U.K. Registered Fleet is growing

[robpage]

I was still very suspicious of the changes John Prescott made to the tax laws in 2000 where he got rid of the profit tax and put a tonnage tax in I still don't think that that helped the industry as well as bringing in the modern certificate system international instead of staying on our own

[j.sabourn]

#11... maybe the Panamanians opened an account for him in panama , can you imagine an ignoramus like him telling the old BOT examiners go a bit easy on some of the candidates they didn’t have the education of some. What a person to have in charge for the future of our maritime industry. Wouldn’t put him in charge of being a milk monitor. JWS

[robpage]

I have seen this far too often over the years when what you regard as a man of the people a Working Class Hero becomes educated at Ruskin College Oxford and then becomes a member of Parliament they seem to do very well financially and then despite what they've said for the last few years seem to turn their back on their working class roots and on their working class heritage and start to tell us what to do while doing something entirely different

[John Arton]

I was still very suspicious of the changes John Prescott made to the tax laws in 2000 where he got rid of the profit tax and put a tonnage tax in I still don't think that that helped the industry as well as bringing in the modern certificate system international instead of staying on our own

Rob
It is the IMO, based in London, that legislates Maritime Law and all signatories have to abide by there legislation. It was them that introduced STCW back in 74? in an attempt to harmonize seafarers certification, which of course led to the dumming down of the syllabus to the lowest common denominator in order that person's from any country that supplied mariners and certification would supposedly have the same level of quality certificate as those issued by the traditional maritime nations.
Rgds
J.A.
p.s. see Lord John has now got onto t.v. extolling the virtues of real Yorkshire food, how apt given his waistline. Wonder if he is still drawing his House of. Lords allowance?

[robpage]

I have met a couple of people that were on new certification and my personal feeling was it was a mutch watered down standard . Looking at there engineering background and in all honesty there engineering knowledge I doubt they would have passed the Old department of trade and Industry certification scheme I do not see any point in watering down the qualification to suit the man you're better to improve the man to suit the higher level of qualification . I recognise that the world has changed and man engine rooms are in when I left and now a lot of the maintenance seems to be done by Shaw squads but we was always told you needed to know as much as or more than the Shore squad did to make sure they did the proper job

[j.sabourn]

I left school Rob the same as anyone here at 15. Could read and write and speak a smattering of French and had a basic knowledge of Greek and Latin verbs, this extra curriculum was purely giving because I was in an A class others didn’t get. The only knowledge I left schoool with was the three Rs. One learns when one leaves school and is up to the individual to learn if he desires. This demanding asa right free education at university standard is a farce. You want it then go and earn it if Daddy can’t afford it. This dumbing down of certificate standard I have always suspected such and have said so in the past,so it’s niceto see others agree with. To mei it’s snub to all those who really had to struggle and also their families , to attain British standards , and to see some ex union half wit having the power to dismantle what generations have gone through is disconcerting at least. It shows what we have as so-called leaders of the country as a complete farce. Who in their right mind would lower standards of education only to be able to bring in a cheaper labour force but a politician, probably looks at his own brain power and says. What the Hell!!! JWS

[robpage]

We have a watered-down nation in many ways I was one of those people who did a 4 and a half year apprenticeship which shortly after I finished was watered down to 4 years now you can teach an apprentice engineer in anywhere between 2 and a half and three years and they don't have the practical skills that we were forced into because now if you want to do late work you need to be able to program the CNC you don't file and chisel and hammer you program a CNC Mill I'm a great believer that if you teach the basic skill and then teach people how to operate the computer controlled stuff they would understand it better but of course I'm strangely old-fashioned

[j.sabourn]

I think one of the longest apprenticeships at one time was a cooper. Think it was 5 years. On how to make beer barrels. Maybe after completion of the barrel it was filled up and you couldn’t start the next one until the first was consumed. Now that they have metal barrels, where have all the coopers gone long time leaving, maybe that’s where the song came from. JWS.

[robpage]

there is a large cooperage on Speyside I believe repairing old sherry and bourbon casks for the whisky industry

[happy daze john in oz]

#13, yes we have them here.

Ex Union leaders, one is now opposition leader, who have on many occasions turned their back on the ones they claim to represent.
This guy took so many extras off one wage deal just to get it done and look good

But there are many more to come, mainly Labor sitting in the wings just waiting their turn.