Did they donate?

>>62371
There's said to be links between the firm and major party donors. If no deal brexit is avoided and the services of seaborne are no longer required then they still get to keep a decent amount of the money awarded to them. Not fishy at all.

>>62370
>On Wednesday, Transport Secretary Chris Grayling said the government had "looked very carefully" at the business.
>"We have put in place a tight contract to make sure they can deliver for us," he told the Today Programme.

>>62370
>WHILST HAVING NO SHIPS

Now look lad, I like an argument over government mates unfairly getting contracts as much as the next person - but this part of the public argument doesn't wash, at all.

No airlines own their own planes - they are all leased/rented.
No bus companies have their own buses - all leased/rented.
Why would a shipping company own its own ships? Hardly any of the others do.

>>62374
I share your pain. There's nothing more irritating to me than having people agree with you for the wrong reasons.

>>62374
A bus company might not own any buses themselves, but they at least have buses at their disposal and the corresponding infrastructure. What do this company have? A policy in place if someone prank orders a prawn dhansak.

>>62370
I'm ace at OpenTTD, where do I sign up for a million-pound contract? I'll even bung the Tories a fiver if it helps.

>>62374

Ownership of the ships isn't really the issue. At this stage, Seaborne have little more than an aspiration of being a freight operator. They don't have confirmed contracts for vessels, they don't have a functioning port and their website doesn't even work properly. They're planning on operating out of Ramsgate, but that port needs considerable upgrading to be capable of handling RoRo freight - the harbour isn't even deep enough to accommodate a ferry. As of April 2018, they had £799 in the bank, £35,000 worth of capital and £375,000 of liabilities. Several of the directors have been involved in shipping companies that have been forced into involuntary liquidation and one has been prosecuted for trading while insolvent. The company appears to fail even the most basic of due diligence tests. From what I've seen, you'd be better off giving the contract to some eager business studies students - at least they don't have a proven track record of fucking up shipping businesses.

>>62378
Apparently at that time the company value was four digits, and two of those were after the decimal point. Someone on the dole could have bought it easily.

>>62374
>No airlines own their own planes - they are all leased/rented.
That's not true. Plenty of airlines own their own planes. It's true that leasing is a perfectly normal thing to do, especially for new planes, but ownership is equally a common option. My recollection is that nearly all of the Ryanair fleet is owned.
I'd judge trustworthiness by whether they've got their own captains, personally. A company that leases the vehicle but provides their own crew is a serious company, a company that pays to have their logo on someone else's operations is just a fucking nightmare waiting to happen.

>>62380
>NEARLY ALL OF THE RYANAIR FLEET IS OWNED

RYANAIR own a lot of them - you're quite right on that point. They have recently started to lease/rent them though. Their model is slightly different in that they buy hundreds of exactly the same plane type at a big discount and then kit out their maintenance and hangars to support only that type (Boeing 737/Airbus A320). Most airlines don't do this and the lease/rent market is growing rapidly - over 60% of the planes run by airlines are leased/rented.

Shipping is a different market - hardly anyone owns their own ships. The Baltic Dry Index is really the leading indicator of shipping costs and is a fascinating place to start a late-night wikiwalk. Everyone rents.

I don't doubt that Seaborne Freight are utter cunts, given their piss-poor attempt at putting together a basic website and the background of the principals and company; but lets crucify them on that, or the government handing them the contract - not on basic semantics of the market they work in and the finance models of the assets they use. It's actually a good thing that they don't own any ships, when you think about it.

>>62381
>Shipping is a different market - hardly anyone owns their own ships.
No, you misunderstand. A tenant might not own their home, but they do undoubtedly have a home. Seaborne does not own any ships. They do not control any ships. They do not have any ships on lease. They do not have rights to any ships. They do not have options on any ships. They do not have access to any ships. They do not possess anything remotely resembling the capability to move anything across water.

>>62382

>They do not possess anything remotely resembling the capability to move anything across water.

Nah m8, they've got it covered.

I think the thing that gets me is this this will all just be completely ignored and allowed to go on. I just cannot fathom this - cock up after cock up, and nothing is ever done about it. We just allow shit like this to happen. There's a media storm for 24 hours and then that's it.

