Seaborne Freight

[Quickenthetempo]

Just reinforces the case that we are completely unprepared for a "No Deal" and we need to take that option of the table.

Realism boys and girls, smacking you in the balls every single day

Lancaster, I understand you have you have a background in ferries/ports etc.. but you confuse me (not hard)when you claim we won't have much trade with the EU because of Tarriffs but then you say our ports will be clogged up. It can't be both can it?
Either we have queues because of lots of trade or the cargo comes straight in without any problem?

[Bordeauxclaret]

I’m shocked by this news. Shocked.

[MRG]

Just reinforces the case that we are completely unprepared for a "No Deal" and we need to take that option of the table.

Realism boys and girls, smacking you in the balls every single day

It’s terrifying that as a voter you are willing to just accept this. No deal should very much be on the table and it should be a viable option should the EU not agree to a deal that is acceptable to us. This is the equivalent of getting dropped off at the car showroom with no way of getting home yet thinking you will get a good deal.

Suggesting that we should take no deal off the table is negotiation suicide

[nil_desperandum]

. This is the equivalent of getting dropped off at the car showroom with no way of getting home yet thinking you will get a good deal.

Suggesting that we should take no deal off the table is negotiation suicide

Not quite analogous, since in this case we already have a car, which despite problems is still roadworthy and working quite well.

So to use your analogy, there's nothing to stop you getting back home, (you might have to walk), keeping the car you already have, and returning to the showroom to negotiate for the next few months until you reach a deal, or of course keeping the car you already have.
In a "no deal" scenario the analogy is that you take the car to the showroom, can't agree a deal, so dump you vehicle on the forecourt and decide to walk home, with nothing in place to get you to work the following morning,

[taio]

It’s terrifying that as a voter you are willing to just accept this. No deal should very much be on the table and it should be a viable option should the EU not agree to a deal that is acceptable to us. This is the equivalent of getting dropped off at the car showroom with no way of getting home yet thinking you will get a good deal.

Suggesting that we should take no deal off the table is negotiation suicide

Agree no deal has to remain on the table as part of the ongoing negotiation.

[CrosspoolClarets]

And the contract has now been terminated.

Suggestions that the original partnership was to be Seaborne and Arklow Shipping, who would provide the ferries, but that the Irish government has leant on the latter and it has subsequently pulled out of the deal, leading to Grayling terminating it. Arklow had asked for anonymity originally.

Playing a very dangerous game the Irish. Whether we end up in, out or half out, a lot of Brexiteers are going to be looking for someone to punish afterwards, and the Irish Republic are the obvious target, whether justified or not. I sense their economy will soon be going down the drain.

[Greenmile]

Suggestions that the original partnership was to be Seaborne and Arklow Shipping, who would provide the ferries, but that the Irish government has leant on the latter and it has subsequently pulled out of the deal, leading to Grayling terminating it. Arklow had asked for anonymity originally.

Playing a very dangerous game the Irish. Whether we end up in, out or half out, a lot of Brexiteers are going to be looking for someone to punish afterwards, and the Irish Republic are the obvious target, whether justified or not. I sense their economy will soon be going down the drain.

You really don’t like the Irish, do you. Did your wife run off with an Irishman or something?

If brexiters are looking for someone to punish (why would that be if it’s going to leave us all in such a great independent sovereignty=filled paradise?), may I suggest that they start by looking in a mirror?

[thatdberight]

...that the Irish government has leant on the latter...

I don't think there are any serious suggestions of that. Instead you've got people saying, "I hope there hasn't been..." which is a rather obvious way of making the insinuation while being able to say, "Who? Me? I never said that." afterwards...

[martin_p]

Playing a very dangerous game the Irish. Whether we end up in, out or half out, a lot of Brexiteers are going to be looking for someone to punish afterwards, and the Irish Republic are the obvious target, whether justified or not. I sense their economy will soon be going down the drain.

Brexiteers are such a pleasant lot aren’t they!

[MRG]

Not quite analogous, since in this case we already have a car, which despite problems is still roadworthy and working quite well.

