Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
I think a Parliamentary question of the Ports Minister by our Charlie might be the best way to kick things off.
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
chas seems to ask questions on everything under the sun in the house, maybe he could give this one consideration?
Guest 693- Registered: 12 Nov 2009
- Posts: 1,266
Thanks Neil (post #57)
I'm sorry, but I cannot agree with many of your arguments; corporate sponsorship is an absolute minefield that has no dealings with morality, precedent or legality.
I look at wonga.com's sponsorship of two top football clubs and wonder how the financially desperate view the fact that the disgusting interest rates they struggle to pay on a weekly/monthly basis are ultimately paying the wages of millionaire footballers; I'm afraid I see no morality in that. Your analogy of those within DHB who are losing their jobs watching on while DHB forks out to the NT for the cliffs is pretty much along the same lines in my eyes, with the distinct difference being that at least the money is being put to some good, and locally at that.
You are privy to more information than I as to the legality of the DHB donating to charity, and I bow to your greater knowledge. However, if it's illegal, or even bending the letter of the law slightly, I'm not surprised; we all know that there is one law for those that have and one for those who do not. Dover Harbour Board is, and always has been, a law unto itself as can be witnessed from the bulldozing of a Grade 1 listed signal box on the approach to Dover Marine station a few years back merely because it had the inconvenience of not being part of their plans.
As for the ferry companies, don't feel sorry for them; they treat their staff like dirt and deserve all they get when the same happens to them. P&O, for example, refused to give me a permanent contract even though I'd been working for them for a number of years; when my wife and I got married and needed my salary to be taken into account before we could get a mortgage, P&O couldn't have given a monkeys, lest they should (heaven forbid) have to make me redundant. I don't know if they are still the town's largest employer, but they treat their staff as numbers, callously and willing to sacrifice them at a moment's notice.
All in all, whilst I have some sympathy with what you're saying, I'm afraid that I see this a little more pragmatically than you: if DHB are at last donating some money to a local cause, that is a step in the right direction and we shouldn't carp when the money isn't given to projects you and I might not happen to be personally involved with.
True friends stab you in the front.
Guest 1694- Registered: 24 Feb 2016
- Posts: 1,087
Hi Andy, thanks yours above. If the DHB were a PLC or private company, then no quibbles, they'd be accountable to their shareholders or private owners for how they dispose of their excess cash, just as Wonga are. But they are not (and hopefully never will be) a PLC or privately owned company. DHB are in the public sector and acccountable to their stakeholders, who include the Ferry companies, the Town, DHB employees and other interested parties (you and me both).
The NT had 50 days of its campaign left to run and was on target to reach its target without this donation from the DHB. My main problem is with the incongruity of this donation and the lack of pre-advice to stakeholders who had a right, under MTP2, to be consulted prior to a decision being made, in relation to everything that the DHB has previously told all of us. Whilst the DHB remains a Trust Port, it should be held to account by its stakeholders for how it raises and spends its revenue/profits.
Not feeling sorry for the ferry companies per se, just putting it in the light that this donation from DHB might appear from their point of view.
Guest 868- Registered: 25 Jan 2013
- Posts: 490
Going to take a lot of superglue to stick them back together !
