We now learn that the reason why CalMac’s biggest and newest ship broke down is because some screws were not replaced during a service.

It sounds like a made up story, but unfortunately it isn’t.

Poor CalMac, the operator of the services tends to get the blame but, in fact, it is the Scottish Government that should be held account over this ferry fiasco.

The problems over ferry services perfectly encapsulate what is wrong with the Scottish Government’s stewardship of our economy.

One of the benefits of devolution should have been the creation of a body – the Scottish Government – solely focusing on the needs of Scotland, in particular those needs that were not adequately understood or prioritised at UK level.

The Scottish Government can decide on, manage and fund priorities and projects that matter only to Scotland

– but this ability to focus on smaller things is an advantage it throws away with regular monotony. So keen to strut its stuff as a fully-fledged nation, too arrogant to actually do the detailed work that is there to be done.

Ferry services to Scotland’s islands are economic and social lifelines for what are often fragile communities. It is hard to imagine a more obvious example of a particularly Scottish issue the Scottish Government should deal with effectively.

The nationalist Government had no difficulty at all when it came to power in reducing the fares on the ferries. That’s easy – populist, vote-winning stuff.

Its other actions – or inactions – since then have been a mixture of negligence, pig-headedness, stupidity, waste and lack of responsibility.

You would think it would be fairly obvious that reducing fares would increase the demand for ferry services. Instead of joining the dots and realising this meant the programme of adding new and additional ships should be speeded up, the Scottish Government slowed the replacement rate down.

The result? Overworked old ferries that break down regularly. This is typical of the Government – it loves handing out sweets but pretends they don’t have to be paid for.

The Scottish Government then grinds into action and approves two ludicrously large and complex dual-fuel ferries not suitable for the routes or harbours they serve. The contract to build these leviathans is then hastily awarded to Ferguson Marine, which hadn’t built ships like that before.

At the same time, through another of its quangos, the Scottish Government starts mucking around with the berthing arrangements needed in the harbours to take the over-large ferries. To the horror of the residents of Arran, in particular, the berth is turned around so it is all but unusable in certain winds. The local people were not consulted or listened to.

Meanwhile, back at Ferguson Marine all was not going well and despite the Scottish Government secretly slipping it some more cash – pretending it was for product diversification when it was just to pay the bills – the yard goes bankrupt and the bold Derek Mackay (remember him?) announces its nationalisation and strides around like a hero having splashed our cash.

The new ferries are years late, the first will probably not be in service before 2023 and they will cost more than double the original price.

Real businesses, real communities on the islands are suffering. They cannot travel to the mainland reliably, goods cannot get to market, tourists think it is too risky to plan a journey – a tragedy in a year that should be a bonanza for island tourism.

And nobody resigns. No minister lost their job, no civil servant was fired, the board of the company that ordered the useless ships remains in place.

Only the Scottish Government PR machine continues to run efficiently, spouting out piffle about how more money is being spent on ferries than ever before – as if overpaying for something is a virtue.

Action is required Nicola not words. This has gone wrong on your watch

and it’s your responsibility to fix it

– quickly.

Guy Stenhouse is a Scottish financial sector veteran who wrote formerly

as Pinstripe.