Weeks of public sniggering and indignation culminated Saturday when the British government cancelled a ferry contract it had awarded to a firm with no ships. The island nation’s breakup with the European Union took an odd turn in December when it handed the unheralded Seaborne Freight company the £13.8-million ($17.9 million, 15.6-million-euro) deal. The Seaborne Freight contract was the smallest of three emergency ferry deals transport secretary Chris Grayling quietly approved over the Christmas break. But it quickly became the most famous — or perhaps infamous — when reporters discovered that Seaborne Freight was a startup that had never actually been involved in this line of work. “Seaborne Freight.

Source: Punch February 09, 2019 12:33 UTC