The post you are reporting:
You are clearly the one getting confused here Andy.
There is a huge difference between the proposals of 2005 and the present 'fire sale' just to clear debt. The fact is a Labour Government Minister was on TV advocating the privatisation last week.
No-one is suggesting Dubai Ports will buy the Port except scaremongers. There are a number of privatisation models that can be followed and I have suggested one that would not involved Dubai Ports or any other single company, British or foreign buying the Port. My suggestion is a share offering to Port employees, user firms and their employees plus a 'golden share' for the local community with the balance offered, not to a single company or even a consortium, but a flotation in the City with shares being purchased by pension funds and other institutional investorscas well as the public. This is why I believe that GP and PW, perhaps with CE involved too, would be better negotiating the best deal for Dover than simply opposing privatasation full stop.
In respect of the Polish workers I am merely pointing out that foreigners are employed in the Port now and there is nothing 'special' about a Trust Port compared to a privatised Port. They are both free to employ who they want. The Trust does not reserve Port jobs for British people and would not be allowed to under EU law. We have seen now that there is no special protection for British or local people when it somes to port employment as shown by recent controversies.
The whole point is that we are getting silly scare stories based on falsehoods and speculation. Fears of change are understandable but we must be realistic. DHB themselves have changed their tune since 2005 and Labour now want to privatise as well. Charlie is leading local Conservative opposition to a privatisation and I do not know where that will lead.
It is not up to me to defend the Labour Government's clearly stated policy of privatising the Port, its just that I have no philispohical opposition to such a move.
One further point. The bail-out is not just because of the bank debts, thats about £60bn out of £780bn or so. The deficit is caused by the overall economic mismanagement by the Government, who should have placed the UK is a better position to handle the recession by clearing debt during the good years, instead it just borrowed more. We had a structural debt at the beginning of the slowdown which is a massive economic mistake clearly as a result of Brown believing he had bannished boom and bust. We also have to remember that the regulatory changes made by Brown opened the way for the banks to behave the way they did. Plus, Brown made an error with the BoE inflation brief which ignored the levels of private and Government borrowing when setting interest rates. The fire sale is part of what the Government wants to do to help solve their 12/13 years of mismanagement overall.
