NO Michael Gove you TWAT. I don't want to donate to buy the queen a 60 million pound giant boat.

[Spidermama]

Not content with earmarking £100 million to pay the guards for the jubilee party, bloody unelected Tories want us all to cough up for a fucking great boat for the queen. In THIS climate.

Read it and weep.

I'm so annoyed. Time to join Republic I reckon.

You know we're all supposed to imagine the UK as a family that's spent far too much money over the last however many years and is now having to cut back? So why is this skint family (a) holding a giant 200th birthday party for batty Great Aunt Olympia and (b) allowing mad cousin Govey to suggest buying a very expensive remote control boat for Granny Liz?

So how exactly does Gove envisage a gift from the nation which doesn't spend public funds?

There must be an old Dover ferry that's due to be decommissioned. Can't she have that?

Is Rosie & Jim's old barge still about?

Iggle piggle only uses his boat at night time.
Seafrance may also have a few ships on the cheap now.

Seafrance would mean Cameron speaking to Sarkozy as Sarkozy has said he will do his best to preserve Seafrance jobs. A royal yacht may not be what he had in mind though!

There's an old Isle of Man Steampacket ferry lies at the bottom of Liverpool Bay. Till this day.

apps.facebook.com/theguardian/uk/2012/jan/16/royal-yacht-backed-prince-charles

Since no one wants to read my last thread (Ultimate benefit scroungers)

And.....
apps.facebook.com/theguardian/uk/2012/jan/16/royal-yacht-backed-david-cameron

It's really going to happen, isn't it????

Please someone tell me I'm wrong, I beg you!

Seriously, the Liberal Democrats would not support this in a million years. It just can't happen through government.

I think you will find they are all after that knighthood!!! Mark my words!!!

I believe Ark Royal is available.

If anyone cares to look at the link I posted previously they will see that the boat in question, a square rigged sailing ship, is being built using private money and will be operated by a charitable company without any call on public funds. Despite attempts by some posters to suggest otherwise, neither Gove nor anyone else in government (or, indeed, anyone involved with the project) has proposed a single penny of public funding. The proposal from ex-Rear Admiral David Bawtree (one of the trustees) is that this boat, if the charity manages to raise the funds to build it, could be used as a Royal Yacht in addition to its primary use as a maritime education and adventure training and research ship.

So the real story is that a private consortium intends to build and operate a square rigged sailing ship using private money and would like to offer it for use as the new Royal Yacht, describing it as a gift from the nation. David Willetts (Minister for Universities and Science) says he thinks it is a good idea. Michael Gove also says he thinks it is a good idea but emphasises that no public money must be used.

So yes, it will happen if the private consortium can raise the money. But it won't cost us a single penny unlike, say, using Ark Royal or a decommissioned Dover ferry.

If anyone is interested in the facts rather than political posturing I suggest they take a look here.

prh
but as was covered on the Today Programme on Radio4 this morning
the ongoing security costs and repairs to keep it at the standard required for State visits WOULD fall on the taxpayer for years and years to come

I would be most interested to see what William thinks about this as he is a lot less stuck up than his father and eldest uncle about such things ....

The big question with security is what is the incremental cost, i.e. how much extra does it cost to worry about security for this boat. There is a tendency for the press to look at the total cost of security while there is a member of the Royal Family on the boat and ignore the fact that most of those costs would be incurred anyway. For example, the cost of security whilst they are on the boat would include their police escort, but that isn't an additional cost because the police escort would still be there regardless.

I used to have a friend who worked as a policeman in the DPG (Diplomatic Protection Group) and knew many of those who looked after security for the Royal Family. They were certainly of the view that it was cheaper and easier in security terms if they used the yacht or the Royal Train to get around rather than public transport as these were known, controlled environments. However, that was about 25 years ago. I've no idea if the same is true today.

I would be intrigued to know where the Today programme got the information about repairs because that conflicts with what the project sponsors say. They expect to cover the costs of all repairs out of revenue. They are clear that the objective is for the boat to be entirely self funding. Indeed, they are expecting a small annual surplus which will be used for bursaries.

I would certainly be interested to know the incremental cost to public funds (if any) if this boat is used as a Royal Yacht.

PRH
I don't think that the simple fact that the initial cost would be low (or none) to taxpayers makes this a good idea.

