We have just had it on good authority that Scotland’s Transport Minister Stewart Stevenson has resigned. (16.00 11th December 2010).
This appears to be true – and the irony is that this was not the issue he should have gone on.
He had come under incessant pressure from the opposition parties in Holyrood for his leadership during the recent and briefly paralysing spell of snow and ice.
Perhaps it is a measure of part of what he lacks as a Minister that he has not been able to deal with this political asault. He rocked on to the back foot far too early and has been unable to recover his equlibrium.
It may well be that, with other and far more serious matters in the pipeline which would have left him cruelly exposed for good reason – the replacement Dunoon-Gourock ferry and the renewal or not of the Campbeltown-Ballycastle ferry – it suited Stevenson to get out now.
As we said when the furore broke out as grid lock in ice and snow hit the arterial roads of the central belt, the behaviour of the public and the media was equally irrational.
With the weather in Scotland, stuff happens.
The circumstances attaching – specifically – to the two day closure of the M8 between Scotland’s two largest cities of Glasgow and Edinburgh could not have been predicted in their complexity.
More snow fell faster than anticipated in certain localities. Lorries jacknifed, closing lanes. Too many people had taken a chance on driving when commonsense,in the prevailing conditions should have led them to stay at home.
Because we suffer such conditions very irregularly, few motorists have the driving skills required. One car losing it on a hill is all it takes to close a road.
But the hounds of the opposition bayed and snarled. Stevenson was heavily worked on by presentation people before he was let out to answer for himself in the chamber – and then what had been intended to be a manly, confident delivery, accepting responsibility, was interpreteted as belligerent.
He did his best. he iterated: ‘I-am-the-Transport-Minister-and-I-am-responsible’, almost with a toss of the head. It didn’t sound beligerent to us, It sounded scripted, rehearsed, daft, astray – all of which it was.
When are we going to accept that we have had enough of these ridiculous show-trials of public apologies? They mean nothing anyway but the national media bay for them on autopilot.
Stevenson had already made a horlicks of an apology to the public, on television, ‘I am sorry for the circumstances we have brought upon them’ – and here we were thinking these things were described officially as ‘Acts of God’.
He is now reported as saying that he has resigned because: ‘I could have done much more to ensure that members of the public who were caught up in a difficult and frightening set of circumstances were better informed of the situation’.
In fact people were calling less for information than for action – regardless of whatever genuinely effective action was open to him.
The First Minister’s reported statement in regretfully accepting Stevenson’s resignation is no less incoherent: ‘…frankly I think it is wrong that you should have faced this situation’. Mr Salmond must have had in mind the savage sounds when the opposition hounds ‘found’ but these words were couched in the context of the weather – which simply made them foolish.
So it’s all been an inept muddle.
Stevenson has never been up to the job at Transport? He has never been in command of his brief and thereofore has never had the confidence that is born of such command.
He is said to be a lazy Minister, leaving a lot to his officials. It’s always a mistake to let the sheepdog take the wheel – its agenda is to corrall the other players in the field, not to lead the van of progress.
Stevenson has also been indecisive, prone to dithering but fond of the semblance of patronage – the worst blend of all of the elements of the politician. He has muddled a lot of issues from this tendency, among them aggravating an already confused situation in the Ministry of Defence disposal of the former RAF airbase at Machrihanish – also a civil airport operated by the locally unpopular and far from innovative HIAL.
Centrally, Stevenson did not have either the necessary judgment or the political courage a strong minister must have.
This was most evident in the damaging furore he was responsible for in misleading Stephen Purcell, then Leader of Glasgow City Council, to believe that the Glasgow Airport Rail Link (GARL) project was going ahead when he himself had recommended its abandonment to Cabinet Secretary John Swinney.
It has been evident again in the interminable and indefensible delays to progressing the replacement for the Gourock-Dunoon ferry service, with the educated suspicion that he was opting for a passenger-only service but delaying the announcement until after the May 2011 Scottish Election.
It would also seem that he pretty well took his eyes off the need to maintain momentum on the Campbeltown-Ballycastle ferry renewal – a critical part of the jigsaw to support the econoic regeneration of the entire Kintyre peninsula and the important Campbletown.
While the Transport Minister should not have gone in the consequences of temporarily disabling bad weather – for which fate and an irresponsible public were equally responsible, he should have gone a long time ago.
And it is First Minster, Alex Salmond, who has been responsible for that failure of judgment.
Argyll must now wait to see who happens along next and what they will make of the legacy from Stevenson on the two crucial ferry services for Argyll- for Cowal and Dunoon and for Campbeltown and Kintyre.
The Transport Minister’s replacement is to be announced tomorrow with Cabinet Secretary John Swinney in overnight charge – and probably glad of the short term thaw denied to Stewart Stevenson.
According to the weather forecast, the new Minister will face an immediate challenge with plummeting temperatures due to start on Monday (13th December) and due to continue to the end of the month.
Yep. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-11976328
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
I can confirm that it is true that he has resigned.
Your coverage was excellent, the one thing i would disagree with is when you say that it;
“may well be that, with other and far more serious matters in the pipeline which would have left him cruelly exposed for good reason – the replacement Dunoon-Gourock ferry and the renewal or not of the Campbeltown-Ballycastle ferry – it suited Stevenson to get out now”.
