Telling It Like It Is

Telling It Like It Is Just blame Russia for two decades of failure

By David Hollister

THE ferry’s off. Being dragged down the coast to wherever ferries go to get their annual service or fresh coat of paint.

It’s been closed to the public since December 1. The photo I have seen of it passing the Haven Hotel webcam suggests it didn’t leave Purbeck until November 11.

Unfortunately during the tow from Poole to Falmouth the ferry suffered severe damage to the southern end prow. The exact cause is currently under investigation and findings will be released when available.

The additional work to repair this damage will significantly delay the ferry’s return to service which now will not be until the New Year. The ferry firm will update their webpage and social media as soon as they have more information.

This news isn’t good for the town. It also affects small businesses including B&Bs, hotels, restaurants and pubs. It is devastating news. It’s also pretty poor for all those who depend on it to get to work. Or want or need to get to hospital.

With no service on the Sandbanks ferry due to the planned refit and the B3351 Studland to Corfe Castle road being closed at the same time, the prophets of doom were predicting massive delays on the main roads. Wessex Water planned this to cause minimal disruption. Right.

Well, it happened, didn’t it! A manhole just outside Corfe needed urgent repair by Openreach so they put traffic lights up and virtually brought Purbeck to a standstill for a weekend. Wouldn’t be so bad if someone appeared to be working behind the lights but, as usual, no one was visible doing anything.

What’s the definition of ‘urgent’? Fixing this manhole cover on the main road out of Corfe should have been a PRIORITY ... and not just left with temporary traffic lights causing massive traffic jams all over a weekend.

So now – when the Upton bypass is virtually the only way out of Purbeck – they’re resurfacing it. Miles of cones. Miles of stationary traffic. I had to collect something from a client in Poole last week and ended up giving up and going home because I just couldn’t work out which ‘rat run’ to use.

Everything was solid. There seems to be nobody planning any of it. In the game of Highway Top Trumps, does Openreach score more points than SGN, does SGN score more points than Wessex Water, does Wessex Water score more points than the county council?

What’s the point of asking the council for roads to be closed when apparently the utilities can close them as and when they please?

What we need is an identifiable sign on every road excavation explaining to us who’s doing it and why, and a hotline number. Not difficult.

Have you noticed it is almost impossible getting through to a person on the phone any more? Either a succession of buttons to push, or advice to ‘do it online’, which is another method used by firms and authorities to conceal the fact they are totally understaffed and the morale of those remaining is so low after being constantly abused that actually they couldn’t care less about your problem.

‘One man and his dog’ doesn’t work. Especially when the man is taking the dog for a walk. But nobody is accountable to anyone these days. The police are too busy looking over their shoulders to make sure they don’t say or do anything that might get them sued. Everyone seems to ‘know their rights’, even if they’re wrong. And now we have ministers being accused of bullying! For ‘bullying’ read ‘told how to do the job for which they are being paid’.

Are civil servants really that thin-skinned? “Oh dear! My boss told me off!” Do police really have to be trained in gender equality rather than in catching criminals? In the game of judicial ‘top trumps’, racism or verbal racial abuse seems to trump robbery or violence. This is where 50 years of mollycoddling and lack of parental discipline has left us. Remember ‘back in the day’ where a child was screaming in a supermarket, or running riot around a restaurant? Those kids are parents themselves now.

Just occasionally, we win. The ambulance car appears to have had a reprieve. The toilets at Burlington Chine seem safe for a while. The cremators at Poole Crematorium are allegedly going to be reopened, although I can’t for the life of me understand why it’s going to take eighteen months.

Congratulations to Swanage council for declaring the town’s car parks will be free up to Christmas. And the shopping in Purbeck is better anyway! I wonder if the county council will do the same?

I’m writing this over the weekend prior to the Chancellor’s big ‘budget announcement’ which has been trailed (leaked?) as bringing us ‘bad news’.

Let’s all blame the Russians. Despite the fact a lot of what’s wrong with the country has been going wrong since long before Ukraine.

So by the time you read this, you’ll know exactly why it’s the Russians’ fault – or Covid’s fault – that the country has ground to a halt, why there’s no money for roadworks, street cleaning, road sign painting, and the little things we used to take for granted like paying the ‘little people’ properly – nurses, street cleaners and people whose jobs really are essential.

But residents in the Dorset Council area are expected to continue forking out for one of the highest council tax rates in the country – until the government offers a better financial settlement.

“It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.” – Acts 9:5. And Gary, you know exactly how hard it is!

Taken for granted is what we are because the government knows full well the good people of Dorset will not rise up in protest, and neither will we even consider changing our political persuasion.

Is there nothing we can do to show the ‘big people’ – the local authorities, the banks, the utilities, and all the others who have used electronic means to keep us at bay – we are actually not very happy with the state in which more than ten years of Tory rule, preceded by ten years of Labour rule, have left us?

Glad I’m not young any more.