Bit late but

Frank the tank

I see Cameron's lot have awarded an MOD contract for four new ships to the Koreans, great to see they've learned the lesson from the bombardier f**k up.

British jobs for foreign people be they at home serving on tables or abroad building our ships. :twisted:

No wonder we have mass unemployment amongst our young. We don't need national service we need a new government.

tim_wand

What a p*ss take.

HRH Prince Charles visiting Bombardier today congratulating Bombardier staff for showing resillience at accepting a peanuts contract when the cherry had been given to Siemens and now this.

No wonder the Tory Government when last in office allowed itself to be bullied by the Saudis to hush up their weapons procurements backhanders.

What is going on here?

daviesee

Economy going down the tubes.
Unemployment rising.
Tax take reduced due to reduced employment.
Manufacturing in decline.

Any suggestions how any of the above could be helped? :evil: :?

bianchimoon

Another national disgrace, the argument was that we don't build tankers in Britain. Of course we don't, You send them to Korea to be built, even an italian firm bidding said they would build them in the uk if they got the contract, but our wonderful government said NO!

Frank the tank

daviesee wrote:

Economy going down the tubes.
Unemployment rising.
Tax take reduced due to reduced employment.
Manufacturing in decline.

Any suggestions how any of the above could be helped? :evil: :?

I think the government awarding MOD contracts to British companies would help on all four of those points.

daviesee

Frank the tank wrote:

daviesee wrote:

Economy going down the tubes.
Unemployment rising.
Tax take reduced due to reduced employment.
Manufacturing in decline.

Any suggestions how any of the above could be helped? :evil: :?

I think the government awarding MOD contracts to British companies would help on all four of those points.

Where is a sarcastic smiley when you need one.

pauldavid

There were several British companies involved in the tendering process for this tanker project.

NOT ONE of them actually entered into the final tender, work cannot be given to companies that don't ask for it.

And as for Bombardier. I have worked in the rail industry extensively through my career and wouldn't personally award the contract for fixing my next puncture to Bombardier.

And no I don't work for Siemens

tim_wand

If we never re invest in the skills and tooling of our production base industries how can we ever expect them to compete with overseas tenders who are supported by their goverments with regard to training , reinvestment and re-tooling.

What does the Government take into account when awarding these tenders, is it just pure initial cost, is no impact assessment made of the implications of this kind of work constantly being out sourced to overseas competition.

I know nothing of the work standards or quality control within an organisation like Bombardier but how can they realistically be expected to maintain motivated and competitive when we have a Government that is constantly awarding work to their overseas competitors who I assume exist in such a free market economy that they will always be able to undercut on costs.

I ve posted on here at my despair of the levels of youth unemployment in this country and bemoaned the apparent attitude of some of that cohort, but what chance have they or anyone got if we cant even sustain a manufacturing base to meet our own procurement needs.

Frank the tank

It would make more sense to me if the government subsidised some of these companies beit tooling costs expertise, whatever way appropriate. Rather than pay out benefits and various back to work schemes when people have been needlessly made unemployed.

And before anyone pipes up, no I'm not advocating the state run our industries, just help them and tip the balance in our industries favour.

daviesee

Frank the tank wrote:

And before anyone pipes up, no I'm not advocating the state run our industries, just help them and tip the balance in our industries favour.

/sarcasm mode
Why? No other Country would ever dream of doing such a thing. Never. Ever.
/sarcasm mode

Frank the tank

daviesee wrote:

Frank the tank wrote:

And before anyone pipes up, no I'm not advocating the state run our industries, just help them and tip the balance in our industries favour.

/sarcasm mode
Why? No other Country would ever dream of doing such a thing. Never. Ever.
/sarcasm mode

timmyturbo

bianchimoon wrote:

Another national disgrace, the argument was that we don't build tankers in Britain. Of course we don't, You send them to Korea to be built, even an italian firm bidding said they would build them in the uk if they got the contract, but our wonderful government said NO!

Its a bit of a bigger , but DAEWOO have been pretty much the worlds best tanker builder for decades , and had the worlds largest commercial dry dock last time i looked in about 2000 . Can we build 500 metre ships in this country ? i don't know that answer .

Better still get rid of all the red tape and non-jobs , and the cost of G.B LTD , which is approx £675,000,000,000 675 billion , would come down to about 300 billion , we could all have 30 hour weeks, 8 weeks holiday , 15% income and N.I across the board and retire at 62 . Shit i should run this country . Armchair politician abound ! (-:

Cool4catz

And what about those pesky Panda's coming over to Edinburgh and stealing our jobs! Little blighters.

Mr_Cellophane

of course the decline of British shipbuilding was all the fault of governments and had nothing to do with restrictive practises and strikes.

Frank the tank

Mr_Cellophane wrote:

of course the decline of British shipbuilding was all the fault of governments and had nothing to do with restrictive practises and strikes.

I think those days are well in the past.

pauldavid

Frank the tank wrote:

Mr_Cellophane wrote:

of course the decline of British shipbuilding was all the fault of governments and had nothing to do with restrictive practises and strikes.

I think those days are well in the past.

Of course they are, I can't remember the last time I heard anyone in this country talk about going on strike.

Oh Hang on a minute, yes I can, just about every flaming week

But I bet that'll be the governments fault.

While we're on the subject, my central heating pump has burnt out, I'd like to know what the government are going to do about that???

And if there's no reply from Camerons lot by noon, I swear to you that with one hell of a shout it'll be OUT BROTHER OUT.

Frank the tank

I think you'll find that in the modern workplace restrictive practices and demarcation lines are nothing like they were and there is a lot of fexibility in the workforce.

With regards to strikes it's now days a last resort and is very difficult to do (no bad thing) but none the less should be every working persons democratic right.

As for your last two points you really ought to go and see nursie for some fresh medication. :roll:

beverick

Hmm.

The Siemens bid would have seen 35% of a £675m (+/-) contract delivered in the UK. The Daewoo contract sees 20% of a £450m (+/-) contract delivered in the UK.

So with the Siemens contract for the tankers £439m is lost to the UK economy (ie is transferred to SE asia) and £239m remains here.

With the Daewoo contract, £360m is lost to the UK economy and £315m remians here.

In the absence of a genuine bid from a genuine UK supplier it seems like a no-brainer to me.

Bob

Special K

No mystery here. I can virtually guarantee that some big consultancy had a hand preparing a report with some platitude ridden nonsense about it being 'competitive'. I also bet that said report did not look at the cost to the taxpayer of all those British jobs being lost went it trumpetted promises of 'savings'.

I also bet that the consulting partner who sold this report to the MOD probably gets paid more than Stephen Hester.