[QUOTE=pr00ne;11402637]
the here and now where there is a major land war raging in Europe -
which we are supporting the Ukrainians with. Indeed largest contributor by value behind the US
a wounded and distrustful (and very much in the wrong!) Russia is chucking nuclear threats about to all and sundry -
Which is why CASD is still being maintained, something the Labour party as a whole has issues with
and meanwhile the Tories are proceeding with their plans to reduce the Army by thousands -
See earlier. What are these thousands to do? Why is the British army still 20% bigger than the Bundeswehr and bigger than the Polish army after that reduction?
retire Typhoons and Hercules without replacement -
I won'r disagree combat air is too small. A400 will replace the C130 fully in a couple of years
, retire Frigates and Survey ships without replacement, - T
he replacements for the frigates are on contract and in build. Availability of DD/FF has actually increased over the last 2-3 years. You might ask why the last labour government refused to fund what became the T26 programme three times to my knowledge. The survey ships are a big bet on autonomy. MROSS will also cover some of it.
refusing to increase Artillery or Air Defence provision which is currently woeful -
acknowledged as such by SoS and prioritised, rather than refused.
, and expecting the Army to operate on the battlefield without IFV's, being the only major Army in the world to do such a thing -
That's more to do with the army's inability to sort its llfe out, surely?
. The Germans have announced a hundred billion increase in the defence budget - t
hey have. Over five years. But are struggling to actually secure and spend it.
What happened to the German military's €100 billion fund? – DW – 03/02/2023
France is increasing theirs by a third, Sweden, Norway and Finland doing something similar, the Australians ramping up rapidly and outnumbering the UK in things like P-8 and E-7 and F-35's. And we now have a paltry £11bn increase over 5 year, with £3bn of that being for nuclear infrastructure to benefit us in the 2040's and £2bn being replacement of stockpiles sent to Ukraine, so the remaining £6bn over 5 years will amount to an effective cut when inflation is taken into account. -
you're ignoring the £24Bn announced previously, of course......
And all you can do is twitter on about historical socialists! -
To coin a phrase "they (Abbot and Corbyn and their many fans in the party) haven't gone away you know" [/QUOTE]