QUOTE #91: "The DHB are proposing a sell-off of the port, probably to foreign capital. Charlie is proposing co-operative buy-out by the people of Dover. Can any of you Luddites out there tell the difference?" UNQUOTE
Not much of a response so far from the Luddite community. From my perspective, I would presume the people to whom you refer to be those who are advocating smashing up the current advanced legislative machinery whereby the Trust Port is owned by the nation and reinvests all profits in the continuous development of the port; and replacing it with the retrograde and inferior privatisation model which has so conspicuously failed to deliver in so many other similar cases.
Since you fall into this category yourself, you are clearly better placed than others to speculate on whether any of your fellow Luddites can tell the difference. If it is of any assistance to them, this is a summary of the difference between the two strategies in question:
DHB are the professionals who know all there is to know about operating a busy modern port and have spent years constructing a fully-costed comprehensive plan for the future as they see it. Love them or hate them, agree or disagree with what they propose, they are the experts and know what they are talking about. They have said from the start that they expect the financial backing to come from abroad. There can be no question that their plan is both feasible and fundable. The government has asked them to furnish additional details of their proposals and their plan would consequently appear to be the only one being given serious consideration.
Charlie is a tax lawyer and neophyte MP with no knowledge or experience of port operations who professed to be adamantly opposed to privatisation whilst seeking to be elected but has since produced an uncosted and nebulous plan which is laden with lofty and idealistic ambitions but short on the nitty gritty of committed financing and devoid of the longterm groundwork implicit in the DHB frontrunner.
Hope that helps and you get a good response.
