presents as hard news. In an accompanying feature he pours on the spite. ''It is a state-owned transport company that does not make a profit on any of its routes.'' CalMac is ''renowned for its high prices, uncomfortable boats, and disregard for customers . . .'' It's a ''nationalised dinosaur'' succeeding in only one thing - ''getting the taxpayer to fork out.''

CalMac's chairman Dr Harold Mills and chief executive Lawrie Sinclair are identified for wounding, personal criticism. We're reminded of the stushie surrounding Dr Mills's 1999 appointment, and that Mr Sinclair used to run Ailsa Shipbuilding at Troon - ''main supplier of ferries for CalMac''; the company folded shortly after he assumed his Gourock post. Duncan Hamilton, SNP list MSP for the Highlands and Islands, is quoted to dismiss Mr Sinclair's track-record.

Let's tally Kerevan's mistakes. Ship management accounting is complex, with costs and the intricacies of ship depreciation spread over CalMac operations as a whole. Yet it is false to say that ''not one of Caledonian MacBrayne's 29 vessels'' makes a profit. At least three runs - Stornoway, Craignure, and Brodick - are notionally profitable.

Others have already leapt upon Kerevan's vagueness. Who are those 12 rival ferry-operators? Why doesn't he name them? Nor are we advised of Professor Kay's expertise in maritime affairs, but his obscurity is such that he enjoys no entry in Who's Who in Scotland.

Caledonian MacBrayne is not quite a monopoly. Western Ferries competes directly on the Clyde's Gourock-Dunoon service; a private operator runs an alternative Skye ferry, and other car ferries at Jura, Luing, and Corran are run by local authorities. If Kerevan believes CalMac fares are extortionate, he should take a van to Shetland, or fly from Glasgow to Stornoway. The melodramatic claim that CalMac has lost ''25% of passengers in a decade'' does not fully explain that, since 1995, CalMac has lost its ferry services to Skye, Scalpay, and Bernera (thanks to bridges and a causeway); abandoned summer cruises on the Clyde, and between Mallaig and Kyle of Lochalsh; and been forced, with the big new Outer Isles boat, to abandon calls at Tobermory on Mull. Nor does Kerevan tell us CalMac has been long forbidden freely to compete on the Dunoon route.

As for uncomfortable ships, we must assume Kerevan has never boarded any of the ''mini-liners'' CalMac have built since the late eighties - our own new Hebrides is a splendid example. Any resident of Tiree, Mull, Barra, or Harris will assure him their present vessel is not only better furnished, but much faster and more stable on passage than the mailboats of the fifties. A few ships are knocking on a bit. The Jupiter, for instance, may have wooden decks, but she played no part in the evacuation of Dunkirk, nor was Vasco da Gama ever captain of her.

Dr Mills's appointment as chairman did attract fierce criticism - not least an unpleasant vendetta from the West Highland Free Press - but the commissioner for public appointments, who made full investigation, declared no impropriety had occurred. It's untrue that Ailsa of Troon supplied most CalMac ferries - of the present operational fleet, Ferguson's of Port Glasgow constructed seven; Lamont's, six, Richard Dunstan (Hessle) four, and Ailsa only three.

Even more troubling is what one can ascertain of the journalistic background. Kerevan quotes Captain Norman Martin's testimony to the Scottish Parliament's transport committee, but neglects to explain the context to Martin's seemingly damning remarks on company profit motive: he was outlining the huge burden on CalMac's resources imposed by new, ferocious Maritime and Coastguard

Agency safety regulations. Remarkably, neither the Scotsman's esteemed Highlands & Islands correspondent, John Ross, nor their transport correspondent, Alastair Dalton, appears to have contributed to the article. This is all the more puzzling as Dalton interviewed, at length, Lawrie Sinclair only on August 14.

Duncan Hamilton says he has not spoken to Kerevan for at least three months. Kerevan does not include in his report quotes from CalMac's managers or officials. Nor is there a quote from a member of the Scottish Executive. CalMac's European problem is scarcely news, and for the assertion that the company - or future private operators - have been promised a public-money honeypot of a third of a billion pounds, Kerevan tenders no evidence whatever.

Were this one man's ravings, it might matter little. Alas, they are those of his paper. CalMac's ''monopoly must go'', declared the Wednesday editorial, and its routes would be ''best franchised in separate bundles''. Absurdly, the paper demands ''modern ferry technology - including catamarans''. Such craft are prohibitively expensive to fuel, cause dangerous ''superwaves'' in enclosed waters, and could never manage the exposed seas of Hebridean winter. In 1976 Western Ferries' fast catamaran, Highland Seabird, had to abandon up-river services to Glasgow from Clyde resorts; even on gentle Clyde, floating timber was a menace. Highland Seabird, despite carrying 60,000 passengers in a season, proved utterly uneconomic.

The truth is brutal. The West Highland ferry network must operate as one, to allow cross-subsidy of routes and a fleet large enough to cover for breakdown and overhaul. This has long been fact. Twice and thrice - 1982; 1988; 1994 - the Tories tried, and failed, to find an alternative to nationalised CalMac operations.

The fantasy of El Cheapo Highland shipping operations was blown, surely, by the debacle of Orkney Ferries in 1989. Ignoring all counsel from those who knew the Pentland Firth, Orkney Islands Council financed a short crossing from Gillis Bay, Caithness, to South Ronaldsay. Millions of public pounds were sunk in badly-sited terminals and an inadequate new ferry. After a month the Caithness linkspan was destroyed by gales; the affair finally cost islanders some (pounds) 7m.

More: Kerevan and his paper attack not a company, but a community. CalMac recruits from the breadth of the western seaboard. Scarcely a major ship in the network sails without a Harrisman; island sea skills draw on generations of experience. Talent like Captains Gunn or Morrison of the Hebrides, or chief engineer MacLennan of the Caledonian Isles, is not readily found nor lightly bought.

It would be interesting to see Kerevan's obsession with the profit-motive applied, say, to the police, or our prisons, or the armed forces. Like them, CalMac provides essential services no host of cherry-pickers could equal. Hopelessly Kerevan exposes himself, like Lord Darlington's cynic, as one who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.