we've got a fleet of nice C17's with not much to do in the UK
Ha, ha, ha! What do you think they will be doing? In case you hadn't noticed we will still retain a footprint in Afghanistan. We have jets and ships deployed to the Middle East and Cyprus. We have personnel in Sierra Leone, Mali, South Sudan and Somalia. We are one of the first to respond to international humanitarian disaster relief. And then we will have lots of troops wanting to head back out on training exercises in BATUK and BATUS. And a bit of routine support to the FI!
some nice shiny Airbus A330's [sic]
That will provide AAR support to UK and International ops and training (had you missed that the Russians have caused 2 QRA scrambles in the last week?). Voyager is/was primarily a tanker
Which are already being deployed in support of ops in the ME, are based in FI and will continue to support routine and emergency movement of kit and personnel.
I can see either selling C17s / Atlas (i found it) as we have little use for all of them
How naive. Anyone who thinks there will be a post Herrick "peace dividend" hasn't been following real world events recently!
I got this from one of the Defence commentators this week:
Suggestions in recent weeks that HM Treasury is pressurising for a further 7.7% cut in defence spending over the five year period 2016-2021 would, if correct, be at complete odds with clear need to increase spending on defence and the unambiguous promise from the Prime Minister, David Cameron, made at the time SDSR 2010 defence cuts were announced, that real time spending on defence would rise by 1% annually through the following 2016 -2021 period.
On current expectations from a total 2015 UK public spending budget of £731bn spending on defence will total £45.6bn. Contrast this with spending by other government departments - £150bn on pensions, £133bn on healthcare, £90bn on education £90bn, £110bn on welfare and you will see that defence now comes way down the list. Put another way would be to say that while health, pensions, welfare and education mop up a total 65% of all public expenditure the 35% of rest that includes Defence, Justice, Transport, Trade and Industry, Administration, Culture, Environment, Housing, Environment, Overseas Aid together with the £8.6bn net contribution (£17.1bn gross – exclusive of the requested extra £1.7bn) that we pay to the EU together plus also, an anticipated £52bn interest cost of servicing the national debt.
To think that we spend less on defence today than on servicing the national debt is frightening enough but when we look at how spending on health has spiralled out of control (this has all but doubled since 1997) makes a very bad situation look very much worse........
For the Royal Air Force which has so often been the first port of call by the Government to provide conflict capability we must also address the seriousness of shortages faced in terms of fast jet squadrons. Last month 2 Squadron with its fantastic Tornado GR4 capability was given another extra year of life but the reality is that we cannot do without one less Tornado until at least 2019. I have already written on this previously but the reality is that, as was the promise held out when the then Chief of the Air Staff reluctantly signed up to the SDSR 2010 cuts that the plan was down to seven fast jet squadrons ahead of building up to nine. Will the Royal Air Force get the planned number of 48 F-35 Lightning Joint Strike Fighter ‘B’ variants? I certainly hope that it will. What I do not want to see is one step forward two steps back. The Royal Air Force will eventually have the finest aircraft capability in Typhoon and JSF and nothing must be done that shifts away from what the Future Force 2020 intended.
PS Only 2 'n's in Coningsby.