76 years of service came to and end last Saturday Continue reading
Tag Archives: Post Office
64 year-old postmaster assaulted in raid on Strone Post Office
Strone must be feeling pretty battered and bruised.
First its primary school with a healthy roll in the early 40s, was listed to close in the joke-no-joke proposals hashed up by Argyll and Bute Council’s education department.
Possessor of the last school in the area, the Strone community is mobilised to fight for its school as, without it, like any other community, it will certainly die.
This morning, in a second blow to the community, its 64 year-old postmaster nearly did just that.
Around 7.00am, when he was opening up the premises, the postmaster was attacked and beaten up by a ‘little and large’ wearing dark hooded tops, who, almost comically, escaped on foot.
Dunoon CID have been on scene, doing house-to-house enquiries based around a sighting of two men whose physical descriptions - one is significantly taller – correspond to those who assaulted the Strone postmaster.
The two men were seen around a quarter of an hour earlier, getting off the West Coast Motors bus at Kilmun and walking off towards Strone.
After the assault – which left the postmaster with what police described as minor injuries, the two made off with an undisclosed amount of cash and have not since been seen.
Dunoon CID are anxious talk to the two men, who may still be in the vicinity. Anyone seeing anything suspicious in the area is asked to contact Detective Sergeant MacLeod at Dunoon on 01369 763017.
Approved Scottish budget brings £1M to help local Post Offices through recession
Argyll’s MSP, Enterprise Minister Jim Mather, has Continue reading
Morvern gets breakaway postcode from Oban
Should Argyll be the next to get a breakaway – from Paisley? Continue reading
Check if and when Alan Reid MP signs the Westminster Parliamentary Motion to save the Post Office from part privatisation
Share the fun. Alan Reid, Argyll’s MP, has been saying one thing and failing to do another. He’s been saying – at Argyll Post Offices, that he supports them in their opposition to the UK Government’s proposal to part-privatise the Royal Mail. But he has not – yet, made his opposition clear where it really counts – at Westminster.
Labour MP, Geraldine Smith, tabled an Early Day Motion (EDM) formally opposing these plans. She tabled it on 13th January 2009. It has now been signed by 174 MPs – but not by Alan Reid. Whyever not?
We’re keeping an eye on the Parliamentary record to see if and when Mr Reid walks the talk. You might like to do the same – here’s the link to the specific page on the UK Parliament website.
With forest leasing and Royal Mail privatisation polarising opinion, Mike MacKenzie offers some balanced thinking
‘Nothing is either good or bad but thinking makes it so.’ (William Shakespeare)
The recent Scottish Government consultation on the forestry provisions within the Climate Change Bill have been largely welcomed except for some fears expressed about the proposals to lease around 25% of the forest estate to private companies. Understandably some people have reservations because the term ‘privatisation’ has earned such negative connotations although what is intended is to sell off leases rather than outright privatisation.
The Westminster Government’s plans to part privatise the Post Office again touch this raw nerve although here the worst fears of both politicians and people are merited. Privatisation of public utilities has been very profitable for some, at the expense of the public and of quality of service, and most people see this as the start of a slippery slope where the Post Office is cherry picked for profitable activities.
Both of these issues are important for Argyll and Bute but they are also part of a wider debate about public versus private. In Scotland the PFI flagship was the new Edinburgh Royal Infirmary. This should have cost £180million but under PFI will end up costing the taxpayer more than £1 billion. It is important that we find alternative funding methods for such projects that offer better value.
Private procurement of public projects and of service delivery seems to be characterised by inordinate profits and greed whereas public procurement is often beset by delays, cost over-runs and inefficiencies. In truth neither one is good nor bad, although for Scottish sensibilities, public provision of monopolistic services somehow sits more comfortably.
This is reflected in Professor Allyson Pollack, the leading campaigner against NHS privatisation, having moved from England to Scotland where the creeping privatisation of the NHS has not progressed so far. She feels the battle has been lost in England but may yet be won in Scotland.
The emerging ethos of ethical business has been given fresh impetus as we have seen what damage a banking system bent on inordinate profits has done, both to themselves and to the economy. Private business can at times be more innovative and less risk averse than the public sector but a place remains for public provision and procurement especially where a monopoly exists or where the democratic ideals of equality of service are otherwise impossible to provide.
This is why public sector reform is so important. If we are to continue to afford public services they must be modern, streamlined, efficient and customer focussed.
Allyson Pollack is quite correct to discern a different set of values in Scotland, forged as they were by both Adam Smith and Robert Burns. First Minister, Alex Salmond, expresses this as ‘soft hearts and hard heads’ and having both, we know just where, in this middle ground between public and private, we ought to be.
