The Commodore Clipper built in the Netherlands, returning to France for further repairs only hours after returning to service. Grant Shapps is reputedly too angry to give a statement.
In the wake (like that?) of the news that the new Scilly Isles ferry is to be built in France, despite several shipbuilders operating on the South coast of England, has prompted fears that England’s ferry fleet is dependent on France.
I read this today after watching last night a TV series on the Hundred Years War with France, in the Middle Ages, a piratical sequence of rape, pillage and plunder across the peasant population of France, ending in the burning alive of their saint, Jeanne d’Arc, by mercenaries hired by a sequence of narcissistic psychopath monarchs, to hear them characterised as ‘heroes’ of ‘little England!’ Once the viewers in England of this series hear of the ferry fiasco, there will be trouble.
How will they reclaim Normandy without ferries?
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
This ‘fiasco’ appears only as a low priority article on the Cornwall page of the BBC. The article provides links to previous articles on the Scilly Isles ferries. The local council and the local Tory MP had arranged a private loan to fund the building of a new ferry and two freight vessels for the islands. The Tory MP spoke of this in glowing terms, since, being a Tory he believes in private initiatives. Now a Tory cabinet minister is ‘unhappy’ that the contract has gone to a French company.
Nothing of this ‘fiasco’ appears anywhere else on the BBC. There are no calls for resignations. No Labour or LibDems have been asked to comment. The Scottish media would have gorged themselves on such a non-story for months. DRoss would be splutteringly apoplectic.
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“DRoss would be splutteringly apoplectic” – A wholly natural predisposition.
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Some things never change…..
“ In 1969, the Labour government of Harold Wilson attempted to introduce legislation seeking to ban strikes, which provoked huge opposition from the working class. In 1970, Labour’s Conservative successors, under Edward Heath, proposed an Industrial Relations Act to suppress strikes and set about trying to revive British capitalism by closing down outmoded industries and slashing social provision.
In June 1971, the government announced that, in the face of a world slump in shipping production and a collapse in orders, UCS’ four shipyards at Clydebank, Govan, Linthouse and Scotstoun would close. The decision threatened to throw 8,500 workers onto lengthening dole queues, and undermine jobs in supply industries. In all some 130,000 people’s livelihoods were under threat.”
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