Will the Tories Axe the RAF?

[anotherthing]

Jacko,

whilst your support for the RAF is laudable, it gets a bit tedious when you can't see the relevance of other services beyond the light blue.

I suppose that is to be expected when it comes from someone with no actual service experience...

The fact that you think the RAF has suffered the brunt of the cuts over the years is one thing - but when you disregard facts posted by other people it really does not help the cause of journalists anywhere.

But, in a typically journalistic way, I suppose facts get in the way of a good story, especially if they are at odds with your hobby horse subject...

[Jackonicko]

I don't say that the RAF has borne the brunt of cuts over the years, only that the Army and RAF have borne a heavier burden of those cuts in recent years, and that's simple fact.

As to ignoring facts, it is FACT that while carriers have been useful many times since 1970, they've been ESSENTIAL just once, in 1982.

[Navaleye]

As to ignoring facts, it is FACT that while carriers have been useful many times since 1970, they've been ESSENTIAL just once, in 1982.

You could say the same about most pieces of military kit. They are insurance policies afterall. The RAF hasn't shot down an enemy plane since WW2, but that doesn't mean we should get rid of them.

Folks here are talking about "balanced forces". The US defence budget is about 10 times ours. They can afford 10 carrier groups, we are talking about having one at sea at anytime. That is balance.

Its the social security budget that is the festering wound in the economy and is largely the cause of the chronic underfunding of the other spending ministries.

Do you have ANY idea just how thoroughly unpleasant and degrading it is trying to eke out an existence in one of the most expensive countries in the world on benefits?

No, I don't suppose that you do.

Do you have ANY idea just how difficult it is to even GET benefits as an immigrant to the UK?

No, I don't suppose that you do.

Funnily enough I do on both counts. If you arrive as an illegal immigrant into the borough of Camden, the first thing they do is give you £100 worth of Argos vouchers. It is still a ciminal offence to enter the country illegally. Where to they find the £10k to get here? It should be enforced and offenders deported. I have a tenant who has been on benefits for the two years that she has been with me and she seems to manage. Her friend has just another baby so she gets £1300 month rent paid by the council and child support. This takes place on a massive scale.

Navaleye

[airborne_artist]

As to ignoring facts, it is FACT that while carriers have been useful many times since 1970, they've been ESSENTIAL just once, in 1982.

How many times have we actually needed to use the following:

RAF's UK air defence assets
Army's main battle tanks - GWs 1 and 2, I know, but were they really needed/useful?
RN's SSBN - never, thank God

However, we have them all to hand to deter those who might deterring.

[Wader2]

Originally Posted by pr00ne

Your post about immigration and 1000 years has to be THE most ignorant and inaccurate post that I have EVER seen on pprune.

Perhaps he means that in the last 1000 years the current immigration has been a disaster?

It has been interesting watching on TV how thorough the UK Border Agency in checking people at the airports and tracking illegals being employed without permits.

Equally, we read in the press that the authorities investigate a very small percentage of visa applicants.

[Wader2]

Originally Posted by airborne_artist

How many times have we actually needed to use the following:

RAF's UK air defence assets
Army's main battle tanks - GWs 1 and 2, I know, but were they really needed/useful?
RN's SSBN - never, thank God

However, we have them all to hand to deter those who might deterring.

There are issues with deterrence and that is that it must be credible. Arguably it was credibile during the cold war if the threat from the USSR had itself been credible. As Navaleye said, deterrence is an insurance policy. However like insurance policies, you hope that you never need it and see money spent in the past as money wasted. When you do call on your policy you often find it is not quite what you thought it was.

Deterrence is a bluff. You cannot fight a sustained war with deterrence forces. Once deterrence has failed, or you embark on a war of choice, you need a specific capability and lots of it. We have been as war now since 1991 but not revised our insurance policy.

Do we maintain our insurance policy with aircraft carriers, aircraft and tanks and provide the resources to fight a war or go for the short-term option and go for deterrence lite (3 SSBN) and just resource the war?

[airborne_artist]

Deterrence is a bluff. You cannot fight a sustained war with deterrence forces.

Deterrence is only a bluff if you have insufficient resources to back up your words.

[Jabba_TG12]

Ignoring the perceived immigration situation will not make it go away and has, in no small part been responsible for the emergence of the BNP, to the point where they secured nearly a million votes. New Labour's knee-jerk denunciation of the far right, (rather than confronting their argument and destroying it) only pushes those voters who have a percieved axe to grind further into the arms of the far right. Not listening to the electorate, addressing their concerns and merely denouncing them as knuckle-dragging racist xenophobes is what has got the BNP to this point. All they have had to say is "we will listen to you". And it has worked. They are not far away from securing parliamentary seats at a general election. Heaven forbid what would happen if they had a leader who had natural political charisma.

Like it or not guys, yes we are a nation of immigrants and our tolerance and openness to other cultures is indeed a very positive thing and has contributed to our society immensely. But that doesnt mean we are in a Garden Of Eden.

