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Julian Bagginni: the ignorant philosopher

Or at least the tosh talking one.

This is a lesson with far wider significance. Our present economic woes are in no small part down to the fact that economies grew not on the basis of such real exchanges, but on the movement of numbers on a screen. And that’s also why foreign ownership isn’t really the central issue. Whether French or British, the privatisation would put the docks not so much into the wrong hands, as out of human hands altogether. Instead of having custodians, the docks would simply become data in a spreadsheet, squeezed for every last drop of profit, with no thought to their social or historic importance.

Err, yes. The docks are a business. Should be treated like one too.

It’s a bitter irony that, just as the National Trust is successfully raising funds to buy a section of the White Cliffs of Dover for the benefit of the nation, the Government could be about to sanction the sale of another stretch right next to it. Dover Harbour Board, a non-profit independent statutory body which has run the docks since 1606, wants to privatise the docks, along with a section of the cliffs that form part of their backdrop.

And that\’s the sort of emotionalism, mixing the iconic white cliffs with the port, that philosophy is rather supposed to abjure, isn\’t it?

4 thoughts on “Julian Bagginni: the ignorant philosopher”

  1. Having enjoyed the port facilities. (Four times in a week at one point. Marginally better experience than root canal dentistry) and spent considerable time wandering the cliff tops above, it’s really hard to work out what the problem is.
    The port, itself, couldn’t be ‘ruined’ even if its new owners set out with that intention. It’s a purely nasty place to pass through. Done only due to lack of alternatives save the tunnel. Taking responsibility for the very short, concrete patched & steel netted stretch of cliff behind can only be a plus point.
    If you’ve walked the cliffs from Dover Town to St Margaret’s it’s blindingly obvious their white magnificence are a very temporary feature on a geological time scale. Bits are constantly falling off. Mostly small, leaving patches of milky tinted sea below. One area the size of a football pitch is already several feet adrift with cracks going to murky depths. So the port owners get the responsibility to ensure a couple million tons of chalk don’t join the queues in the booking hall. What’s wrong with that?

  2. I am just wondering if anyone could point out what wonders the “custodians” of the docks have performed? The abysmal sanitary facilities and a very few but nasty food/shopping outlets do not count for me as wonders of the modern world.

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