Comment posted New Royal Yacht for – the Queen? Do they think we’re stupid? by JimB.
She was launched in 1954 when much of the navy probably used heavy bunker oil, so it was sensible at the time. Turbines were chosen because they are vibration free unlike diesels for instance.
The world had moved on by the time of the Falklands war but that is life. Many ships, if not most, have a lifespan of less than 30 years so her lack of participation in the Falklands was to be expected. It was the lack of availability of fuel that led to her retirement to Edinbugh as far as I remember.
Will the English want her back if independence should come about?
JimB also commented
- As I recall, Britannia wasn’t sent to the Falklands because, being steam turbine powered she ran on heavy bunnkering oil. The rest of the ships were diesel or gas turbine powered so Britannia would have required an exclusive refuelling facility which was clearly a non starter. I don’t think size ever came into it.
Recent comments by JimB
- Time for Dunoon to take stock of its ferry services?
Er the much despised Alli Cat is a catamaran! - Time for Dunoon to take stock of its ferry services?
The big problem with hovercraft is NOISE!I remember the Gourock/Dunoon service of the 1960s – it was like living beside an airport.
Most people come to Cowal for the peace and quiet and laid back lifestyle.
- Time for Dunoon to take stock of its ferry services?
I doubt if it would happen whatever party was in power for the reason I give above – the people of Dunoon deserted the service steadily over the years. Basicly I think the people of Dunoon/Cowal have nobody to blame for the ending of the car ferry service but themselves. - Time for Dunoon to take stock of its ferry services?
To the above – you are wasting your time castigating FA for bias, that is their specialism.Re the ferries, on the face of it Dunoon does not need two car ferry services,what it needs is a reliable all weather service. This requires larger boats which could only be justified if they were carrying cars. If they were reasonably full, then the cars would subsidise the foot passengers.
There is the rub. The reality is that the Calmac service was lost because vehicle drivers did not use it. (leaving aside the fact that we were lied to by candidates of two parties (SNP & Labour) and messed about by a third ( the Lib Dems).
I am interested in why so many people abandoned what was a popular service until the 1990s. I am not convinced that frequency was the whole answer or even a major one, and nor was the 8-40p.m. last ferry as most people have returned by that time. What part did shore ticketing play or the surly unhelpful attitude of the crews, or the car registration number on the tickets? Anyone else have an opinion? Something drove people into the hands of Western.
I write as someone who did use Calmac until near the end.
- First Minister launches referendum consultation
Lets not forget that there was a lot of negative voting in the last election so the referendum is not as cut and dried as it might appear to the Braveheart Brigade.Can Labour win back the trust of the populace in time? I don’t know but I hope it can.
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I’m intrigued by the Gove connection – as well as the Minister for Education, is he the Minister for Royalty?
Not sure about the role of Prince Charles in justifying a new royal yacht – it would presumably have to be a reproduction antique creation to suit his aesthetic sensibilities, and unless he gets sponsorship the cost to the public purse could be eye-watering. Perhaps Gove is planning to fund it from flogging off a lot more school sports pitches, or by designating it a ‘faith yacht’ with suitable sponsorship; Maybe Tony Blair could claim it as a tax-deductible expense for his burgeoning corporate good deeds empire, if he’s not entirely ‘sheltered’ from paying taxes.
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Gove has said public money but if there’s not enough, then private subscriptions could be sought.
And of course the yacht would in fact be given to the Royal family.
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Gove is a crawling little toady,promoted way beyond his ability level.
He is just giving the left another PR gift.
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Pingback: Gove: Queen deserves £60m yacht for Queen – The Independent
Pingback: Give Queen a new royal yacht for diamond jubilee, says Michael Gove – The Guardian | World Wide News
Simple answer- yes, I do think you are stupid. What a crass article.
FA has turned into a personal blog (and a particularly unpleasant one at that) rather than a news website. It seems like ‘FA’ news these days anyway.
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Yes – another example of the bigoted reporting so common now on these pages. Please tell me who pays your wages and overheads – Mr Salmond personally perhaps – he earns enough! A simple answer will do – rather than the five paragraph diatribe you normally produce to answer a simple question.
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Not convinced by the POW conspracy connection but this really is a piece of Olympic class toadying by wee Gove!
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It’s true to say that some in uk government have absolutely no idea how stupid they are!!
school defender and Malcolm Kirk–lighten up…this story IS news,or do you think newsroom made it up?
And if you don’t like the site …well you can guess where I’m going????
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Will freely admit to a simple scan of the article above, since I saw a report on it on Sky this morning.