So to use your analogy, there's nothing to stop you getting back home, (you might have to walk), keeping the car you already have, and returning to the showroom to negotiate for the next few months until you reach a deal, or of course keeping the car you already have.
In a "no deal" scenario the analogy is that you take the car to the showroom, can't agree a deal, so dump you vehicle on the forecourt and decide to walk home, with nothing in place to get you to work the following morning,

Not quite, we have had a family meeting and decided that we don’t want that car anymore and it’s being collected in March. We don’t want to let the family down by going back on our word because they will never trust us again

[CrosspoolClarets]

Brexiteers are such a pleasant lot aren’t they!

Some won’t be. There is over 17 million of them.

I was thinking more of the politicians though. All is fair in love and politics, and some will have long memories.

[nil_desperandum]

Not quite, we have had a family meeting and decided that we don’t want that car anymore and it’s being collected in March. We don’t want to let the family down by going back on our word because they will never trust us again

Yes, but as I said, with no contingency plans, how do you get to work the following day? And how will your family trust or respect you in the future when you've made them poor, and you've unnecessarily put barriers in the way of your children's future. (Principles don't pay the bills or put food on the table, and you won't be able to rely on the welfare state to bail you out).
Now, as a responsible person, you may have made contingency plans, and your children may not be aspirant and may not be too concerned about their future prospects outside the local area, but your analogy was to leaving the EU with "No deal" on March 29th. This is where your analogy fails since the govt. has virtually nothing in place for March 30th, and if you actually look on their website to see what they have in place, it's just emergency measures to keep the country afloat for a couple of weeks.
The more you read about our "emergency" planning as day by day we get closer to the deadline the more of a concern it should be.
It's not as though it couldn't be avoided. (A bit like you keeping your car until you've shopped round and got the best deal you can).

[martin_p]

You’ve got to wonder how Grayling is surviving as Transport Secretary. It’s been disaster after disaster on his watch, it just shows what leak leadership we have that he manages to survive.

[martin_p]

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ad-no-deal

This gets better and better! A backer that was never really a backer, no deal to runs ships out of Ramsgate, which probably isn't suitable as a port for the types of ships that are needed anyway. Yet apparently all 'due diligence' was done.

[Lancasterclaret]

And all the uber Brexiteers used that as an excuse to blame the Irish.

No doubt that a lot of Brexit supporters are perfectly sound, but the ones in the ERG are totally English nationalist dinosaurs.

[Bordeauxclaret]

“Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, is facing calls to resign after auditors found his department spent £800,000 of public money on consultants assessing the bid of a company with no ships that was temporarily awarded a Brexit-related ferry contract.”

£800k

[dsr]

“Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, is facing calls to resign after auditors found his department spent £800,000 of public money on consultants assessing the bid of a company with no ships that was temporarily awarded a Brexit-related ferry contract.”

£800k

The bit about having no ships is a red herring. Plenty of ferry companies have no ships - for example, the Isle of Man Steam Packet company used to have no ships, and so far as I know still does; it doesn't stop them from running a ferry line. There are plenty of other failings to look at, especially (as you point out) the horrendous cost. It's seems a vast sum for competent research; for incompetence, it's terrifying.

[Lancasterclaret]

They have them on long term lease.

Pointed out at the time that there are not exactly a load of suitable roll-on/roll-off ferries around, and especially ones that would be freight/passenger (you can have up to 12 passengers without a shed load of regulations, which is why the ones that are majority freight ferries (ie ones to Ireland from Heysham are 12 passengers (or at least they used to be! Not been in that field since mid 2000s).

Obviously money talks, and the money given by the government would have helped secure the contracts for ferries, but to try to defend this deiision on any level is pushing it a bit.

Chancers tried something knowing the government was up the creek without a paddle, and a weak government with weak ministers fell for it.

It doesn't mean that our Brexit preparations will be terrible, but its doesn't give any confidence that they will be ok either.

And the mere fact that its being defended by Brexiteers just highlights the big problem. If you are for Brexit, you can be completely useless, come up with really obviously unworkable plans but the Brexiteers will still cheer you to the rafters and back you to the hilt.

That doesn't help in the slightest in the situation we are in.

[aggi]

The bit about having no ships is a red herring. Plenty of ferry companies have no ships - for example, the Isle of Man Steam Packet company used to have no ships, and so far as I know still does; it doesn't stop them from running a ferry line. There are plenty of other failings to look at, especially (as you point out) the horrendous cost. It's seems a vast sum for competent research; for incompetence, it's terrifying.

