Budget
 

Everything will be rosy now, Mr Brown has allocated massive new budget to Defence!

See

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4354159.stm

Fantastic news. Nice to see some well earned money coming our way.

Pubsman

It's been updated now - they've inserted the m after the £400 - as if that amount would make a difference anyway?

Had to read this twice :\

He announced £65m to be spent in the coming year on employer training pilots

"Duty up 1p on a pint of beer and 4p on a bottle of wine, but frozen on cider, sparkling wine and spirits."

Bizarre, or what? So it's a good budget for alcoholic tramps, champagne and spirits drinkers, and a bad one for beer drinkers and ordinary folk who drink the odd bottle of wine.

Did he really not increase duty further on cancer sticks?

But, Jacko, the cider duty freeze has to be good, doaan't it?

(See location below. Drunk in charge of combine harvester officer, I doaan't know wha' e' means).

7p on a packet of 20.

Not enough IMO, but there ya go.

(Ducks back below parapet ;) )

So what can we spend to £400m on?

How about another 9 Merlin?

How about an update to the T42/Bag/Lynx so they all know where the others are, and how much fuel it will take to be re-united?

'Coming our way' for what TotalWar?

To fill a gaping budget deficit left by buying :mad: kit?

Are you sure you're not BuffHoon?

quote:
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So what can we spend to £400m on?
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9 Merlins??!!

Wish we could buy 9 Merlins for for £400 mil, would be lucky to get 3 for that!

Still wouldn't have any spares though.......

What a fab idea...throw the lot at the DLO and ask for some Merlin support please...then they can all get back flying again.....

smilingknifed.... ref your coment about :mad: kit.

If the kit you are operating with isn't adequate why not do something about it. Staff a paper, write a requirement, tell people the kit doesn't do what it says on the tin. At the end of the day poor kit is not a problem of the manufacturer. The kit was a requirement of the Forces, it was ordered by the forces and it was accepted into service by the forces. No one to blame but the forces.

So no governmental pressure to accept kit (badly) made in the UK?

Bowman, SA-80 (sic), Nimrod AEW. Ringing any bells? Admittedly not all occured under the current government, but nor did the previous government have such a compulsion to be a wrold policemen.

£400m - how about 1 and a half E-3s??!

Your dear chaps please read the statement before you spend the money.

'a further £340 million for the special reserve in 2004-05 and £400 million in 2005-06 for military operations in Iraq and the UK’s other international obligations.'

So there is no more money for kit.

:hmm:

totalwar/hyd3Failure/CNS/Buffoon or whoever you are masquerading as today, I have to tell you that once again you are talking sh1te.

God preserve us from this ferkin' idiot and his Labour pals!

TW@

400m is only 10% of the current overspend, due to buff not being ab;le to get the dosh promised by GB for the war(s).

Agreement with Totalwar
 

I have to agree with Totalwar concerning the procurement of equipment. As long as the Ministry of Defence - and DPA in particular - continue to employ school leavers on pifling civil service salaries to manage the procurement of kit competing with the military-industrial complex of the likes of BAe, with 'specialist service input' rotating, on average, every 18 months, the situation is unlikely to change.

And the situation hasn't changed. Read any account of the Great War and the Great Patriotic War and one will note the consistent issue of inadequacy of kit - field uniforms and weapons in particular.

And a mere accounting adjustment providing an 'extra' GBP 400M will not cover the lack of legitimacy of invading a Sovereign State (Iraq).

CC

Saints save us... the post is about the bl**dy budget and yet the Merlin bashers have jumped on it again.

GIVE IT UP GUYS!!! (I'm guessing from the locations that envy and paranoia are still rife in a certain air station in Somerset)

you:mad: s.

Sorry boys and girls, the extra money is to pay FRI to the RN pilots and to pay redundancy to all those aircraft engineers we don't need as we are stopping routine maintenance on our aircraft, in favour of just fixing them with tape when they fall apart. Time to go me thinks!:yuk: