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| For the scrap yard before she's even built. |
The jewel in the crown of this shopping list of madness? Deep cuts to the Royal Navy that will reduce fighting strength to 19 surface warships, building an aircraft carrier that will never fly jets and will almost certainly be sold off before it sees active service, and a second carrier that won't have any British jets until 2020 and won't be fully operational until 2036. Marvelous defence strategy there: Ask our enemies to hold off attacking us for 26 years and after that, be a dear and try not to start a war while our only strike carrier is in for a refit. Thanks, awfully. Not that it matters because without Harriers (they're for the immediate chop) we don't have any carrier capacity now anyway.
That's only the tip of the iceberg with the only shred of good news is that the MOD losing 25,000 civilian staff. Mind you, given that the MOD has more civilians than soldiers, this is a very, very tiny shred.
Meanwhile, the massive, useless bureaucracy at the NHS and the handouts to foreign dictators remains sacrosanct. And as for the idea of dumping all those damn
I've said it before and it's worth repeating, I realise that an austerity programme is necessary these days, but the purpose of government is first and foremost defence of the realm. Everything else is secondary and expendable. If it was up to me, every MP would be followed around by a monkey who would bash him with a club every time he forgets this.
By the bye, That sensation you're now feeling is what it's like to be stark naked in the face of a cold eastern wind.
Update: They've gone barking mad.
5 comments:
But aren't the Nimrod aircraft terrible, ancient pieces of kit which cost more to refurbish than to just buy some off-the-shelf solution?
I mean, axing the programme entirely is a bad thing, but really they should have started by buying a cheaper, more modern airframe from somewhere like the US.
Oh yes, and you'll like this: What Would You Cut? An interactive budget cuts simulator!
(I know it's the Guardian and will as such burn like holy water but give it a go)
If they were saying "Let's buy American because we get better hardware cheaper from our closest ally", I'd be the first to applaud. Unfortunately, their attitude is what it's been in virtually every government since Suez: cancel the programme entirely and pretend that we don't need the capability.
I said it and I'll keep on saying it, instead of cutting Defence 10 percent, the government should increase it 300 percent.
A good day for having a stiff shot of whisky . . .
The only, possible, bright spot is that the RN does still have the carriers. With the hulls in exsistence it's possible that a full air group could be added at a later date.
Though, something David pointed out a while back though, a carrier needs to operate with an escort group. With the Royal Navy fielding just nineteen frigates and destroyers . . .
Perhaps another stiff one is in order . . .
In "Parkinson's Law", C. Northcote Parkinson said that eventually, the Royal Navy would have more shoreside "adminstrators" than it did actual sailors. He also predicted that eventually the RN would have no more than two or three ships, none of them actual combatants, with more admirals than able seamen.
The Royal Navy seem to be getting ever closer to Parkinson's prediction. Perhaps the answer would be copies of Sir Francis Drake's "Golden Hind" armed with modern anti-ship missiles. After all, wooden ships driven by the wind (probably) wouldn't offend the Greenies, and they are devilishly hard to pick up on millimetric-wave radar.
(I'm not sure if that is sarcasm or not.)
cheers (sort of)
eon
Perhaps the British government doesn't think it really needs a Royal Navy. Perhaps they believe that in a pinch, they can always rely on the USN to help out. And with such solid Anglophiles in the White House......Oh Frak!
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