I don't think anyone would expect them to own the ferries. They would expect leases to be in place though.

As for the cost, that's probably equivalent to 1,000 hours of a partner's time (and you wouldn't expect a partner to do all the work so you can likely increase those hours by a fair bit) which seems an unlikely amount of work given there didn't appear to be much to actually do due diligence on.

Someone saw a desperate government coming.

[martin_p]

I don't think anyone would expect them to own the ferries. They would expect leases to be in place though.

As for the cost, that's probably equivalent to 1,000 hours of a partner's time (and you wouldn't expect a partner to do all the work so you can likely increase those hours by a fair bit) which seems an unlikely amount of work given there didn't appear to be much to actually do due diligence on.

Someone saw a desperate government coming.

Unless of course they asked Aaron Ramsey to do it. The £800k only pays for two weeks of his time which is probably why he’s missed loads of stuff.

[dsr]

I don't think anyone would expect them to own the ferries. They would expect leases to be in place though.

Provisional leases. Not actual ones. It's the same with the train franchises - the potential bidders aren't expected to buy or lease their trains before they bib, because no-one would ever bid on those terms. They are supposed to have firm plans in hand, though.

But if Grayling's senior civil servants, backed up by these £800,000 of consultants' reports, told him that they did have it in hand, I'm not sure it's realistic for him to turn the deal down. The Remain camp has been sounding off about listening to experts for the past three years - so let's not get to upset when someone actually does!

[aggi]

Provisional leases. Not actual ones. It's the same with the train franchises - the potential bidders aren't expected to buy or lease their trains before they bib, because no-one would ever bid on those terms. They are supposed to have firm plans in hand, though.

But if Grayling's senior civil servants, backed up by these £800,000 of consultants' reports, told him that they did have it in hand, I'm not sure it's realistic for him to turn the deal down. The Remain camp has been sounding off about listening to experts for the past three years - so let's not get to upset when someone actually does!

Yes, provisional contingent on the bid being successful.

Looks like the £800k was for the assessment of all three bids. It becomes a bit clearer, and more damning, when you read the NAO report.

https://www.nao.org.uk/wp-content/uploa ... rvices.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

It seems the DFT weighted it mainly (80%) on the cost and the other risks, etc only made up 20% of the points.

It seems that "The standard tests could not be completed on Seaborne given a lack of existing financial information due to it only being incorporated in April 2017. Deloitte therefore
did not make a formal assessment of Seaborne financial stability."

On top of that Mott MacDonald "flagged “significant execution risks” relating to the Seaborne bid."

It looks like the DFT was desperate, they expected more bids and only got three and pretty much decided they'd accept them all because they had no choice.

Financially it looks like there were enough targets to be met that the DFT wouldn't lose money if Seaborne didn't fulfill its obligations (apart from the £3m it had committed to Ramsgate). It would, of course, have lost time that could have been spent in finding an established operator (although that may not have been possible).

As I said earlier in this thread somewhere, if the government had been honest and said that there were concerns about Seaborne but there were measures in place if it didn't work out then this would have been much less of a story.

Instead they went with them because they were desperate and then, when questioned, doubled down on how confident they were and how all the necessary due diligence had been done (which it hadn't).

[BleedingClaret]

“Chris Grayling, the transport secretary, is facing calls to resign after auditors found his department spent £800,000 of public money on consultants assessing the bid of a company with no ships that was temporarily awarded a Brexit-related ferry contract.”

£800k

Wouldn’t get you Aaron Ramsey for a day that

[aggi]

And still embarrassingly rumbling on
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... in-private" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[Bordeauxclaret]

Now we’ve had to pay £33m to Eurotunnel.

Yet Grayling hangs on to his job still.

[Lancasterclaret]

I'm beginning to think that we might not have the people in place to deal with any (which of course there isn't any EVIDENCE for!) problems that Brexit will cause.

And slightly more worryingly for those of you who still think this is a great idea, to make a success of all the, er, advantages that it gives us as well.

[martin_p]

Now we’ve had to pay £33m to Eurotunnel.

Yet Grayling hangs on to his job still.

This on the day that his failed probabtion reforms mens outsourced services are going to have to be cancelled at a cost of £171m.

Over £200m revealed as wasted in a day and still May has confidence in him. What does he have to do to get sacked?