>>62411

welcome to Britain

They've finally pulled the plug on the contract.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2019/02/09/no-deal-ferries-doubt-irish-firm-pulls-deal/

Yep, time to get on to
https://commercial.apolloduck.co.uk/boats-for-sale/commercial/ferry
and start ferry.gs, grab some of that free-flowing brexit cash.

>>62586
Hot damn, I love that site.

https://commercial.apolloduck.co.uk/boat/commercial-vessels-ferry-fast-ropax/393337

I think this is the kind of thing we should be aiming for. Any of you lads got $13m to hand?

>>62585
I always like watching a government vigorously and verbosely defend a policy before having to see it go tits-up anyway.

>>62587
That looks a bit sensible. How about https://commercial.apolloduck.co.uk/boat/commercial-vessels-crew-boat/453346/3
for the gentleman in a hurry? Smuggling's going to be big business once we shut all the borders.

>>62589
Might need a paint job before you try and do anything sneaky with it. What's up with these chairs though? What was that boat originally intended for?

>>62590 Nah, smuggling's best done unsubtly. Jet move a few MP's mistresses / gimps / whisky stashes for them, and you can do what you need.
It'll have been designed to move people, quickly. Most likely out to offshore installations like wind farms and oil platforms, where if you need a maintenance specialist in a hurry, you can afford to burn a lot of diesel. Hell, just a shift change can justify it - going to be cheaper, less risky and more weatherproof than flying them in.
Those seats will be massively damped and about as comfy as possible. Note that they're pointing backwards.

>>62591

If we can't paint the smuggling ship in camouflage then I'm not playing.

>>62590
It's a "crew boat", they're used to ship things and people to and from oil platforms and the like.

>>62592
If you paint a ship in camelflage then you'll just end up with other ships crashing into you.

>>62594
> CAMELFLAGE

Deeply upsetting, even in /iq/ - well played.

>The government is being sued for its decision to charter firms to run extra ferries, including one with no ships, in the event of a no-deal Brexit. Channel Tunnel operator Eurotunnel, said the contracts, revealed after Christmas, were decided in a "secretive and flawed procurement process".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47206303

>>62607 £33M here, £13.7M there, eventually it'll start to add up.

"Sources familiar with the case say the government was essentially "held over a barrel" by Eurotunnel, and was left with little choice but to settle."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-47414699

useless cunts.

>>62669
It's also in the news today that

>Problems with the partial privatisation of the probation system in England and Wales have cost taxpayers almost £500m, the government spending watchdog says.

>Under the changes, which began in 2013, firms were given contracts to supervise low and medium-risk offenders. The National Audit Office said reforms were "rushed" and the numbers returning to prison for breaching their licence conditions had since "skyrocketed".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47409350

They've rewritten it since I read it at breakfast, getting rid of all of the references to Chris Grayling in the article. Is he the most incompetent minister ever? He goes from one colossal fuck up to the next.

That revised article is also far less critical of the government, almost as if they've been influenced to change it.

Chris Grayling was supposed to have resigned ages ago, but he's so incompetent that instead of his letter, May received the menu from his favourite Indian takeaway.

>>62670
https://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/1745620/diff/0/4

Not really buying it. Who the fuck knows who was justice secretary six years ago? Referring to the year instead serves to contextualise the changes and their timeline far more effectively.

>>62671
Did grayling and may used to shag?

>>62672
Why not mention both grayling and the year they started?

>>62673
I think Grayling might have tried to shag her, but being so incompetent he got his cock stuck in her ear.

>>62673
How do you square your conspiracy theory with the BBC's decision to write and prominently feature a story on nothing but Grayling's "record of mishaps and mistakes"?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-47419505

>>62675
Deflecting the blame from the government solely onto failing grayling.

>>62669
>£33M HERE, £13.7M THERE, EVENTUALLY IT'LL START TO ADD UP.

P&O Ferries is suing the government over its £33m settlement with Eurotunnel, in the latest controversy over the Department for Transport’s fraught no-deal Brexit preparations.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/apr/26/po-sues-over-33m-eurotunnel-payout-in-brexit-ferry-fiasco

>>63168
>P&O
>P 'nd O
>Pee 'nd Ohh
>PaedO

They 'ferry' children into international waters, where the laws of man don't apply.