The open door policy is not working. Why, if you are a true asylum seeker would you pick Britain, rather than another liberal democracy closer to where your journey started from? Anyone who says it isnt down to money I fear maybe deluding themselves. This policy and that of economic migrancy have to be addressed. Current central government has already made a pigs ear of the situation regarding economic migrants amongst the professions (vis, the ability for a company to send staff over from other countries rather than recruiting locally for particular skills, whilst at the same time cutting back on locally employed contract or permanent staff - Lloyds/HBOS being a singular case in point). It might seem an ugly fact, an unpopular one to confront, but because of the welfare state in the UK, there are not insignificant numbers who wish to join the queue. And, there is a network of organisations out there who will tell them which buttons to press and how to get what they want.

And its all of you lot who are paying for it. Thats before we come to talking about our own sink estates, who have a plentiful supply of equally willing volunteers who wish to make a career out of living off state handouts.

The elephant in the room is not necessarily immigration, but the welfare system, which in turn attracts the non-professional economic migrants in consistent numbers. A culture of entitlement has mushroomed over the last 30-40 years.

If you're worried at all about where all the money is going, and whether youre happy for your kids and their kids too, probably, to pick up the tab for it all, these are subjects that cannot be ignored. Maybe not in this forum, but certainly on a wider political level.

I'm currently an ex-pat in Europe, but still a UK resident, for now and still obviously pay taxes into the UK. As is the case with a significant number in this part of Europe, the ex-pats are professionals, filling specific vacancies, as was also the case in Dubai before the wheels started to fall off that particular wagon. A case of putting more in than you're taking out.

Sorry if it offends, but I dont see those who were cleared out of Calais yesterday as being of a similar ilk. The system is allowing itself to have the piss taken out of it and the political elite are just watching it happen.

Time for me to go and have my Millwall tattoos lasered off and to drop my John Bull Union Jack suit into the dry cleaners, perhaps.

[Wader2]

Originally Posted by airborne_artist

Deterrence is only a bluff if you have insufficient resources to back up your words.

To a point.

Our deterrence posture was never enough to win WW3. It was sufficient, or believed to be so, that it could wreak sufficient damage to an enemy such that it would stop them trying.

A case in point was during Confrontation. Against a huge land mass and modern aircraft we deployed just four medium bombers when any reasonable air power weapons effort would have required about 80 aircraft per target. The light bomber forces would have barely been able to get feet dry.

In the Falklands our deterrence posture, and policitcal will, fell below the critical threshold. The forces needed to return to the status quo ante bellum far exceeded the level required to deter.

In the Cold War there was no doubt that the Russians, had they wished, could have reached the channel ports, but at a cost that it would seem they deemed too high.

We have to decide policy, decide what, if anything we wish to deter, and then provide the resources to implement the policy. If we cannot afford to pay for these resources then we must change our policy.

Returning to our insurance analogy. World-wide travel insurance is less expensive if we exclude the USA. We probably won't go to the USA, so it would be a waste of money to include the USA. If we do go to the USA hopefully nothing will happen. Yer, right Tommy.

[Melchett01]

Your post about immigration and 1000 years has to be THE most ignorant and inaccurate post that I have EVER seen on pprune.

If there's a section of UK society we'd be better off without, it's the knuckle dragging racists, xenophobes and demi-fascists who object to immigration.

Do you have ANY idea just how thoroughly unpleasant and degrading it is trying to eke out an existence in one of the most expensive countries in the world on benefits?

No, I don't suppose that you do.

Do you have ANY idea just how difficult it is to even GET benefits as an immigrant to the UK?

No, I don't suppose that you do.

Not a part of another wise interesting thread that I was going to get involved in, but I do have one question regarding immigration and the comments that it has provoked:

Is it just me, or is anybody else becoming increasingly concerned that any mention of immigration as being a major issue, currently lacking in coherence with reality and yet which has such an impact on the country as a whole, is automatically branded an ignorant racist /xenophobe/knuckle-dragging BNP supporter?

Whatever your opinion on immigration, the fact that so many ordinary people on the streets perceive it to be an issue means that it is an issue which must be resolved. The ever increasing benefit culture and transformation of the UK into an open house for whoever is undoubteldy costing us a fortune each year. No doubt if we had a coherent policy on each of these issues other than paying benefits for years to the bone idle who have no intention of ever working or turning a blind-eye to the costs of illegal immigration, the UK in general and defence in particular might not be in such dire straits.

Ah well, I guess that even suggesting such a thing just makes me a knuckle-dragging xenophobic lout.

[Navaleye]

Getting back closer to the original thread topic. No one seriously thinks the RAF will get chopped, I think that's a given. On other topics, Liam Fox has just said this:

Mr Fox said it made no sense to cut spending on what he described as “big ticket items”, including Vanguard and the two aircraft carriers for which work has already started on the Tees. “It’s a false argument that we can save money by cutting the carriers because a lot of the expenditure has been committed to them. You would be spending as much money in penalties as you would save.”

[Jackonicko]

"I guess that even suggesting such a thing just makes me a knuckle-dragging xenophobic lout."

