First, the ferry sad news. With a blast on the horn, the MV Hebridean Isles sailed out of Stornoway for the last time, bound for the Clyde and a broker’s yard.

Ferries attract affection when they serve islands well. The Hebridean Isles came into that category. Built for the Uig-Lochmaddy-Tarbert triangle, there are fond memories of the crew organising events on board to support local charities and of a reliable CalMac friend.

Then she spent 15 years serving Islay, with an equally good reputation. Only in recent times did it all go wrong. Alas! When she should have been heading for dignified retirement, the Hebridean Isles was pressed into ever-more-demanding service, to cover gaps in the ageing fleet.

Just short of her 40th birthday, the poor old thing was costing a fortune to maintain and deemed unfit for anything other than the broker’s yard. It is an unworthy end for a vessel that epitomised CalMac at its best.

The Hebridean Isles was launched in Yorkshire when Mrs Thatcher was Prime Minister. It remains a curiosity that there are more vessels in the current CalMac fleet commissioned under the Thatcher and Major governments than have been delivered during 17 years of the SNP. It all started to go wrong around 2011.

Read more by Brian Wilson

Until then, no matter who was in government, ferry procurement was a routine duty rather than a political stunt. If it had stayed that way, the islands would have been spared their economic and social suffering. There were other options to maintain the Ferguson yard, without inflicting a reputational calamity.

So now the ferry bad news. Today is the seventh anniversary of the bogus launch of MV Glen Sannox; a shameless event which, in retrospect, forms an apt metaphor for the reign of Nicola Sturgeon. The occasion demanded a painted-on façade to enable a photo opportunity and a false funnel, unconnected to an engine. Perhaps you can see analogies.

I’m sure the true bill for two ferries will top the half billion mark once hidden costs, including large sums spent on terminals which the Ferguson ferries will not now use, are included. The certainty is we will never be allowed to know. There will be no inquiry or attachment of responsibility. That ship has sailed.

Nonetheless, a glaring conclusion which even the Scottish Government might have conceded is that governance of our ferry network has been a catastrophic failure which demands fundamental reform. The controlling role of Transport Scotland and separation of the procurement quango, CMAL, from the operator, CalMac, have been a tripartite disaster.

Complete exclusion of islanders from a process on which the wellbeing of their communities depends has been a major contributory disgrace. Throughout the evolution of our ferry scandal, there was not a single islander on the boards of CalMac or CMAL, far less within Edinburgh’s high command. That was not a careless omission but an objective embedded in the public appointments system.

So, in the light of all that has happened, what has changed? Well, nothing actually. Far from signalling humility and conciliation towards the islands, the Transport Secretary, Fiona Hyslop, has doubled down on the status quo. First, she re-appointed the Copenhagen-based chairman of CalMac, Erik Østergaard, who has visited a CalMac port once since being appointed in 2021, after eight equally absentee years as CMAL chair. She also reappointed two board members who, quite literally, have never visited a CalMac port.

These cases illustrate how deficient the Scottish Parliament is in powers of scrutiny. Why should such appointments be made without beneficiaries being required to account for qualifications or stewardship? Østergaard has been a key figure in the entire debacle yet would go unrecognised at Holyrood, or even less probably, if he ghosted into Brodick or Lochboisdale. Do MSPs feel no need to challenge this?

The recent appointments to the board of CMAL were equally revealing. In this case, at least two islanders were interviewed and rejected. One of them has described the experience as “surreal”. He was asked nothing about transport or islands but found himself being “grilled about diversity. They didn’t seem interested in anything else”.

Frion Transport Secretary Fiona Hyslop (Image: PA) The panel interviewing him was made up of the Edinburgh lawyer who now chairs CMAL, a civil servant from Transport Scotland and the “independent” member, a lady named Jayam Dayal, who describes herself as “a strategic and creative thinker with a strong commitment to equality and diversity”.

We deserve to know more about Ms Dayal. She has been part of the Scottish Government appointments circuit for nine years which means she has exercised more influence over public policy than most MSPs. I am all in favour of equality and diversity, but should knowledge of shipping and islands not also count for something?

The outcome was the appointment of a Yorkshire-based railway professional, Mark Tarry, and Stuart Cresswell who was Associated British Ports manager for Troon for 21 years, which may be of interest to Arran and Ardrossan. Mr Tarry advertises himself as “building a non-executive portfolio” and has also been appointed to the board of the Scottish Public Pensions Agency. That’s how our quango system works.

It needs complete overhaul - and nowhere more so than in the ferries context with powers moving decisively towards communities involved. What, Ms Hyslop, is the argument against local authority, community and employee representation on the board of a unified ferry authority with substantial devolution of management to the islands? Among all the models for running ferry services, only Scotland clings to remote control by ministers, bureaucrats and puppet appointees.

Why, Ms Hyslop, do you think a Yorkshire railwayman knows more about the needs of islands than a Hebridean seafarer? Why does “diversity” trump relevant lived experience? Until answers are demanded to such questions, the same follies and failures will be repeated. Fretting about the symptoms of Scotland’s ferry scandal is not enough. It all comes back to governance and it is surely time for Holyrood’s opposition parties to unite in order to force fundamental change to a failed system.

Brian Wilson is a former Labour Party politician. He was MP for Cunninghame North from 1987 until 2005 and served as a Minister of State from 1997 to 2003