Professor John Robertson OBA
In Isle of Wight County Press today, the above and:
Isle of Wight East MP, Joe Robertson, has introduced a proposed new law in Parliament aimed at improving ferry services – including the Island’s vital cross-Solent routes. Mr Robertson today (Wednesday, November 5) tabled the Ferry Services (Integration and Regulation) Bill in the House of Commons, under the ’10-minute rule motion’, following Prime Minister’s Questions.
Joe doesn’t quantify these ‘rip-off’ prices. I will:
In July 2025, a medium size car with four passengers, Portsmouth to Fishbourne with Wightlink Ferries, would cost you between £210 and £300, depending time of sailing. From Southampton to East Cowes with Red Funnel would be between £200 and £288. It’s a 12 mile, 45 minute journey.1, 2
The Oban to Mull crossing is similar at 15 miles and 45 minutes but costs only £76 to £98, a third of the cost.3
I’ll be on the 4 year-old MV loch Frisa (above) and you’ll be on one of the three 31 year-old Red Funnel or one of the 16 to 35 year-old Wightlink boats:
Why is this?
Sources:
Talking-up Scotland 'Albatraz' 
If only the poor wretches had the services and wisdom of Maritime Williams from the Herald to ease their plight and guide them through troubled waters.
I am sure that Maritime would be happy to get them a bit of discount off a catamaran. Bought as seen..
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WELL DONE KEEP ATTACK THESE LIARS ALL THEY CAN DO IS ABOUT FACTS
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Calmac Loch Frisa built in Turkey 2015 for Norwegian operators, replaced by a tunnel, and sold to Calmac in 2021.
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The Canary has written an article which is communicating karma now visits Sir Keir Starmer and his new version of the Labour party.
“Starmer told members to leave; now Labour’s begging them to come back”.
“In 2023, Keir Starmer infamously told Labour members they should leave the party if they didn’t like the direction of travel under his leadership. Can you guess how that’s going”?
(Starmer made that speech on a podium….not, I suspect, just to tell Corbyn supporters that they were no longer welcome in the Labour party, but also to reassure other voters who would normally vote Tory or Reform UK that Labour were no longer a party that wanted to be seen as being on the left within politics)
The Canary quoted this below on his , Starmer, speech:
“But I say this with all candour: The Labour Party is unrecognisable from 2019 and it will never go back. It will never again be a party captured by narrow interests. It will never again lose sight of its purpose or its morals. And it will never again be brought to its knees by racism or bigotry. If you don’t like that, if you don’t like the changes we have made, I say the door is open and you can leave“
“never again be a party captured by narrow interests” ?
Really ?
Well that is a lie. As it seems very much that Labour has indeed been “captured by” the “narrow interests” of the “few” while ignoring the wider interests and concerns of the “many”.
Also some of the real Journalist’s who still exist within the UK have speculated that Labour have tried to out reform the Reform UK party in their stance on many issues that are too similar to those promoted by Reform UK.
As to “Morals” that is something not many people are identifying as something they recognise within the current Labour party as led by Sir Keir ‘U-Turn’ Starmer.
“Racism and bigotry” he , Starmer, says when someone like Starmer has shown a complete disregard through much of Israel’s destruction and devastation of Gaza, who has also never once acknowledged that Israel has committed genocide against Palestinians.
So back to The Canary article, that stated the reference Starmer made to “Racism and bigotry” was “in reference to the manufactured antisemitism crisis which was levied against Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters”
Yet Labour has now dropped its 2019 definition of Islamophobia claiming that the 2019 APPG definition “could be interpreted as limiting freedom of speech and the ability to criticise Islam as a religion“. The 2019 definition was that “Islamophobia is rooted in racism and is a type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness or perceived Muslimness”.
(Strange Labour would drop this 2019 Islamophobia interpretation, while they have also now been actively trying to “limit freedom of speech” that “criticises” Israel’s terrible acts against the Palestinian people as in Muslims).
The canary quoted the membership of the Labour party “was down to 333,235 members” and then they ask “given the year they’ve had since that announcement, what do you think their figures look like now”?
Which is why this is a karma piece for Starmer, McSweeney and the Labour party from The Canary.
As The Canary notes that “obviously in a panic, Labour are now begging ex-members to come back“.
The Canary added a tweet onto their article of an email that had been sent from the Labour party to defecting members that stated this:
“You’ve been part of this movement before. You were with us when we ended 14 years of Tory failure and the work of change began. And yes today we are asking you to come back. But before I do, you deserve a good reason to rejoin our party”
(I am not sure what the “good reason” was in this email to “rejoin the Labour party” again as there was no elaboration via this article ).
So basically Labour cannot seem to convince Reform UK voters that they , Labour as a party, will also continue to endorse and support that which Reform UK endorses and supports………given the current polls are now showing that Reform UK are rising while Labour are going down, down, down.
Also Starmer, McSweeney and the Labour party did not anticipate that Corbyn, who they expelled from the Labour party, would then go onto forming a new party on the Left of politics that many disenchanted ex Labour supporters and members have now joined…….. also we had the election of and the subsequent popularity of a new Green party leader in England, who is also on the Left, one Zach Polanski.
Labour have reaped what they themselves have sown, they have now been rightly perceived as being a bad new UK government with Starmer also being seen as a bad UK PM. (which many of us on TUS and also on other Indy sites predicted would be the case).
That’s what happens when you try to reinvent your party and make the conscious decision to try to make it way too “unrecognisable from 2019”, indeed you go too far in trying to turn Labour into a new version of the Tory party……
So when Starmer told Labour members that the “door was open” and that they could “leave” , if that is , they did not like this new version of the Labour party, well they did “leave” and now they have joined other parties who are the opposite of being a new version of the Tory party ….and I am sure they, the ex Labour members, will not “come back” and “rejoin” Starmer’s Labour party any time soon.
The Canary , I am sure, is also enjoying the fact that for the likes of Starmer and McSweeney this will surely be for them a one term Labour UK government .
As they , Starmer & McSweeney, both assumed they could try to pander to and so appease those kind of voters who normally would vote for right wing parties, but who now, as voters, are also rejecting the Tory and Reform UK tribute act that is new , newer Labour…..
As to Sarwar well he is all over the place….not so much a “new direction” more really directionless as Labour HQ goes from one crisis to another….and Sarwar chops and changes that which he says he supports but then that he also rejects as Labour HQ statements and policies….all dependent on public opinion within Scotland and not on any firm and so consistent principles that he holds.
That’s why we see the likes of Jackie Baillie concoct non existent problems to be studied , investigated and so reviewed to then try to give the impression that there are major existing problems within Scotland that are caused by the SNP as the Scottish government .
(See the TUS article yesterday “Police investigate over 1 000 avoidable baby deaths in NHS England, none in Edinburgh and none in Scotland where ‘maternity failings’ pay-outs are half, per head, of those in England but Jackie Baillie calls for a national review in Scotland“).
The current polls in Scotland indicate that she, Baillie, is wasting both her time and the public’s time also………..but what of the expense for the tax payer in a “national review” being done based on what evidence that it is actually really needed to be done here in Scotland?
Labour clutching at straws while Labour HQ are now seen as being the latest UK government, that for Scotland, could be “the straw that broke the camel’s back” for more people within Scotland finally seeing the UK State for what it truly is…….. and and also what it truly represents…..as in nowt but misery and suffering for Scotland’s citizens, irrespective of who governs it at WM.
Not just The Canary that is singing Labours woes, but also, for Labour and for Sir Keir Starmer, it seems that finally “the Chickens have come home to roost” .
Liz S
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