No, it doesn't.

Having concerns about immigration, the integration of certain communities, etc. does not brand one as being anything. Nor does questioning the present level of immigration, nor does questioning whether there should or should not be limits on immigration.

I'm often portrayed as some kind of bleeding heart liberal or Nu Labour apologist (though I'm a wet, One Nation Tory to my core, I'm afraid) and even I would question the open door now offered to immigrants from the EEC, while I have real doubts as to the wisdom of encouraging multi-culturalism as opposed to a multi-ethnic British identity. (I don't care about people's country of origin, in other words, only their intended country of destination. If that's our Britain, fine, but if they want that Britain to adapt to them - separate education for their kids, green flags over Downing Street, etc. not fine at all).

What brands someone as being a "knuckle dragging racist, xenophobe and demi-fascist" is to blame immigrants and immigration for all of the UK's present ills, to object to immigration across the board, on principal, and to repeat the BNP's lurid and exaggerated claims of its impact, and to do so using the kind of language that one poster here did.


There's a world of difference between Jabba and jordanpolonijo, in other words.

Crucially the real and growing problems of alienation and welfare dependancy may have some overlap with the issue of immigration, the two things should not be confused or equated.

The fact that a mass of ignorant, stupid and ill-educated people share the BNP's concerns means that the issue needs to be addressed - but that surely does not mean that their petty prejudices should be pandered to?

[jordanpolonijo]

Its getting rather frustrating the number of times I have to repeat the same point.

My opinions is (and im going to put it into BOLD TEXT for those that are visually challenged).

I BELIEVE THE PERCENTAGE OF THE BUDGET ALLOCATED TO SOCIAL SECURITY IS FAR TOO MUCH.

By looking at the annual budget do you really feel money is allocated correctly. Are the percentages correct and worthwhile. Does Social Security really deserve/need the highest proportion of Public Money?

That is the point I have been putting across from the off.

Yet I still do not feel the need to insinuate nor point fingers at other forum users and brandish them as x,y,z.

Perhaps I am too liberal.

Now relating back to the initial title of the thread. By rearranging the allocation of Public Investment between the sectors would it not be possible to spare money to "Save the RAF" if ever this hypothetical situation were to arise.

Oh and for the record the BNP would not have me. Im an immigrant. Cues in the surname.

[airborne_artist]

Could we keep this to aviation.

1. The clue is in the name - military aviation, so that's what we talk about

2. Jet Blast is the place for sensible discussion of such non-aviation matters

3. You are all shouting away, but no-one is listening

[althenick]

A desire to cancel the carriers has nothing to do with understanding the ‘maritime environment’. It has to do with understanding the economic environment, and the fact that tough choices need to be made. That some niche capabilities simply can’t be afforded. That while the Army and RAF have been slashed to the bone since the 80’s the Navy has not borne its fair share of the cuts, and now needs to do so, and that the least damaging thing to give up is carrier air.

Jacko, for a supposedly intelligent man you sometimes really do come over as quite naive. Supposing that even if the money hadn't already pretty much been spent, do you really think for one minute that the benefits would be passed to other requirements? If you really do think this then may I suggest that you look for a journo job that is more befitting to your take on reality- "Now" Magazine perhaps.

And expressing that desire is another matter. While I’ve heard plenty of senior Army and Navy officers banging on about how ‘wasteful’ and ‘Cold War’ Typhoon is, I’ve never heard a serving Air Rank bloke publicly criticize the carriers – observing the nicety that you don’t ‘crap’ on your fellow service’s spending priorities in public. Personally I wish they’d grow some testicles and speak out.

One Nation One Air force Jacko? Ok so the last CAS incumbent may not have grown B0llox but he sure spoke some.

So the RAF is more ‘officer heavy’ than the Navy, which is in turn more ‘officer heavy’ than the Army?

Actually Jacko me sensitive little flower, if you re-read my post then you'll see I was referring to all the services not just the RAF My word you do have a little bit of a persecution complex going on there don’t you?

How astonishing! The more technologically advanced a force is, the narrower its rank structure ‘pyramid’. What a blooming revelation.

Speaking as A former Killick Weapons Artificer with a degree in Electronics and Telecommunications Engineering, Please explain why a "technologically advanced force" requires so many officers? The ones I’ve had to deal with (with the exception of the engineers and medical types) in ALL THREE SERVICES have not been MENSA Material. Oh, and BTW I have also dealt with all three services as a Civil Serpent and believe me the RAF has nothing that is any more technologically advanced than the other 2 services.

Et Al - Once again I say to you that people matter. But if there are too many of them then that has to be addressed. Not that long ago I saw a pie chart of the defence budget ( I will try and locate it again) and by far the biggest slice was down to Personnel. It stands to reason that if that were cut then it would make far greater impact on savings than equipment.

[Wholigan]

This thread now has pretty much nothing to do with "axing the RAF" and is more about half a dozen people waging a private war and throwing stones at each other. Do it by PM or e-mail!