Taking the whole Royalist arguments out of it and the fact she could afford one herself out of Buckingham Palace’s petty cash, there are a few things that get my goat about this.
Firstly, the minister who made this suggestion (regardless of who is behind it) is the minister for Education. Yes, you heard right. Instead of saying, “Hey, our schools and colleges are being completely devasted by cuts and we could really do with that money to invest in them and our future workforce” – NO – he wants the Queen to have another dingy.
Is there not supposed to be some sort of ceremonial barge already being built for the jubilee – over a mile long or something ridiculous like that?
Does the Queen even want another yacht? She and Phil being in their twilight years, might not want to go sailing off here and there and everywhere. Jeez, if they are anything like my parents (who are a younger than them) they must have doctor’s and hospital appointments up to their necks. Going off on a wee jaunt might not even be feasible for them.
Time to design, tender, construct and launch said yacht will be a couple of years. Not meaning to be nasty, but will the Queen even still be with us then?
The whole thing reeks worse than an auld corgi’s dog breath.
I’m not saying that the Queen shouldn’t receive a wee something from her people – a card with a fiver in it maybe? But I am sure that there are many in the Tory bunker this morning ready to give Gove a good kicking.
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Certain newspapers put this idea up months before Gove supported it. Not everyone in Scotland is anti – royal or a Salmond fan!!!
The royal yacht should have been replaced a long time ago. Bad mistake by Tony Blair – which he has since admitted.
If cuts and cash come into it, as someone who has worked
hard in various jobs for 45 years and had a father who did same and fought in the war – never claimed benefits and got off his backside to provide for his family, I would a hundred times prefer, business people, the youth of the uk and others including the royal family had the use of a new royal yacht than to continue to support the work shy in our society.
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Brief discussion on Radio4 Today this morning – no mention of the Prince Charles connection, and the emphasis seems to be on corporate (and commonwealth, not just uk) funding of a multi-use boat that could be used for educational and scientific expeditions as well as ferrying royalty around. This casts rather a different light on the proposal.
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Your comment brought back to my mind the fact that the cost of Britannia was justified by the plans to use the yacht as a floating hospital ship in future wars. Come the Falklands and the educational cruise ship SS Uganda was pressed into service as a hospital ship but no sign of the Britannia. Turned out she was too small to be of any use.
I am therefore sceptical about a multi-use yacht actually being used for anything other than swanning Royals around. I certainly strain to think how the roles of floating embassy and research vessel can be combined. I have been on a fair few research vessels and none of them looked anything like the Britannia.
One last thought, if the Britannia was so successful in bringing lots of trade to the UK why is it that I cannot think of a single other nation which has invested into an ambassadorial yacht?
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As I recall, Britannia wasn’t sent to the Falklands because, being steam turbine powered she ran on heavy bunnkering oil. The rest of the ships were diesel or gas turbine powered so Britannia would have required an exclusive refuelling facility which was clearly a non starter. I don’t think size ever came into it.
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JimB – I bow to your superior knowledge of Britannia’s propulsion system. Point being though that she wasn’t actually suitable to be used in her supposed dual role at the only time she might have been of use in this role.
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She was launched in 1954 when much of the navy probably used heavy bunker oil, so it was sensible at the time. Turbines were chosen because they are vibration free unlike diesels for instance.
The world had moved on by the time of the Falklands war but that is life. Many ships, if not most, have a lifespan of less than 30 years so her lack of participation in the Falklands was to be expected. It was the lack of availability of fuel that led to her retirement to Edinbugh as far as I remember.
Will the English want her back if independence should come about?
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Ah! The politics of envy – or is it jealousy – returns.
Come on FA, you’re beginning to sound like the press of Rupert Murdoch who, true to his word many years ago, has spent a lifetime trying to belittle and demolish the institutions and morality of the UK. Personally, I’d chuck the little b****r back to the colonies.
Though we’re unlikely ever to see the like again, RY Britannia brought huge benefits to the UK on her trade and diplomatic voyages throughout the world. Much greater benefit and at much less cost than all the stupid foreign wars we’ve been involved in since she was retired because of old age.
The ‘Royal Barge being built’ is actually an existing Thames trip boat used for functions etc., that is being transformed (a bit like a theatre set) into a vessel fit for a queen.
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I don’t envy the Royal Family.Why should not forargyll comment upon what is a story firmly in the public domain?
Unlike some others I know my place!
I will send in a £1 if the plate is going the rounds.
Patronising the Dirty Digger is not going to have any effect. He abandoned the colonies some time ago and is now a citizen of the USofA.
