Melchett01,
I’ve been quiet because there’s nothing happening other than nonsensical pieces of defence reporting in the Torygraph, a rag that hardly has a good track record in recent defence stories.
MoD funding appears to be fine, it’s the fact that the MoD is so p*ss poor at managing projects and allocating funds that appears to be the problem.
The UK spends more on defence than any other nation on the planet other than the USA, forty eight billion dollars in 2005/6 so the fact that we have the 2nd largest defence budget on the planet, that the Chancellor allocated an additional 600 million to defence and 84 million to intelligence in the last pre-budget report leaves me with not much to say on defence funding.
HOW the MoD spends it’s money, now that is another matter.
If they do decide to reduce the readiness of 6 RN escorts for the rest of this financial year, so what? Iraq and Afghanistan is where the money should be spent.
Anyway, how is 6 escorts supposed to be “half the RN fleet?” Where do they get their figure of an RN fleet of 43 ships? In reality the fleet has 25 escorts, 2 carriers and 1 in reserve, a helicopter carrier, 2 Assault ships, 4 SSBNs, 9 SSNs, 8 MCMVs, 17 Patrol vessels, 6 Survey and hydrographic vessels and 18 RFAs?
I think the Torygraph needs s new maths correspondent let alone defence.