Apologies for repeating myself here, but I have just posted this on another thread (how about we self-regulate the unecessary proliferation of Nimrod/MPA/LRMP threads ?????
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It's not MPA, it's LRMP (as in long range maritime patrol). As in Focke Wolf Condor, Catalina PBY, Sunderland, Shackleton, Argus.......etc etc.
This is not a pedantic point, it is essential. It is the reach, speed, endurance, flexibility, payload and sensor/communications fit that gives the LRMP its totally unique and irreplaceable capability.
Outwith the fertile imagination of the wannabee military geek, this is not a job for airships, unmanned vehicles or any other such non-existent, yet-to-be-invented fantasy. Outwith the agenda of bean-counters, opportunists and contending military vested interests, this is not a job for helicopters, ships or transport aircraft.
Of course we need one and of course we need a public enquiry to find out exactly how we have ended up without one.
I don't know if we will get a public enquiry (I doubt it) but I do know that the aircraft has already gone, and the LRMP capability infrastructure that has been developed since the 1930's will be gone over the course of the next 1-2 years. By the time the politicians that have nailed their colours to the mast over the demise of the LRMP have gone from power, our LRMP capibility will have long since become nothing more than a footnote in history and it will never come back.
Perhaps it is now time to move on?
Moreover, leave out the political blame game. Fox, Brown, Blair whoever - no difference. All you get out of any politician's mouth these days is spin, spin and more spin. The Telegraph article is infantile, fatuous and glib. What else would you expect?
More fool us for voting for any of them.