Are the Tories at last Selling off the "Crown Jewels"?

[ITWA Travel Writer]

Well what do you make of our wee Davy Cam,moron’s claim to have placed a 2.6 billion pound order for new cruise ships to be built in China!! It’s all over the news today!!

However, if you look closer you will see that it was not HMG, but the Carnival Corp., who have placed the orders. Trust this government to take credit for creating business out of nothing, but it’s a good sound bite.

He should stick to selling our infrastructure to foreign countries (AKA China). Would you believe that anyone in their right mind would allow a country with abysmal human rights records, numerous dubious industrial espionage histories and cyber-crime to just walk into our country? Sorry I forgot about Saudi Arabia.

He and his cronies are all about greed and make me richer brother and sod everyone else. By the way before anyone calls me a Corbynite, I think he’s just as bad with his wild ideas!!

Help. Can anyone help me choose a politician or political party to support??? Am I the only one who feels excluded?? Help

[towny44]

The way I read it Carnival Corp are forming a JV with China shipbuilding Corp to build and market cruise ships for a new line to be based in China. So not sure where John (ITWA) gets his selling off the crown jewels headline, mind you I am also baffled as to why Carnival's £2.5bn investment in this deal is deemed to be part of Dave's China strategy, other than that Carnival has a joint listing in the UK.
His other issues concerning security and human rights are equally irrelevant, plenty of other countries might have similar reservations about inward investment in their country by the UK, or indeed by most Western countries.

[Quizzical Bob]

At the Carnival AGM this year they mentioned that China was seen as a big emerging cruise market. I assumed that this would be a Carnival Corp investment rather than Carnival UK. I certainly wouldn't say that this was 'selling the crown jewels'.

[barney]

"Can anyone help me choose a politician or political party to support??? Am I the only one who feels excluded??"

You know what you need John?

A referendum for total independence.

Then you can make your own bad decisions instead of someone else doing it for you

[Manoverboard]

"Can anyone help me choose a politician or political party to support?

Hoozaboot screaming Lord McSutch, the 3rd Earl of Oban, of the Raving McLoonie Party ?

It's a very interesting development is having the ability to book multiple choice cruises out of Shanghai. The alternative thus far has been to wait for Princess to offer something from time to time ... these ships will also doubtless have a high quality Chinese Restaurant on board.

The main advantage however is that the Chinese will be able to use the steel that they are presently dumping on us, this may benefit the good folk of Redcar and beyond ... this being the case then Mr Cameron may wish to trumpet the event ' IF ' he has been instrumental in supporting the build outside of Euroland and ' IF ' these ships were to be part of a future P&O ( Asia ) Line.

[Mervyn and Trish]

I see David Dingle quoted in some of the China cruise coverage so presumably Carnival UK has had some involvement, albeit minor.

I also noted the story mentioned establishing the Chinese domestic fleet with some new and some existing ships. So presumably another place Carnival can rotate ships to as suits.

In fact when the time does come to retire Oriana, Oceana and Aurora from the P&O fleet what better place to send them to. The danger of selling off to someone like Thomson, Fred or Saga is that loyal passengers follow them. Not so likely if the on board currency is the Yen, all the announcements are in Mandarin and the staple diet in the restaurants is noodles

[Frank Manning]

Actually ITWA I have some sympathy for your arguments on this one. The country which built gas cooled reactors, the two 'Queens', the Harrier jump jet, and invented the railways, the jet engine, the steam turbine, magnetron / ppi radar, is reduced to going cap in hand for Chinese reactors, its USA owned flag ship has to be built in France, its trains in Germany and Japan, aircraft for its carriers ( well one of them) from the USA. Why? Because it is incapable of a national political consensus, with national planning, and because its wonderful stock exchange sees fit to liquidate revenue earning industries and companies for a fast buck to line the pockets of a few. There soon will be nothing left for them to sell, and precious little for its work force to do. Maggies service economy will have reduced us all to a bit part role, and the UK will be a giant theme park come retail outlet.



























then pretty soon we will have nothing else to sell and the sharks in the city will have to turn their minds to how the country is going to pay its way

[Quizzical Bob]

Actually ITWA I have some sympathy for your arguments on this one. The country which built gas cooled reactors, the two 'Queens', the Harrier jump jet, and invented the railways, the jet engine, the steam turbine, magnetron / ppi radar, is reduced to going cap in hand for Chinese reactors, its USA owned flag ship has to be built in France, its trains in Germany and Japan, aircraft for its carriers ( well one of them) from the USA. Why? Because it is incapable of a national political consensus, with national planning, and because its wonderful stock exchange sees fit to liquidate revenue earning industries and companies for a fast buck to line the pockets of a few. There soon will be nothing left for them to sell, and precious little for its work force to do. Maggies service economy will have reduced us all to a bit part role, and the UK will be a giant theme park come retail outlet. then pretty soon we will have nothing else to sell and the sharks in the city will have to turn their minds to how the country is going to pay its way

You are blaming the wrong people here if you think the Conservative Party are responsible for all of this. Britain is an expensive place in which to do business, especially manufacturing.