Mike Mackenzie is one of the Prospective Westminster Parliamentary Candidates for Argyll and Bute
Why has Alan Reid not signed the Early Day Motion against privatisation of the Post Office?
Argyll’s representative at Westminster, Alan Reid MP, has spoken widely across Argyll about the need to save the Post Office from the part-privatisation the UK Government proposes – and about saving local Post Offices.
This is admirable and appropriate action. The issue involves powers reserved to Westminster and is precisely where Mr Reid’s energies need to be focusis critical for Argyll, with its small population dispersed across an extensive rural and island area and its low economic base.
The puzzle is though, that Mr Reid has not yet signed the Early Day Motion 426. This was lodged by Labour MP Geraldine Smith, as a protest at the Westminster Government’s plans to begin the process of privatising the Post Office. The motion has been signed by virtually all of the many Labour MPs who oppose this move and others - and it has been available for signing for some time.
This failure to formally register his opposition may well simply be an oversight on Mr Reid’s behalf but it is one that requires to be remedied at once.
This is a cross party issue of real importance to rural areas like Argyll and Bute and it transcends petty politics. No one should be under any illusions that privatisation will inevitably lead to a reduced and more expensive service in rural areas where there is no real opportunity for private profits.
Dave Thompson, Highlands MSP, angered by the latest revelation of Lord Mandelson’s plan to bypass the House of Commons and introduce legislation to privatise Royal Mail, has written to the Communication Workers Union (CWU) in support of their opposition campaign to offer his assistance in any way he can. The CWU is Britain’s largest communications union and Mr thompson sees it as leading one of the most dynamic campaigns against privatisation.
Mr Thompson says: ‘I am appalled by Lord Mandelson’s decision to go forward with this proposal, and it has now shockingly come to light that these plans go even farther than previously understood by allowing up to 49.9% of Royal Mail to be privatised’.
Below is a list of all of the Scottish MPs who have not uyet signed the Early Day Motion (whose text is at the foot of this list). What have these MPs been saying to their own constituents? Have they too been saying one thing at home to get votes and doing nothing at Westminster because they actually believe that the Post Office should indeed be sold off?
The overall list of Scottish MPs who have NOT signed the Early day Motion to protect the Post Office are:
- Danny Alexander, Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, Liberal Democrat
- John Barrett, Edinburgh West, Liberal Democrat
- Anne Begg, Aberdeen South, Labour
- Russell Brown, Dumfries and Galloway, Labour
- Des Browne, Kilmarnock and Loudoun, Labour
- Malcolm Bruce, Gordon, Liberal Democrat
- David Cairns, Inverclyde, Labour
- Menzies Campbell, Fife North East, Liberal Democrat
- Alistair Carmichael, Orkney and Shetland, Liberal Democrat
- Tom Clarke, Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill, Labour
- Brian Donohoe, Central Ayrshire, Labour
- Frank Doran, Aberdeen North, Labour
- Nigel Griffiths, Edinburgh South, Labour
- Tom Harris, Glasgow South, Labour
- Eric Joyce, Falkirk, Labour
- Charles Kennedy, Ross, Skye and Lochaber, Liberal Democrat
- John McFall, West Dunbartonshire, Labour
- Rosemary McKenna, Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East, Labour
- Michael Moore, Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, Liberal Democrat
- David Mundell, Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale, Tory
- Anne Moffat, East Lothian, Labour
- Alan Reid, Argyll and Bute, Liberal Democrat
- John Reid, Airdrie and Shotts, Labour
- Willie Rennie, Dunfermline and West Fife, Liberal Democrat
- John Robertson, Glasgow North West, Labour
- Lindsay Roy, Glenrothes, Labour
- John Thurso, Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, Liberal Democrat
- Robert Smith, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, Liberal Democrat
- Jo Swinson, East Dunbartonshire, Liberal Democrat
For information – here is the text of Geraldine Smith’s Early day Motion opposing the part-privatisation of the Post Office
Text of EDM 428:
That this House
- notes that the Labour Party Conference 2008, with the backing of Ministers, supported a vision of a wholly publicly-owned, integrated Royal Mail Group;
- welcomes the conclusion of the Hooper Report that the current universal service obligation offered by Royal Mail, including six days a week delivery, must be protected and that the primary duty of a new regulator should be to maintain it;
- further welcomes the recommendations in the Report that the Government should take responsibility for the pensions deficit which followed an extended contributions holiday;
- endorses the call for a new relationship between management and postal unions and welcomes the commitment of the Communication Workers Union to negotiate an agreement which would support the modernisation of the industry;
- observes that in 2007 the Government agreed to a £1.2 billion loan facility on commercial terms to modernise Royal Mail operations;
- rejects the recommendation of the Hooper Report to sell a minority stake in Royal Mail which would risk fracturing one of Britain’s greatest public services;
- further notes that the Government is currently advertising for a new Chair of Royal Mail;
- and urges the Secretary of State to appoint a Chair and management team who are committed to the principles of a modern public enterprise.
