'Were you signing Lionel Messi?'
Anas Sarwar ridicules Nicola Sturgeon's quarter-billion ferries fiasco.
This is my sketch of First Minister’s Questions, held on Thursday, March 31, 2022.
Did you see Anas Sarwar at First Minister’s Questions?
Probably not. His fist-and-footwork were lightning-fast. He ducked and weaved like Muhammad Ali with a parliamentary pass. I could barely keep up with him and his sparring partner, Nicola Sturgeon, certainly couldn’t.
The subject was those two ferries Derek Mackay managed to buy without the First Minister knowing about it and while he was on holiday. Labour likes to criticise this SNP government, but Sarah Boyack was transport minister for two whole years and I don’t remember her snapping up frigates from a deckchair in Torremolinos.
The First Minister was still reeling from a Douglas Ross onslaught on the same topic when Sarwar stepped up.
‘The waste of public money — a quarter of a billion pounds so far — does not end with the award of the ferry contract,’ he began, limbering up.
There was the decision to hire ‘turnaround director’ Tim Hair in August 2019. ‘The emails that I have here,’ Sarwar declared, thrusting the sheaf of papers like a winning EuroMillions ticket, ‘which were obtained through freedom of information requests, show that the appointment was rushed through, without the usual competition, in just a few days.’
Hair was chosen from a three-person shortlist, all recommended by corporate consultancy PricewaterhouseCoopers. ‘In the process of negotiating his salary,’ Sarwar continued, ‘Mr Hair started by offering a rate of £2,000 a day but he ended up being paid just under £3,000, plus expenses, per day.’
Wait, his opening demand was two grand a day? And the Scottish Government managed to bargain him up to another grand on top of that? Yes, these are the people you’d want heading up trade negotiations for an independent Scotland. If you’re China, that is.
Still, it was probably another one of those million-pound decisions the First Minister doesn’t deign to take an interest in.
‘The emails also show that the First Minister was informed about all that and did not raise a single objection,’ Sarwar jabbed.
'Can the First Minister explain why she thought that it was right to pay Tim Hair more than £2m, which meant that he earned in just 11 days what the average Scot earns in a year?' Sarwar enquired.
I stand corrected: a two-million-pound decision.
Sturgeon said Hair's recruitment was 'in line with proper processes and procedures and with market rates', adding: 'I do not set the market rates at which people are paid.' Small mercies. Patrick Harvie would be on Elon Musk money and have a solid gold composter written into his contract.
'Market rate? £3,000 a day?' Sarwar sputtered. 'Were you signing Lionel Messi?'
The Labour benches heaved with laughter. Foysol Choudhury threw his head back and thumped his desk. Daniel Johnson chuckled like a man with a ferret scarpering up his trouser leg. Jackie Baillie fixed the chamber with the usual wry smile of a supervillain plotting world domination.
'That £2m,' Sarwar reminded her, 'was to turn around the yard and the ferries have still not been delivered, are costing more and have been delayed again'.
It got worse. He had got his mitts on another email, this one showing that 'government advisers suggested that Tim Hair needed a decent pay package so that life was not “unnecessarily painful” for him while he swapped Hampshire for Port Glasgow'.
That'll go down well in SNP-voting Greenock and Inverclyde. Sturgeon evaded Sarwar's question about value for money, pivoting to the jobs saved.
That just set him off again: 'This was a public relations stunt to protect Nicola Sturgeon’s job, Derek Mackay’s job and the jobs of SNP MPs... This government and this First Minister are all about spin and PR, while the public pays the bill.'
'I do not think that Anas Sarwar really does support the protection and retention of employment,' Sturgeon slapped back, wanly.
Clyde shipbuilders have nothing to fear from Anas Sarwar. It's not their job he's coming for, First Minister.
Originally published in the Scottish Daily Mail on April 1, 2022.
A managing Director of a private company who achieved this level of incompetence and consequent loss would have been fired in very short order . Why it is accepted when it is perpetrated by the government itself is beyond me . It would have been cheaper in the long run to pay the yard workers £1 million each and scrap the boats . Sturgeon should resign .