KenV are you having a laugh about the unions? They're gone mate-outlawed and de-fanged by Thatch. Membership is a shadow of what it was.
Ummmm, no. I'm responding to the OP which states "
Furious unions say flagship Navy carriers...will be left to rot....." That does not sound "outlawed" nor "defanged" to me. Further to the point, I thought this was about Scottish unions. Can the UK prime minister really outlaw/defang unions in Scotland? I really don't know.
And finally, my point was that it is easy for a strategic
defense industry to morph into a jobs program. Even though unions tend to have much less political clout here in the US than in the UK, this remains a problem here in the US. This suggests it is also a problem in the UK and suggests
why there is a lot of political pressure to NOT have protected defense industries.