As head of the country, it would be most inappropriate for the Queen to accept a new yacht - even one that could find other uses - while her subjects suffer through a recession.

This is interesting - Gove is being investigated by the Information Commissioner.

Was the yacht a distraction technique?

I'm not saying it is a good idea for the Queen to accept this offer, just trying to get the facts straight. Even if it saves public money it may still be wrong to accept it, simply because people will assume that it is costing them money somehow.

FoI and Data Protection - one of my specialist subjects! The ICO investigation into various government departments (not just the DfE, although that is where they started) is a lot more nuanced than the article on Left Foot Forward would have you believe. It has been going on for 4 months and is not in any way news.

Civil Service rules are that government email accounts can only be used for government business. They cannot be used for party political matters. The dividing line between the two may not always be clear so there has been a tendency for ministers to use private email accounts for discussions with special advisers, for example. This happened under the last government as well. The Civil Service believed that emails in private accounts did not have to be disclosed in response to FoI requests. In December the ICO issued guidance saying that such information may need to be disclosed and that public authorities may need to ask individuals (primarily special advisers) to search their accounts for relevant emails. The ICO also suggests that official email accounts should be copied on such emails, contrary to previous Civil Service guidance. The requirement of the law and the ICO on deleting such emails from private email accounts is simply that they must not be deleted AFTER an FoI request has been made. It is perfectly legitimate for the emails to be deleted BEFORE any related FoI request has been received. It is not clear that the writer of the article understands this distinction. The ICO is currently investigating whether any emails were deleted after relevant FoI requests were received.

But to answer your question, I do not believe the yacht was a distraction technique. The information does not appear to have been leaked by the Conservatives and the investigation by the ICO is old news. Contrary to the impression given in the article in Left Foot Forward, yesterday's events don't add anything to the press release issued by the ICO on 15th December. The letter from the ICO simply confirms information given in that press release. Yacht or no yacht, I very much doubt this would have received any attention in the press.

Yes, I know that the source is less that - shall we say - unbiased.

Interesting subject though. I have never thought of it before, how communication is monitored.

The Queen is a figurehead, and as such her doings are always going to be scrutinised, which is why the yacht would be damaging to her, imo.

But a figurehead needs a boat - or is it the other way round?

Why doesn't the Queen buy a yacht for her Coronation and give it to the Nation? She does have the cash afterall and she is essentially recession-proof?

The whole idea is completely barking.

For a start - under EU competition rules invitations to tender for this new boat would have to be advertised EU wide.

So you could have German /Italian / Spanish etc etc shipyard winning the bid.

Imagine the Sun headline if non-British yard was to build new Royal Yacht.

It would need a crew. It would have to be an RN crew. The RNYs was disbanded so it would need to be reformed uner an Admiral as before.

Imagine the Sun headline - armed forces being made redundant but money can be found for Royal Yacht manning

There are only 13 major warships within the RN. This new Royal Yacht would need an escort (or two) in these days of terrorism - especially if they take it through Suez and into the Arabian Sea or Indian Ocean (piracy). So that reduces the maritime capability by at least one major vessel.

They'd probably try to say it could be a hospital ship - but HMRY Britannia always managed to dodge that role.

Plus the maintenance costs, plus the fuel costs.....

There is no way that this could be done without spending any public money.

Plus the Queen would probably have given up all foreign travel due to advancing years long before it was launched.

A new Royal Yacht for Charles and Camilla to enjoy - or Charles undeserving brothers - I don't think public opinion would bear that.

Gove is just a thick psychophant who opens his mouth and spouts crap - like most politicians.

If the Queen needs a boat, I'm sure we can find some way of separating the houses of parliament from the land and floating it down the Thames towards open water, she can have all the occupants as slave staff and fuck off for good.

One of the reasons you have to be wealthy to own a boat is it costs so much to maintain and run a boat annually. So the tax payers might not be purchasing said boat as mentioned upthread.

Who will be paying for the boats fuel, berthing, staff (presumably permanent), maintenance & upkeep? The Queen her very self? And the Queen is paid by .......?

Apparently the plan is to dedicate an existing plan for a floating tall ship university to the Queen.

So where will these students fuck off to when the Queen's on the ship?