baffman,
If you're referring to my comments, I said this....
"...What makes you think the tabloids will be interested?
If they do run anything, it will be for just one day - after that, the latest plot twist in Eastenders or Emmerdale, the Oscar awards, some political event, the 6 nations rugby, world/UK disaster, etc, will ensure that anything about the Nimrod becomes "chip wrappings" (apart from the fact that H&S rules don't allow you to wap fish and chips in newspaper any more)......"
A) Are the tabloids running it, or just the more up market papers? See
Tabloid - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia for a definition.
B) Will the story last for more than one day?
The story on Andy Gray will probably last longer and get more attention!!
As for all the people asking "why the rush", well, the answer has been provided on "another thread" as you call it.
Once again, I suspect IT IS ALL ABOUT MONEY!!!
First of all I expect the money for disposing of the aircraft is only allocated in the 2010/11 budget (probably some of the money that was going to be used to bring it into service). Hence it has to be spent this year, and the aircraft have to be disposed of before 31 March 2011. Disposal will consist of more than just chopping the aircraft up and does take some time, hence starting now.
As to the "...lets just keep them in storage..." arguement. Well, a little known fact is that when he was chancellor that nice Mr Brown introduced a scheme where MOD (I think it was all government departments) have to pay to the treasury to store its own equipment - think of it as a tax on storage. No doubt this was a nice way for Mr Brown to claw some money back, and was designed to reduce "waste" in departments by storing stuff they no longer need. I believe the "tax" was a certain percentage of the value of the stored item - no doubt a supplier can help me out.
So what was the rate of tax (I seem to remember 6% was mentioned) and what is the value of 9 MRA4s?
If one figure is 6% and the other is £3.5Bn (hopefully common sense would produce a lower figure - but with bean counters who knows?), that means paying £210 million a year to the Treasury, let alone the actual costs, to store the aircraft......EVERY YEAR!
If anyone wants to offer meaningfull, informed discussion on these points, as opposed to emotional outpourings, feel free. I will almost certainly learn something.
FOR WHAT IT IS WORTH......
My personal view is that not introducing the MRA4 (or some suitable long range MPA) into Uk military service is a
big mistake....
But, the MRA4 is being scrapped. Accept it, because it isn't going to change!