Wednesday 6 November 2013

Scots win in Govan at English expense



One of the good side effects if your a Scottish worker or politician is that having a referendum on independence next year means you have lots of political leverage now. BAE, a private company but with the closest links to the Government of any private company, will no doubt have an ear out for what Downing Street and the mandarins would want.

In this case it won't be too hard to guess, with a downgrade in the need of naval building capability obviously needed after the aircraft carriers are built, there have to be some job losses. The choice is between the shipyards of the Clyde or Liberal Democrat Portsmouth. I pity the people of Portsmouth who deserve better than to be shafted to prevent Alex Salmond smiling, but that is what will happen.

One of the problems of the referendum is that anything done now to upset the Scots can be played as 'forcing' independence. In fact anything at all, a Tory or Labour win in the Eu elections, closures of shipyards, infrastructure projects funded or not funded.

It's called in other way being held to ransom; like the bad marriage where one party constantly misbehaves and then threatens to leave all the time anyway. As we would advise our friends, the only sensible thing to do is tell the mis-behaving party to get knotted and get one with the bitter divorce.

15 comments:

andrew said...

I think you meant to say
'get on with the bitter divorce'

if you are English, you are probably a lot more liberal / conservative than if you were Scottish.

If you are English, and live near Portsmouth, and work in engineering you probably carry on having a job without the Scots

If you are English, you might not enjoy subsidising the Scots.

Looking into the future, I cannot think of a good reason for keeping them in the UK.

Japanese whiskey is quite nice.

Demetrius said...

Then there was Chatham. Independence for a new state combining Hampshire, Sussex and Kent looks increasingly attractive.

dearieme said...

The problem is neither Govan or Portsmouth; the problem is London.

CityUnslicker said...

London is not a problem, it is the opportunity and the saviour financially. Agree it produces challenges, but without London we'd be Portugal/Greece/Ireland.

Anonymous said...

lol, it was london that got us into this mess in the first place, and other countries too.

Anonymous said...

I thought there were two shipyards in Scotland.. Why not close one, and tell the Scots that a vote for independence closes the second?

Electro-Kevin said...

Sorry CU, but isn't it London where it's often decided to sell regional bread & butter industries off for fast bucks ?

Not referring to Portsmouth in this case.

dearieme said...

"London is not a problem, it is the opportunity and the saviour financially"

No, some modest fraction of it is opportunity etc. The bulk of it is a parasitic burden.

CityUnslicker said...

London where decisions are made?

Wrong. Companies decide to sel themselves. british build and sell companies, its a national trait. Interestingly we often replace them over time, although clearly when it is big heavy industry and extraction its much harder.

Why is London a 'parasite'? This kind of tone stikes me as hadn-wringing whining of the worst kind!

Mark said...

Maybe, just maybe, BAE were swayed by the lower cost base of Glasgow relative to the South of England.

Weird idea I know.

Budgie said...

CU said: "Why is London a 'parasite'? This kind of tone stikes me as hadn-wringing whining of the worst kind!"

That is unhelpful, CU, and can easily be countered by observing that a vociferous subset of people in London/the SE are always whining about "subsidising" the "North".

The reality is more than half the UK GDP(inc most taxation and government borrowing) gets sucked into London. Some of this sticks the the mitts of our lords and masters there. This is as it has been throughout the centuries - the tax collectors get rich making the King richer at the expense of (all) his subjects.

It is this mitt-sticking that makes London richer and impoverishes the provinces.

It is this mitt-sticking which will finance Salmond in an independent Scotland. Citizens of Scotland will still see their money sequestered by taxation just as now, but the drain flow will be direct to Edinburgh, not via London.

Two things follow from this: the EU gains by destroying nations like the UK - small equals more controllable; and London will lose out by getting less money to administer so reducing the amount stuck to London mitts.

SumoKing said...

Kerist

Wednesday we get "BAE, having shafted HMG by providing an expensive 'adaptable' design of carrier that could not be adapted for ELEMAG cats has decided the carriers will cost double, Hammond says he will renegotiate and Industry will carry the can for any more over runs.

Thursday "OMG, we need to close shipyards"

Leaving aside the merry sacrifice of Scottish yards by the Major government in the run up to its election, the Type 26 program is well into the design and they should be cutting steel in a year or so.

A non story, BAE screaming Dance puppets dance if ever there was one.

dearieme said...

Why is London a 'parasite'?


For God's sake, it's where the government hangs out, and the legal trade.

Sebastian Weetabix said...

Hmm. Late to the party but since I grew up on the Clyde in a family of shipwrights, used to live in Portsmouth, and am a confirmed Unionist, I want to add my 2 cents.

Camoron's spokesman handling of this is a wet dream come true for the SNP. He could simply have said "Govan has a better track record of building large ships on time to the required standards than Portsmouth" - which is true, btw - and left it at that. But no, he has to add to a journalistic ferment which upsets the English. That lying scumbag Wee Eck knows about 2/3 of Scots will never entertain his mad scheme so he is working damned hard to provoke the English at every opportunity. You would expect a Conservative AND UNIONIST government to understand that and act accordingly, not stoke fires of grievance on the southern side of the border.

As for the facts of the matter, Portsmouth didn't build any ships at all from the mid/late fifties (I can't be bothered to look up the exact date) until 2003. They just did refurbishments, repairs and servicing. Returning to that arrangement is perfectly sensible given the relative strengths of the work forces and the reduced demand for ships. And if the rump of the Scottish nation that hasn't moved to England (such as myself, who much to my anger won't get a say) should prove itself completely fucking daft enough to break up the most successful nation building exercise in history, which I strongly doubt, you can always build up
Pompey again, as in 2003.

As for you more rabid petty minded English-nationalists, I am surprised you get upset at ships being built in Govan but say fuck-all about the 4 ships being built for the Royal Fleet Auxiliary in Korea. If you really care so much about British (or even just English) shipbuilding you should be angry about that.

James Higham said...

As we would advise our friends, the only sensible thing to do is tell the mis-behaving party to get knotted and get on with the bitter divorce.

Sometimes there's no other way.