THE MANY SCANDALS OF NICOLA STURGEON (1)

In the many scandals that surround Scotland's First Minister,  Nicola Sturgeon, there is one,  in particular,  that stands out  a million nautical miles.  As we've long said,  this is a woman utterly withour either honour or shame and,  when it comes to lying and prevarication, is entirely in a class of her own.

Since 2006,  the company David MacBrayne Ltd (DML) has been wholly owned by The Scottish Ministers.  DML,  in turn,  owns the ferry company,  CalMac Ferries Ltd (CFL),  so that The Scottish Ministers are the sole shareholders in CFL also.  CFL,  in its turn, wholly owns the  Guernsey-registered company,  Caledonian MacBrayne Crewing (Guernsey) Ltd  so that that Guernsey-registered company is,  also,  wholly owned by The Scottish Ministers.  So far,  so good,  so clear.

For years,  the company blurb of CFL has proudly proclaimed that its crewing arrangements for some 1,000 seafarers are handled by that same Caledonian MacBrayne Crewing (Guernsey) Ltd,  a company formed as long ago as 24 January 2006.    CalMac has hidden nothing and nobody has found anything unduly wrong with the arrangement - until now,  that is.  Neither has CalMac ever sought to evade UK Employment Law.

Unquestionably,  CFL arranged the Guernsey connection principally to avoid paying their share of National Insurance to the UK Treasury.  Nothing wrong with that in itself either,   an arrangement that is quite standard practice in the seafaring world if you can get away with it.  It is estimated that since 2006  CalMac has saved something in the region of £50million by this arrangement.  The P&O saga has now brought everything crashing down.

Nicola Sturgeon has long been the foremost critic of  tax-avoidance by 'Westminster Tories' and their friends.  It now turns out that as First Minister she herself has been one of the biggest tax-avoiders of all!

Nice one,  Nicola!  Our congratulations!