Just what is the problem that Scots in particular have with the private sector delivering public services?

Do Tesco and Aldi do a bad job of providing us with groceries? The evidence is that they and their competitors do an excellent job of ensuring the public have a good selection of goods at fair prices at a choice of outlets.

For some reason this service, covering something as basic as food, is no problem at all for the private sector to deliver.

Yet if there is any suggestion of the private sector being involved in providing things like universal healthcare or education there is mass hysteria and the First Minister has to make a reassuring statement in Parliament that those nasty private sector people will be kept out.

Read more Guy Stenhouse

This even extends, rather daftly, to the provision of ferry services. Just how much evidence do we need that the private sector can deliver ferry services better than the public sector. CalMac has the wrong sort of ferries, travelling in some cases on the wrong routes, too slowly, too unreliably, too infrequently at far too much cost. Yes, you meet some wonderful staff on a CalMac vessel but that isn't good enough. The service is poor and costs too much.

Unusually, ferries provide a laboratory quality example of a private sector operator providing a superior and more cost-effective service compared with the state-owned operator.

CalMac used to have a........

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