[Mervyn and Trish]

So who do we blame? Labour, the EU or the idle workforce for wanting paying?

Serious question. I'm not a businessman

[ITWA Travel Writer]

I have to ask the question QB.

Why is Britain so expensive to do business in?

And subsequent to that:

What have our leaders done to ensure that we can compete on an even playing field?
What have our leaders done to sustain a manufacturing base, owned and operated by us Brits?
What have our leaders done to ensure that no child or family, whether in or out of work goes hungry without depending on food bank charity?
What have our leaders done to enable our inhabitants to have adequate shelter?
What have our leaders done to minimise the free market from squeezing our inhabitants of affording reasonably priced energy, other utilities and goods?
What have our leaders done to ensure that we in this country pay the same for products as in other countries?

The list is endless and no political party, or indeed any human being, can in all honesty say that they are not in some way responsible. Greed and not in my back yard appears always to be at the forefront of every decision made and always at the expense of others.

Until “Homo sapiens sapiens” evolve further and have removed from their DNA the elements of greed and self-preservation at any cost and have it replaced with moral fortitude, then they will continue to be no more than the selfish, vicious, lethal and unreliable animals that they are.

I fear for our children and grandchildren. At times I feel relieved that due to age and health, nature in my case, will be the leveller sooner rather than later.

[towny44]

John, to muddy the waters a bit I would suggest that the Germans seem to have a positive answer to nearly all your questions.
But of course its not politicians who came up with their system of privately owned manufacturing companies, however I suspect it had far more to do with the way the banks provide finance to industry in each country.
So the guilty parties seem to be the banks, UK ones look for short term gain whilst German ones want long term growth.
Not sure why they differ, must be something in the UK phsyche, or maybe the Scottish phsyche since there seems a preponderance of Scots in the banking sector.

[Quizzical Bob]

So who do we blame? Labour, the EU or the idle workforce for wanting paying?

Serious question. I'm not a businessman

High property costs, expensive energy, low productivity, high labour rates, high cost of transport, unstable exchange rates, inflexible labour contracts, high taxes ...

[Mervyn and Trish]

Yes but who do we blame for those things?

[oldbluefox]

I blame all of them. For decades politicians of all persuasions have fashioned this country to line their own pockets and those of their friends. The family silver has systematically been sold off and there has been a total lack of investment in skills training and into manufacturing industry. We have now moved from a situation dominated by left wing unions to one where no industry remains for them to dominate. Instead we have the bankers calling the tune in London and the South East whilst pockets of the country are starved of investment for any meaningful infrastructure. HS2 is being built to shave 20 minutes off journeys into London whilst meanwhile other areas of the country have lines and rolling stock from the 60's.
Cameron's Northern Powerhouse is just a joke and anybody who thinks the Labour party represent the working man is living in cloud cuckoo land. At least the Monster Raving Looney Party are honest and you know what you will be getting which is more than can be said about the mainstream parties.
Rant over!!!

[Dark Knight]

Mobile scribe, I didn't read all your questions as life is too short and I lost interest after you repeatedly kept asking what our leaders did or did not do
but you did to a certain degree highlight the issue that people think the government are responsible for everything and that the UK is solely reliant on whomever is in power to look after us.
the UK is a very expensive place to do business in and with, due to all the factors highlighted in previous posts. but as to who is to blame , well everyone is, we demand cheaper goods , we demand higher wages, we demand the best of everything and then bitch and whine when the bill arrives
the UK is a very aspirational country, that punches far above its economic weight and the price for that is that we are no longer a manufacturing country, we are a service country and the honest truth is that even that small amount of manufacturing wont last much longer
as for the Chinese issue, do some more research and you will see that China virtually owns most of the USA either by direct or indirect means( check who owns most of the debts of the USA) and they use a very simple business model to ensure a growing economy
if their own internal manufacturing industry is very busy, they cut all exports out of china, which increases global prices, when their internal manufacturing industry is quiet, they export everything and flood the markets with cheap imports, to raise hard currency to finance the next stage of growth...economics 101
China also has some of the rarest raw materials on the planet under its soil, such as rare earth metals which are paramount to the growing electronics and computer sectors, they also lead the way in nuclear power etc
Also, don't sell the government short because the only real superpower left on this little mud ball are the Chinese and in a few generations they will most likely own most of Europe, one way or another, so getting in bed with them now, is not quite as stupid as people may think. and one final point is that the UK simply cannot compete on a global scale in manufacturing, we have very good niche companies but on the world stage we are a manufacturing minnow

[Quizzical Bob]

China also owns a lot of Australia.