Will Brown now introduce the stocks as the latest PR decoy from his management of the economy?
The UK Government announced last night – wait for it – that it is to print leaflets with details of minor court judgments and then bombard localities with these things to name and shame the culprits. Presumably this is to provide guaranteed income for the private sector businesses to whom 30% of the Post Office is to be sold?
The argument is that local newspapres have largely stopped printing the details of local court reports – not in Argyll – and that petty criminals respond more to this naming and shaming in their home areas than they do to imprisonment. That argument however, is not backed up by what would have been a logical parallel move – to cut jail sentences whose ineffectiveness would be replaced by state-controlled naming and shaming.
No mention of the enviromental costs of paper production for this stunt. No mention of the cost to the taxpayer of distribution costs – at a time when we’re in hock to the tune of £2 trillion thanks to the unregulated banks. And no mention of using the Internet – which is the obvious option in today’s communications: fast, cheap, universally available.
It’s a short hop from papering the country with more junk mail to next week’s whizzy announcement that naming and shaming is to be upgraded by the reinroduction of the stocks – vinegar-soaked sponges provided free, courtesy of you and me.
But hey, as we clear the junk mail from our halls it won’t half take our minds off that £2 trillion debt Prudence (did we ever seriously call him that?) has got us into. Not.
Mather takes Mandelson to task for holding Thursday’s debate on the part-privatisation of the Post Office in the House of Lords
Argyll’s MSP and Enterprise Minister, Jim Mather has taken issue with Lord Mandelson for lack of courage in choosing the House of Lords as the venue for the debate on the highly controversial proposal to part-privatise the Post Office.
By this afternoon it was known that 125 Labour MPs have signed a paper objecting to the proposal and the debate normally taking place in the Commons would have been a heated affair. The Lords has often shown that it can be a doughty defender of rights but it’s demeanour in so doing is of a gentler order than is the case in the Commons.
It is virtually certain that Gordon Brown will need support from the Conservatives to get this proposal through the vote in the Commons.
Labour MP, Kate Hoey, the former Sports Minister, has said publicly that the Government has got reform of the Post Office consistently wrong. Her point is that private sector businesses were allowed to compete with the Post Office in the delivery of selected services. She sees this as having left the profitable services to be cherry picked and the core Post Office with little but massive obligations and no real earning capacity.
Post Office CEO, Adam Crozier, told MPs that the Post Office does not have the money to invest in development and is crushed by a huge pension burden.
Union Leaders are making the valid point that the UK Government has been willing to commit the taxpayer to £1.5 trillion of debt to bail out the banks and that it is hard to see why it cannot find the will to finance the development of the Post Office.
Jim Mather condemns the UK Government’s decision: ‘to hive off a proportion of it (the Post Office), reportedly as much as 30% of its core and doubtless most profitable business, to competitors who have in recent years been encouraged to compete on unequal terms with Royal Mail.
‘What is at stake here for Royal Mail customers in Scotland and in rural areas across the land is the fear that this will mean the end of the universal service obligation if the company is privatised. Suggestions that competition will improve services cut little ice when the delivery of mail to small and isolated communities is on the agenda and yet these are the very customers who most rely on the principle of the service obligation.
‘Privatisation of Royal Mail makes little sense and can only lead on to the continued diminution of the overall service.
‘Strong concern too is expressed at the choice of the House of Lords to launch this dubious exercise. Such a matter of importance should come under the immediate scrutiny of the elected chamber rather than in the rarefied atmosphere of the unelected Lords. It is all too clear that the government are trying to avoid confrontation at this stage of the legislation but the master of New Labour spin must be accountable to the Commons in this matter.
‘I am interested in the attitude of the LibDems on this particular issue. The local MP has been vocal in his support for the retention and protection of the Royal Mail but it would appear that some of his colleagues down south are enthusiastic supporters of the concept of privatisation’.
Mr Mather’s colleague in Argyll, Mike Mackenzie, looking beyond the purely functional, has an almost poetic view of the role of the Post Office, reminding us not to take our eyes off the bigger picture. He says: ‘The Post Office was one of the fundamental planks of a modern democracy, binding us together and connecting us through one of the few truly benign agencies of Government. Little wonder that this great institution is so close to peoples hearts, especially in rural areas like Argyll and Bute, where distances and geography are still challenges’.