No, that did not matter at all. It matters to all us whose communities and economies depend on these services, but once you get as far as Glasgow, Edinburgh, Dundee or Aberdeen, which is where most of the politicians and the media are based, the only thing that they know about a CalMac ferry is through nice cutesie TV adverts for a summer holiday.
If it was just down to ferry issues, he could have bluffed his way through to Holyrood elections in May, no problem at all.
It took a 24 hour transport problem in the Central Belt to let all these over there realize what us over here have known for more than three years.
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
And good riddance; is there now the remotest possibility that after a whole series of useless incumbents holding the transport brief, Salmond may have in his ranks someone who can actually deliver?
I’m not holding my breath – I have a sneaking suspicion that Stevenson only held on to the job for so long because there was no one else considered capable of doing it – and that’s a pretty shocking indictment of the talent at the First Minister’s disposal…..
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Talent in is very short supply in the scottish parliament , why don’t we scrap it and use the money saved to finance our rural schools and ferries ?
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Mr Salmond replied to the resignation letter by saying: “Even your harshest critic would admit that you have always pursued any task you have addressed with diligence and devotion. Both these qualities have been evident in your service as a minister in this first SNP government.”
I an sorry, I am one of the former minister’s harshest critics and I simply do not agree with the First Minister.
It is one thing to say good things about a former minister, but if that half-reflects the view in Edinburgh with denial and ignorance of what he actually did – or did not do – then they, and we, are all in trouble, irrespective of who is Transport Minister
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Kintyre – are you suggesting that there is an abundance of talent at Westminster?
Perhaps you would care to expand on this assertion, since there’s precious little evidence to support it…..
….a cack-handled delivery on tuition fees, characterised by more back-pedalling than a circus unicyclist from Clegg and Cable, a defence review which has sacrificed a host of key strategic considerations to keep a missile defence system which no-one can justify with any conviction…..and a series of governments of both hues who have sacrificed Britain’s industrial base on the false god of money manipulation….
…and squandered the country’s oil and gas reserves on dole money.
If you are suggesting that being part of this is to Scotland’s benefit, then I really don’t know what planet you’re on.
The Scottish Parliament may indeed be lacking in talent – and in that respect the opposition MSPs have proved conclusively that they also match that category – but it’s surely better than being run by some colonial secretary in Westminster.
At least if you make your own mistakes you can’t blame anyone else – that’s what being a nation is all about,
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
bill , that’s the usual nationalist claptrap , Scotland’s westminster politicians play a full part in the running of the United Kingdom and it’s a situation the majority of scots are content with , hence the poor showing of the snp at the last general election (fourth in Argyll & Bute)
It would appear it is nationalists like you who are on a different planet from the rest of us , have you not seen what has happened to Iceland and the republic of ireland ?
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
To kintyre1: So this would explain the clamour from Ireland to rejoin the United Kingdom. Perhaps you would like to give us an example of a country which has recently asked to rejoin the British Empire as a solution to its problems. As far as I can see there has only been one way traffic on this issue in the last century or two and that is the road to independence.
As far as Mr. Stevenson goes, it is clear he was not up to the job. This does not mean we should abandon the idea of a Scottish Parliament, that would be stupid. But then stupidity is a familiar concept to kintyre1 who manages to blame the faults and problems of the entire world on the SNP. Are you sure you are not Brian Wilson??
I would hope that the ferry issue will start to move along now that we have a new minister in place. The Scottish Government have been made well aware of the consequences of failing to deliver on this and Mike Russell is more aware than anybody.
Andy
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Kintyre asks “have you not seen what has happened to Iceland and the republic of ireland?”
And your point is?
Is this meant to suggest that small countries are incapable of sustaining themselves?
In that case where does Norway come into the equation?
The last time I looked it seemed to be doing pretty well.
And just because I happen to take a different view from you, it doesn’t follow that my opinion is ‘claptrap’, and that’s acceptable for you to make comments which do nothing to raise the quality of the debate.
I am indeed a nationalist, with a very small ‘n’.
I am not, nor have I ever been, a member of the SNP – in fact I think their performance on the Dunoon-Gourock ferry issue has been utterly shameful, and I have made that abundantly clear in this and other forums.
However, I also think that Alan Reid is an unprincipled and publicity-seeking opportunist, I have a soft spot for Jamie MacGrigor who is blessed with a self-deprecating sense of humour, and hold Labour’s Davie Graham in high regard, which proves that I’m far old and cynical for my opinions to be driven by ideology.
Kintyre points out that Scotland’s Westminster politicians ‘play a full part in the running of the UK’
The fact that the vast majority of the aforesaid politicians are sitting on the opposition benches somewhat inhibits their ability to run the UK, does it not?
If that’s a situation that “most Scots are content with”, it raises the obvious question: “Why?”
And I repeat the closing statement in my last posting:
‘At least if you make your own mistakes you can’t blame anyone else – that’s what being a nation is all about’.
True or false?
Like or Dislike:
0 
0
Now I read in the press of the large payout from taxpayers Mr Stevenson is to receive with other substantial sums likely to come his way . I say again , little wonder there is a shortage of cash for essential public services .
Like or Dislike:
0 
0