Cross-Channel Ferries Are Sinking Britain

I first crossed the channel in a ferry on December 24th 1978. My girlfriend and I were heading from London to Paris to spend Christmas week together in a city-centre flat that had miraculously become available. The problem was, never having left the country before, I had no passport. In those days, however, you could buy a 'day-return' passport with basic ID and a selfie from a photobooth. Job done, we caught a train from Calais to the French capital and devoured the full Parisian experience. My memories are of a wondrous, bustling city of spectacular beauty; the cafe-culture of Montmartre, the glittering banks of the Seine and the awe-inspiring Notre Dame Cathedral.   

GATECRASHING

Heading back to Dover at New Year was a sheepish, guilty business. At the Calais ferry-port, I displayed my flimsy, dog-eared day-return to the French authorities. I also flourished my birth-certificate and National Insurance card. They frowned, muttered a few curses and shoved me onto the boat, where I would, of course, become England's problem once again. Halfway across the channel, my name boomed out from the ship's tannoy, as in: get your ass to the purser's office right now. 

With a heavy heart, I trudged along some corridors and eventually found the room. Asked to explain, I confessed I couldn't bear to miss out on the Paris trip but had no time to obtain a 'real' passport. I had clear proof of my identity and had never committed any crime in Britain or France. I didn't mean any harm. The officer, being an adult English human being with a fair grasp of proportion, rolled his eyes, and dismissed me with instructions to never attempt a repeat. And that was that.

FERRY TALES

This week the media is awash with reports of how P&O -the huge ferryboat company which serves major UK ports- sacked 800 full-time workers, literally overnight, and replaced them with coachloads of foreign 'agency workers' who will be paid much lower wages. Reporters and politicians (is there any difference?) hurried to make noises of fake outrage and wag imaginary fingers while making imaginary threats. The depth of the 'outrage' can be measured exactly, just by reading the comment released by some anonymous jerk referred to as "the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman". 

Before we examine that comment and what it reveals, let's pause for a moment here. Alexander 'Boris' Johnson is the one person in Britain guaranteed to shove his own random thoughts down the nearest microphone at the slightest opportunity. The fact that he said not a word, but had his "statement" released through an anonymous mouthpiece tells us two things. First, the statement was not Johnson's, but written by the faceless ones who deliver government policies for him to read. Second, the content of the statement is such obvious hot air that even a fink like Johnson doesn't want to be captured on video saying the words. Here is that statement:

 “The way these workers were informed was completely unacceptable,” the Prime Minister’s official spokesman said. “Clearly the way that this was communicated to staff was not right and we have made that clear. Our sympathies are with these hard-working employees affected during this challenging time who have given years of service to P&O,” he added.

So what was unnaceptable? Why, it's the way these workers were informed. Not a word about the fact that they were sacked without warning. Not a peep about the disgusting cynicism of replacing them -instantly- with cheap, foreign labour. That stuff is alright - the way they were told about it was not right.  

WEASEL WORLD

Weasel words like these are usually the hallmark of cowardly politicians desperate to avoid pissing off the kind of globalist billionaires who trade people and jobs like cattle. And so it proves, because P&O ferries were, of course, bought out in 2019 by a Dubai-based corporation called DP World. 

Such is the three-ring circus that passes for UK governance in 2022. (1) British people get crapped on by foreign financial interests (2) Nobody in Parliament has a clue what to do (3) Anonymous gofer releases meaningless 'official' statement. 

Naturally, the sackings and the 'official statement' were pre-scheduled for Thursday and Friday respectively, allowing the story to be rolled into the regular avalanche of weekend headlines, and effectively buried by Monday. The actual sackings/replacements were clearly timed to allow maximum exploitation of the upcoming Easter holidays. The 'agency staff' will be totally expendable, with many employed only when demand increases -like at Easter. 

For the record, P&O got £150 million in 'furlough' payments (from the bank of you and I) plus a £150 million bailout during the 2020 lockdowns, but paid its shareholders £250 million in dividends anyway. Now they are sacking their 800 UK employees because of 'losses'. The miracle of globalism, where the master/serf relationship is alive and well and living in (untaxable) Dubai. 

CHANGING CHANNELS

Which brings us back to the channel, where the improving weather has seen a redoubling of  rubber-dinghy traffic. Perhaps we should view the financial problems facing P&O with a little more sympathy.  After all, The Royal National Lifeboat Institution are running the world's most generous ferry service completely free of charge. They will pick up 'migrants' half way here, and bring them to shore with a promise of free hotel accomodation, three free meals a day, UK citizenship and a leg up on the housing list. Poor old P&O can only offer transport to the coast with over-priced food and drink as extra. If passengers are lucky, they might even meet a crew member who speaks English.

The P&O story is the reality of globalism -the very purpose of globalism- i.e. the creation of an international cattle-class of itinerant workers to be shipped to any shore of convenience, in line with variations in supply and demand. Dubai -P&O's new headquarters- was built with slave labour, while the western world looked the other way. 

HEADS OF STATE

Prime Minister Johnson was chewing the fat in Saudia Araba this week, begging negotiating for the cheap oil he no longer gets from Russia -and got not much more than a flea in his ear. I suppose he was also looking the other way during his power-lunch negotiations, while the Saudi ruling family beheaded three more convicts, following the record-breaking 81 they topped last weekend. 

In Saudi Arabia you can be sentenced to death for crimes like 'blasphemy' or 'sorcery'. The favoured method of execution is decapitation by scimitar. Asked to comment on this primitive, barbaric regime of oil-rich psycho-tyrants, Johnson commented that 'things are definitely changing' in Saudia Arabia. Then he went back to explaining why Vladimir Putin is the worst guy on earth for not allowing NATO to position missiles on Russia's doorstep.

MEMORIES...

Fans of the geopolitical money-go-round will have enjoyed this week's (somewhat late in the day) admission that the Biden crime family have been up to their noses in dirty Yook cash since 2014. Back when Biden was preparing to 'win' the presidency from Trump, several far-right conspiracy theorists pointed out that between 2014-16 Joe Biden's son Hunter had got a million bucks a year from Ukraine for no discernible reason at all. This was dismissed as Russian propaganda and all discussion of the subject forbidden  by Facebook, Youtube etc. In true memory-hole style, that 'theory' is now, two years later, an unquestioned fact. 

On the other hand, Britain's chief hog-in-the-trough Boris Johnson is himself hardly a stranger to the world of international cash-baggery. As far-left conspiracy theorists at the Morning Star pointed out back in 2019, Johnson, in his role as Foreign Secretary, managed to flog the Saudi Arabians 1.2 BILLION in hi-tech weapons while out there negotiating world peace or something.[DETAILS HERE] If you don't think a sizeable slice of that tidy sum is buried out there in some numbered Johnsonian account in offshore heaven, come north and I will sell you the Forth Bridge!

PAY AS YOU GO

Some sexy new numbers emerged this week, that need to be mentioned if only to remind ourselves just how quickly we are plummetng towards the total economic collapse of the United Kingdom. At the last count, the British taxpayer is housing 37,000 'refugees' in hotels at an average cost of £127 per day each. That's a cool £33 million a week, every week of the year. 

Next up, we're inviting 'tens of thousands' of Ukrainian refugees to come on in, as the generous public and the not over-busy NHS is waiting with 'open arms'. So that'll be more like £50 or £60 million a week by May. Or maybe £100 million every week by July. Not to mention the constant and growing influx of Chinese jetting in every day from Honk Kong.

Cross-channel ferries. Not what they used to be. And Notre Dame Cathedral, by the way, is a heap of rubble.

Ian Andrew-Patrick

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