The photograph above, of a Post Office Post Box, is reproduced here under the GNU Free Documentation licence.
Alexander Robertson & Sons, America’s Cup Yachtbuilders at Sandbank on the Holy Loch near Dunoon
A big player in Argyll’s nautical history was the boatbuilding business at Sandbank on the Holy Loch north of Dunoon which was run by Alexander Robertson and his sons.
Robertson’s parents (his father was a fisherman from the Isle of Skye) moved from Inverkip, where he was born, to Sandbank to take over the Post Office there. Young Alexander was apprenticed as a boatbuilder in Dunoon then in Govan.
In 1876, when he was 25, he began building small wooden boats at his Sandbank workshop, in partnership with Daniel Kerr. Two years later that partnership broke up but Robertson went on to expand the business in bigger premises. He was still Chairman of the company in 1935, two years before he died.
He started by designing himself but later employed many of the leading designers of the day to work on, for example, the 12 metre and 15 metre racing yachts which made the firm its name. The business was obviously a major employer in the area – particularly in its heyday in the early 1900s.
Naturally he was a multi-tasking bigwig in Cowal and in Argyll – representing Cowal on Argyll County Council; being a Parish Councillor; appointed as a Justice of the Peace; being a member of the local School Board; acting as director of Dunoon District Cottage Hospital and being on the Board of Management of the Parish Church.
The company built the first 15 metre racing yacht – the Shimna, in 1907, designed by the famous William Fife.
It built over 55 boats in Britain’s preparations for the First World War. It managed to stay in business during the Great Depression of the mid-1930s as rich businessmen went in for a bout of highly conspicuous consumption by building and racing yachts on the Clyde. (Yacht racing is fairly, if modestly, described as ‘standing in a shower tearing up £100 notes.).
Between the wars, as well as racing yachts for the depressions-proof, the company built lifeboats. It got its first RNLI lifeboat order in 1935. This was for the Charlotte Elizabeth, the first motor-powered lifeboat launched in Scotland, later stationed at Port Askaig, in Argyll’s Isle of Islay. Robertson’s built and maintained ten more lifeboats and also built a series of tenders to service larger boats being built further up the Clyde.
It was during this period that Robertson’s built the Ron, later renamed Ron of Argyll on which For Argyll has published a companion article to this one. Ron was – and is – a 15 metre ketch designed by J A McCallum in 1928. She was followed by Southern Cross – an interesting coincidence, given where Ron of Argyll is currently sailing. Southern Cross was a 16 metre ketch designed by Alfred Mylne in 1930
In the Second World War the yard built a range of the large and fast Fairmile Marine Motor Boats for the Admiralty. These included Motor Torpedo Boats (MTBs) and Motor Gun Boats (MGBs), both renamed after the war as ‘fast patrol boats’.
After this war, the company had success in building the one-class Loch Long boats – 6.4metre, 2-man keelboats. Cove Sailing Club on the shores of Loch Long on the Rosneath peninsula describes itself as ‘the home of the Loch Long one-design’. Interestingly, there is a fleet of these still racing in Aldeburgh in Suffolk and there is a class association website, run by Cove Sailing Club, for more information.
As well as this class of boat, Robertson’s were selected to build two of Britain’s 12 metre challengers for the America’s Cup: Sceptre in 1958 and Sovereign in 1964, both designed by David Boyd. Neither won. Sceptre lost to Columbia and Sovereign lost to Constellation.
Business began to slow markedly after this time and the yard spent its time building fast launches for the RAF. They also took on fixed price contracts for two 63′ General Service Mk 1 Pinnaces. These contracts were effectively the end of Robertson’s. Delays, design changes and rising materials costs saw the business in the sort of financial difficulties described as being ‘between a rock and a hard place’.
The Robertson Family sold the yard in 1965.
The footnote is that it became a subsidiary of Glasgow’s Auchinleck Investment Company who built there a wide range of fibreglass (GRP) boats there – like Pipers, Ohlsons, Etchells and Pilot Launches – for 14 more years. They shut down in 1980, faced with rising costs of oil and resin – and tough competition from established GRP yards down south.
The buildings in the lower yard were pulled down in the late 1980s and the site was levelled for re-development. Now all that’s left is the slipway, although some of the classic boats built at the yard – like Ron of Argyll now in the Whitsundays – are still sailing in a wide variety of waters.
The photographs show Alexander Robertson (bearded) with his sons at the Sandbank yard and Alexander Robertson himself. Both are reproduced here under the Creative Commons licence.