Would be nice if Mr Ainsworth or Mr Broone came to Cottesmore and Kinloss to have a bit of an open forum to at least face the people they are affecting.
It seems that recent media stories has the CGS and 1st Sea Lord posturing to fight their corner from cutbacks, maybe they should unite and provide a united front against the forcast 15-20% reductions. For years sucessive governments have been putting off and mismanaging procurement of our clapped out AT,SH and MPA forces so that now they are all on their knees at the same time and will cost cash that they starved from the MOD. Mr Prudence and no more boom and bust has taken this starvation to new levels. As the health, education and welfare budgets (the vote winning ones apparently) drain the country's resources he is going to further reduce the defence budget if he remains in power. No doubt the conservatives will do the same but then blame NuLabour for it (just as Labour do, with the pre 1997bunch that we keep hearing the PM refer to when he doesnt answer his questions in PMQ's and refers to figures that are manipulated). But then some military seniors do that also e.g. A 50% increase in annual spending per Nimrod became <0.1% if you didn't round it up the the nearest £m and went for the opposite end of the spectrum and took it at it's worst possible case. So we are where we are and who knows what the post SDR RAF will look like, but at the very least Mr Ainsworth or Broone, show some backbone and come to the stations and have an open forum ideally before your kicked out of office. Years of underinvestment have come home to roost, so wherever your are folks good luck and hang on for a bumpy ride ahead.
ps, fast jet types a question, what has been arranged to assist you should you have to bang out at long range (outside helo coverage) from the UK coastline and in what timescale post 31 Mar? Might be worth getting a brief from the ARCC to find out what the options are.
