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Reports that the Department of Transport is kick-starting a ports privatisation programme should be welcomed. There are currently over 50 Trust Ports, all steeped in history. Most are subject to legal complexity: a similar situation applied to the many former Statutory Water Companies prior to water privatisation in 1989.

Dover, a leading Trust Port, is effectively up for sale, with a tentative £300 million price tag. Obvious bidders include the French ports sector - given the heavy freight volumes between Dover and Calais - and other UK ports companies. In fact, apart from the publicly-quoted Forth Ports, which – though Scottish-based – owns Tilbury, most major ports are owned by private equity, whose shareholders place a high premium on their solid earnings. Indeed, the UK’s leading privatised ports group, ABP, was bought out by private equity in 2006 for an impressive £2.8 billion, partly due to its property assets.

At Dover, a local consortium is to the fore; whether it can prevail against the larger funds wielded by both French ports groups and private equity is doubtful. Other Trust Ports may be up for sale, including Blyth, Harwich, Milford Haven, Poole, Shoreham and Tyne. More generally, it is encouraging that the Coalition is pursing privatisation, both through the sale of High Speed 1 and by launching into the complexity of Trust Ports – experienced lawyers in this arcane area should expect heavy bonuses.

In the ASI’s recent publication, The Party is Over, it was estimated that £16 billion could be raised from privatisation sales – prior to any disposals of the Government’s bank shareholdings. The £1 billion earmarked from the sale of Trust Ports may need upgrading.

Given that the venerable Dame Vera Lynn of ‘the white cliffs of Dover fame’ has already set out her views about the planned Dover sale, is the process now underway?

The spot-fixing scandal that hit cricket over the weekend, when the News of the World revealed that two Pakistani bowlers had, seemingly, bowled no-balls at pre-arranged moments in return for money, is a great shame for Pakistan. If ever there was a country in need of some good news, this it it. Yet now they face being banned from international competition in their national sport.

It is also a tragedy for cricket. Mohammad Amir, the 18-year old fast bowler responsible for two of the dodgy no-balls, is inarguably one of the most exciting prospects in the game and – until Sunday’s revalations – had a brilliant career ahead of him. But if the allegations in the News of the World prove to be true, he may be banned for life. With the sport so worryingly devoid of fast-bowling talent, this is depressing beyond belief.

But one thing this scandal isn’t is an excuse for greater government intervention in gambling in the UK. Monday’s Times suggested that sporting authorities are already lobbying for a crack-down on gambling, citing French moves to regulate online gambling and tax sports wagers (effectively outlawing betting exchanges like Betfair in the process) as an example worth following. The Times also notes that ‘unregulated gambling’ in India is behind much of the corruption in cricket, implying that government action is the solution to cricket’s woes.

But this paints a very misleading picture. As former England captain Michael Atherton points out in the same paper:

The only only bookmakers who offer markets on elements of the game open to so-called micromanipulation are those in India where bookmaking is illegal and designed to avoid tax and service the black market. Ladbrokes wouldn’t give you a price on Mohammad Amir bowling a no-ball in the third over. [Empahsis added]

And this is the crucial point. Gambling in India is only ‘unregulated’ because it is prohibited (with the exception of 13 casinos, horse-racing, and state lotteries). But prohibiton doesn’t mean that the prohibited activity doesn’t take place, it just means that organized crime takes over. Corruption like that alleged in Pakistani cricket is the inevitable, inescapable result. Taxing sports wagers in the UK is a wholly irrelevant red herring.

BBC: Scrap civil legal aid, says Adam Smith Institute
Politics.co.uk: No win, no fee - no legal aid?
Press Association: Civil legal aid 'should be cut'
Spectator: Tipping the scales against legal aid

Download a copy of the briefing paper (PDF) here.

Apologies for the unpleasant comments which appeared below on the article 'Catholic Care forced to close'. They should have been removed automatically yesterday when the commenter – Doris – was blacklisted. For some reason this didn't happen and, as a result, the comments stayed up long than they should have. They have now been removed manually. I suspect that our readers are, in general, not easily offended, so I doubt anyone was unduly peturbed by Doris's bigotry. Nevertheless, if you do spot these sorts of comments in future, please use the 'Flag' function in the comment section to draw them to our attention.

The US forces are now equipped with a wide and increasingly versatile portfolio of long-range and local “unmanned aerial vehicles” (UAVs). The long-range versions are controlled from Creech airforce base near Las Vegas. The best known is the Predator which can carry one Hellfire missile. It is being replaced by the MQ-9 Reaper which can carry 14 Hellfire missiles.

The RQ-4A Global Hawk travels at around 400 mph a day and a half at 65,000 feet. Its radar, infrared and optical sensors an scan a decent sized country in a day.

The planned stealth UCAS-D will be able to carry a missile payload up to 2,000 pounds, plus an extra 2,500 pounds externally when stealth is not required.

Moving now to local UAV systems, the CQ-10 Snow Goose uses a textile, parafoil-wing for urgent supplies to Special Forces operating in unfriendly territory. It can be launched from the ground. The Battle hog 150 is a vertical takeoff UAV for ground support. Flying at over 300 mph with a payload of 500 pounds, armaments will include Hellfire missiles, rocket pods and 7.62mm guns.

The list goes on but the issue for the forthcoming defence review is that the military use of air space is going through a revolution akin to the arrival of the tank a century ago. We should not be discussing how many Euro-fighters we need but whether we need them at all.

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