Guest 673- Registered: 16 Jun 2008
- Posts: 1,388
6 February 2010
19:3039802QUOTE (from BarryW): I understand how upsetting it must be for loyal, longstanding Old Labour stalwarts to see Gordon Brown privatising our port. While I approve I do understand how you must feel it's a betrayal and a let down. UNQUOTE
Don't want to worry you, Barry, but I am anything but a loyal, longstanding Old Labour stalwart. I was a loyal, longstanding Conservative stalwart during the days of Old Labour. Nowadays I vote as my inclination takes me.
I suspect that your tunnel vision view of the world where you wilfully refuse to see anything outside the orthodox Conservative party line and cheerfully ignore all empirical evidence that categorically demonstrates endless instances where it is clearly completely the wrong path to follow gives rise to your supposition that anybody who challenges any facet of Conservative thinking whatsover must surely be an unspeakable, loathsome, card holding, ferret owning, cloth capped, Trotskyite, commie red-under-the-bed.
Your conjecture that I must feel a sense of betrayal and let down is correct but not quite in the way which you suppose. I regard New Labour as a clone of the Conservatives and therefore my sense of betrayal is directed primarily at the Conservatives and only by association at their clone.
I consider it to be the Conservatives who have sold my country from under my feet. They have hollowed it out from within and left a house of cards which collapsed at the first breath of wind. All of the infrastructure has been sold abroad, indigenous manufacturing industry abandoned, and the proceeds invested in stocks and shares in the City. The financial fat cats have then blown the lot on high roller speculation to achieve mega bonuses. I regard this as the penalty for hewing mindlessly to a single blinkered private-enterprise-fits-all dictum that fails to recognise the benefits of having other arrows in ones quiver.
Anyway, enough of that. I have a question which you may be able to answer as our resident money man. The Port of Dover has been a trust port for four hundred years. It has been owned by the nation and all of the profits have been reinvested in the port. Competent management in the past has given us a port which has seen off every challenge and flourished to become the major ferry terminal in Western Europe and the second largest cruise port in the UK, together with a useful cargo handling capacity and yacht marina. Every demand has been met with continuous expansion and modernisation of the ports facilities. It is clearly a tried and tested system which works and delivers.
Bob Goldfield proposes to sell the port off to foreign investors, he has left no doubt about that with his oblique references to "spreading the net as far as possible" and "finance is global." These investors will want to see a return on their money. If investment in the port is to continue at present levels, then all the current profits will still need to be reinvested in the port and will not be available to pay shareholders. From where exactly are they going to get all the additional money to give a return to the shareholders for the £500 million which they will have paid to purchase the port, and additionally the money which they are confidently expected to shower on the local community?
Guest 673- Registered: 16 Jun 2008
- Posts: 1,388
8 February 2010
06:0539966Interesting to see that the red tops have now cottoned on to what is going on. There is a deluge of screaming headlines about Dover being sold to the French. Apparently the Nord Pas de Calais Regional Council has expressed an interest in purchasing the Port of Dover. There is a precedent for this in that the port of Newhaven, property of British Rail prior to privatisation, is owned by a French public consortium led by the General Council of Seine Maritime.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1249194/Dover-symbol-British-sovereignty-sold-French-help-reduce-debt.html#ixzz0etxiHFeP
http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/721525/PLAN-TO-SELL-DOVER-PORT-TO-FRANCE.html
http://forums.canadiancontent.net/news/89804-englands-scottish-prime-minister-sell.htmlGuest 653- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,540
8 February 2010
08:4939974Thanks Ed. read those links and many of the comments; I agreed witrh most of them apart from "Dover is a hole".
Roger
Guest 660- Registered: 14 Mar 2008
- Posts: 3,205
8 February 2010
14:0740008I see it says the White Cliffs are for sale,what a load of ****, National Trust are in charge of the Cliffs,I thought that Charlie would have known that.
If you knew what I know,we would both be in trouble!
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
8 February 2010
14:2940011I think JHG he was being 'symbolic' and not speaking literally. I would have thought you would have supported an attempt to stir up outrage at the proposal, unless like me you are in favour....(of privatisation rather than a sell-off to the French that is).
I would not put it past this Government to go for a quick sale like this rather than make a better judged and timed privatisation. I am against, incidentally, privatisation in the manner of what is being reported above.
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
8 February 2010
14:4640013Ed - You first of all refer to a more general point I made as I dont know your voting record. Perhaps I should have made it clearer.
I do not recognise as factual much of the rest of your post either. Your characterisation of my political views is absurd and crude in the extreme as is your characterisation of the Conservative privatisation agenda. This is half informed emotion rather than logic speaking. You need only to look back at the the overmanned inefficient disaster zones that were the nationalised industries of the 70's to see that.
The fact is that there is no advantage at all for the Trust structure. It is past its prime and threatens to hold back the future development of the Port. As the 'resident money man' I can assure you that Dover will be better served by a Port free from the dead hand of Government. This does not have to mean a sell off to johnny foreigner either, there are more ways than one to skin a cat. By being free to raise money for capital development in the markets, just as any other business, they can develop the Port creating future profit and ensuring future profitability. As a trust port it is restricted by the PSBR and we know just how big a problem there is, thanks to Brown, with that. The development of the Port under the Trust status simply will not happen for many years as a result and this is why the Board has changed its tune since 2005.
Guest 649- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 14,118
8 February 2010
15:1040022I do not think that way the development of the port over the years has been done alot and it will carry on that way without any sell off to the french or any other privatisation on the agenda,at the last Gen/Elections it was the blues saying sell it off,this time it is the reds,All the Goverment is trying to do is make up for the funding they got rid of in the past just to name one "Gold".
I think you find out if the blues get in again they to will jump on the band wagon and go to sell it off again.You can not trust the main partys anymore as we have seen over their own expense,s I will deal with that later on,but geting back to our our great port of Dover it must never be sold off so please write to your MPs or email them and tell them how you feel about it,selling of the port would be like selling off the crown jewels.The port of Dover must stay in U.K. hands.