Hi Bob
Very simple, subsidies, legal, illegal or ignored. One rule for one, one rule for another.
I dont think I ever said Polish yards were particularly efficient but they could turn out a box boat or a car carrier as quickly as anyone else, and also specialist chemical tankers with stainless steel tanks and fittings with very few worldwide builders. The subsidies the yards received kept thousands in work. These people are presumably no longer in work, either in Poland - or anywhere else in Europe where they have become economic migrants in search of work. So the government either pays subsidies to keep them in work and produce someting worthwhile, or they sit on their backsides with no work and the government still has to pay out, but nothing is produced. Logic ? I think not.
So the turnround terminal built with subsidies (not yet paid back) may reduce by a small amount the unemployment in Scouseland, but if it grows, as is the intention, then Southampton may well lose out and jobs will be lost from terminals not built with the aid of subsidies - so where is the fairness in that ?
Allan