An embarrassing situation has arisen which has left no one able to be certain what the current position is with the eight coastguard stations condemned to close in a cost cutting exercise by the UK government, enacted by the Maritime and Coastguard Agency (MCA).
Clyde, Forth, Brixham, Liverpool, Yarmouth, Swansea, Portland and Thames were down to be closed, several subject to well informed objections related to public safety and operational efficiency.
Then, earlier in July, Prime Minster David Cameron wrote to a constituent who is also an objector on the issue, offering the following reassurance: ‘…those (Coastguard) centres that are planned for closure will remain open until 2015′.
There was noting remotely equivocal about this statement from the leader of the nation.
The threatened stations will still close but have two years longer than they have been told – in which some can try to gain some positive leverage on a daft decision.
This was particularly welcome news at the major Clyde station – whose closure defies logic.
Then, with no further statement from the Prime Minister – before or since – his statement was publicly and flatly contradicted by the MCA, who issued the following statement: ‘We can clarify the situation re the closure of Coastguard stations. The closure will go ahead as planned’.
As the confused National Coastguard SOS Campaign were quick to point out: ‘… why the MCA feel the need to contradict and “clarify the situation” is anyone’s guess. The letter from the Prime Minister has been disseminated to all media and is in the public domain. In it the words that the Prime Minister used are clear and the letter bears his signature at the bottom of the page’.
This contradiction raises two clear and telling questions:
Where does the primary authority lie? In other words whose word goes?
If the Prime Minster was sufficiently incompetent to get a matter as serious as this wrong, it is perhaps no wonder that he is singing dumb. But that makes him look weak as well – and out of control, with a subsidiary agency openly contradicting him like a third form schoolboy who hadn’t got his facts straight in an essay.
The MCA also felt the need – and the latitude - to make it known that the Prime Minister had now written to the campaigner to ‘clarify the situation’.
If the MCA has stepped out of line in publicly nay-saying the Prime Minister, why has he not sharply reined them in?
With good reason – the most logical position has come from the National Coastguard SOS Campaign, who say: ‘This is not only a farce, but it is a national disgrace.
‘The Prime Minister, Shipping Minister and MCA are the people who are responsible for the ill fated plan to close rescue coordination centres yet clearly between them they do not posses the required skills to ensure that they do not appear dysfunctional let alone to present a closure plan which is anywhere near safe and credible.
‘The statement by the MCA which condones the closure of Coastguard stations at BRIXHAM, FORTH, LIVERPOOL, YARMOUTH, SWANSEA, PORTLAND, CLYDE & THAMES should be disregarded until the Prime Minister himself either confirms or denies that station closures will take place any earlier than 2015 as he stated.’
There is still silence on the matter from the Prime Minister who must get this mess straightened out.
Stuart McMillan, SNP MSP for the West of Scotland, furious at the situation, says: ‘Campaigners looking to save Clyde Coastguard station in Greenock had hoped that this intervention from David Cameron had signalled a temporary reprieve. That delay would have given Scotland the opportunity to take on responsibility for the coastguard following a yes vote in the referendum in 2014.’
Mr McMillan, underlining the gravity of this, says: ‘For David Cameron to send out a letter offering hope to everyone at Clyde Coastguard station, only for his statement to be quickly overridden, is a gross insult to Coastguard staff.
‘It is rubbing salt into the wounds of staff that are facing the loss of their jobs. David Cameron should come to Clyde Coastguard Station and personally apologise for misleading the dedicated staff there.
‘For the Prime Minister to sign a letter giving false hope to people about to lose their jobs thanks to his Government’s cuts suggests he is blithely unaware of what his own Government is doing.
‘These are real people’s jobs on the line and they will rightly be furious at what the Prime Minister has done.
‘Moving responsibility for the Clyde’s 2,500 miles of coastline to Coastguard sites over 100 miles away is dangerously short-sighted.
‘Perhaps if Mr Cameron does the decent thing and comes to apologise in person, he will see first-hand the folly of what his Government is planning.’
Indeed. Who will not echo that?