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How about “Newsie” commenting on Alex Salmonds contacts with News International. According to Private Eye, Salmond has met Murdoch and his executives 25 times since he became First Minister. No surprise then the Times voted him Briton of the year and the Scottish editions of Murdochs papers backed Salmond in last years Holyrood elections. Now News International are paying out a fortune in damages for phone hacking.Nice company the First Minister keeps! A story every bit as interesting as the Royal Yacht.
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So, Campbell, was Alex Salmond the only politician to schmooze with the Murdoch gang? If politicians don’t make it their business to try and get the press on their side, surely they’re falling down on the job? (disclaimer: I don’t like Murdoch any more than you do)
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Sounds like the whole story is now dead in the water, as the BBC is reporting that Downing Street has effectively squashed Michael Gove’s initiative.
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Yup i agree with some of the articles, Gove is in Education so he should keep hie BIG GOB shut
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There’s two barges involved!
One is a row barge, to be rowed by Sir Redgrave.
HMQ is rowing bow.
POW would like to be cox.
Costings? Don’t know, but from the picture in the London Evening Standard looks a proper job, perhaps POW might like it.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-24027258-fit-for-a-queen-first-sight-of-barge-to-lead-diamond-jubilee-river-pageant.do
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Interesting that this glorious boat is the brainchild of the same Baron Sterling of Plaistow (and P&O) who organised the Queen’s silver & golden jubilees, and who believed in truly ticketless first class commuting between his pile in Haslemere and his office in the City. Puts Worral-Thompson to shame any day. I digress; the main point of this gilded royal barge is surely to afford the POW the status of cox, as you say – preferably in monogrammed dressing gown (as first revealed to his subjects on that tv visit to Highgrove) and with megaphone to provide divine guidance to the faithful oarsmen on the true path to a better future.
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I must be getting soft in my old age, as this is quite a spiteful article and way betond communicating an opinion.
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Reports from the Daily Mail today suggest that “call me Dave” Cameron has endorsed the call from Michael Gove to raise cash for this “folie de grandeur” l feel sure that in those straightened times the great British public, or at least the Hedge Fund managers, will dig deep and bring this project to fruition. As promised before , I am good for a £1 and if all fellow citizens respond with similar enthusiasm we will have no problems in raising the necessary £60m.
Don’t place too much credence on what appears in the London Evening Standard, though. I saw a copy while passing through the capital recently-brings to mind an old Chick Murray joke – and it is an appaling freesheet that cannot be taken seriously by anyone other than bored commuters facing a boring journey home.
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Perhaps, if the notion that it should be a ‘multi-purpose’ Royal ship – to make it more attractive in the eyes of the commonors – wins the day, it could eventually find use for transporting emigrants away from impoverished English shores, if those selfish Scots persist in their stubborn insistence that the remaining offshore hydrocarbon loot is theirs by right, together with the looming windfarms relentlessly spraying cash windfalls to their oh-so green and ecologically minded absentee owners. Perhaps the multi-purpose notion could spread – Balmoral would make a great adventure holiday centre (when not occupied by the royals) to give deprived kids from Kensington & Chelsea a break from their desperate living conditions.
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careful, Robert! You can overstate your case.
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Oh dear, Health and Safety have kiboshed Charlie’s ambition to be cox on HM’s barge.
Which he requested to be built.
It appears the boat will be too vulnerable to torpedos and other missiles that will be around at the jubilee.
But it will still be in the parade, but sans majesty. And given to HMQ afterwards.
Presumably Steve Redgrave is disposable.
But its a Daily Mail report, so who knows whether the whole thing is a right wing plot?
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2086827/Queens-Diamond-Jubilee-2012-Plans-500k-vessel-scrapped-health-safety.html
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Regardless of the purchase cost of a new royal yacht being privately funded, running costs will be funded by the tax payer (Brittania was around £30 million P.A.).
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Today’s “Metro”, London Edition says that the Queen will be aboard…
A job for POW after all?
Picture (Arist’s impression)
Who is that standing in the bow????
http://www.metro.co.uk/news/pictures/photos-11819/pictures-thames-diamond-jubilee-pageant/1
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Since this story is in the realms of whacky!
I’ve had a crazy idea……Why don’t the voters of A&BC fund a fancy barge…making sure there are enough oars for all council admin members and a few other chums!
Then we could all wave them off “doon the watter”.
I’m sure that there could be better ways to spend taxpayers money…….but you never know,they may decide they like it doon there and want to stay!
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I’ve had a better idea! Why don’t we gift them the Ali Cat and the Argyll Flyer from Argyll Ferries on the Clyde, and then the Scottish Government could provide the two ferries it promised for the Dunoon – Gourock route. Simple!!!!!
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For Gus Mackay: Like it.
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