Wednesday 15 December 2010

HMS Albion

Britain's new flagship is HMS Albion; an LPD.

You read it right.  It's an LPD.  There's no excuse for this.  We could have a Navy five times its current size including four nuclear carrier groups (I said groups) without breaking a sweat if Britain had a government that understood what its job is.  As it is, we have politicians instead of statesmen–and spineless ones at that.

An LPD!  I need to open a window.

Update:  Meanwhile the RAF may only have six fighter squadrons by the end of the decade.

Update:  And 93 magistrates' courts and 49 county courts are to be closed.  So when are those "green" energy subsidies going to be abolished?  Never? 

Meanwhile: "Cash-strapped local councils have pledged to identify the workers who are most useful and then sack them."  I'm not sure this is parody.  No wonder there are more Thacherites now than when Lady Thatcher was in power.

When the Coalition came in I lapsed into a brief fantasy that the so-called "Conservatives" might spend their time reversing the decades of idiotic decisions that brought us to this crossroads.  It looks more like they want to be a more efficient version of Labour.

Update:  And the hits keep on coming.  Cameron is going to do to the RN what the Kriegsmarine couldn't manage in six years of war.

5 comments:

eon said...

More efficient at what? Societal suicide?

Oh, wait......

cheers (but not really)

eon

jabrwok said...

How does one get "LPD" out of "Assault Ship"? I can't find the words that the acronym actually represents online.

jabrwok said...

Ah, "Landing Platform Dock".

http://www.naval-technology.com/projects/lpd/

Weird. And this is a *flagship*?

eon said...

Jason;

It's a larger version of the old "Fearless" class, which was a much larger version of a World War Two LST, or "Landing Ship, Tank".

A friend of mine's father commanded an LST in the Pacific campaign. According to him, they always suspected that "LST" really stood for "Large, Slow Target".

cheers

eon

Ironmistress said...

Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask how you can get most of it with least expenses.