UKIPs defence policy may look a little flimsy but so do some of their mainstream ideas. Arguably though, they could well become the party of choice.

Vote for the party that promises the least, for sure you will be the least disappointed! !


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Nah ... Ignore the Locals yesterday ...

http://img1.fantasticfiction.co.uk/images/h3/h19741.jpg

Says it all really :E

LF

Would that be as opposed to Health, Education and Overseas Aid, all of which are exempt? Whilst I may have some sympathy with education, the other 2 are ripe for some savings measures.

overseas aid is washers and a lot of it comes back to the UK in some form

health covers pensioners as well - and they go crazy when you suggest they can afford to pay for a bus for example - and politicians know they all vote

He should pledge to bring back the Harrier, then he'd be able to recruit another nutter to UKIP.

Slight tangent here, but...

Am I completely missing the point when I perceive that the issue is not the amount of money (fourth largest defence budget in the world and all that) but the crippling inefficiency with which it is spent?

Yes. You are.

No one suggests that DE&S is a model of efficiency (although a large part of the inefficiencies originate at the other end of the M4). However, of the £30-odd Bn budget, only £6-8Bn is spent on new kit. Another £6-8Bn is spent on supporting existing kit. The rest goes largely on people, who are (rightly) expensive. And no, they're not all CS on huge annual bonuses sitting in hi-spec offices in MB. The number of CS in that category throughout MoD is probably less than 200.

Which is unfortunately where UKIPs assertions about getting the army back up to 100000 and buying lots of kit by "scrapping the MoD" fall over.

No, it wouldn't. They should not automatically be ring-fenced either, but subject to the same value-for-money scrutiny as every other area of government spending. There may be a valid reason (other than vote-grabbing) why one or other ministry needs more resources at a particular time, but that is for the government of the day to decide at that point. Making promises in advance makes a politician a hostage to fortune.

But just how you manage the NHS for example, goodness only knows. The more successful it is the more cash it requires. Double it's budget today and by 2020 it will be short of cash again.

But I digress. UKIP has just done very well at council level. Even the BBC has noticed them, almost to the point where you would think they had achieved a landslide victory rather than just having inserted a large spanner in the works. Maybe I should go back and read their defence policy more carefully. It might not be as academic as I first thought.

LF

You have to feel sorry for them here in Oxon -

Labour: 16% of vote, 11/63 council seats
Lib Dem: 16% of vote, 11/63 council seats
Green: 9% of vote, 2/63 council seats
UKIP: 16% of vote, 0/63 council seats
(Conservative: 34% of vote, 31/63 council seats)

I have to say, sitting as I do on the fringes of the RAF and Army* as a VR(T) but working in a civilian job in the private sector, that I'm afraid I see staggering inefficiencies in the MOD. As a trivial example, white fleet coach hires come in at 70-80% more expensive than the civilian equivalents used by our school. Why? Because someone signed an inefficient contract? Because back-handers were given?

I'm not saying I have the answers: I don't, but the waste is very clear.

Tim

*PS in my post I actually deal more with the Army on logs and supply than with the RAF.

I've just realised who the "brainchild" is for the UKIP's Defence Policy as he's just been sacked! Billy Gilpin was never the brightest spark on the Tornado F3 (despite doing Maths/Computer Science at Cambridge!). No wonder the policy document was "a bit thin"...

Here's a video showing Billy explaining his grand (now failed) plan...


LJ :ugh:

To be fair it's no worse than the policies of some mainstream parties; like the "hand delivery" option for nuclear weapons (lib dem) or the Blair/brown extravaganza of ordering lots of super stuff with no money budgeted to pay for it!

And is their RAuxAF proposal really so controversial? It more closely resembles the well proven system in the US and indeed UK (till the60's) than our sponsored reservist scheme.

Given I've as much chance as governing the country as they do, who gives a rats what their policy is on anything :confused:

Yes but support for Beer micro breweries must shirley be a vote winner:ok:

Wonder what the position on Pop Rivet is?

SGC

Not so much "released" but "escaped" and slithered down the corridor leaving an ugly mark

The really worrying thing is that Billy was an F3 pilot so surely he must know that the F3 airframes were f*cked - in no way were they mid-life and fit for service within this Reservist Fast Jet Force that he's suggesting. The F3s were supposed to last for 15-20 years maximum and they had served for upwards of 25 already when they retired. If he suggests using some of the GR4s then some of those are over 30 years old - that's ancient in Combat Aircraft terms.

The niaivity of the comment that Wellington needed only a staff of 28 to raise his Army just beggars belief! I don't believe that the Napoleonic Wars had anyware near the complexity of modern day warfare and legal requirements. Yes, 80-odd thousand MOD Civil Servants is excessive but many of them are essential if the military are to function - isn't that why the current shower are streamlining MOD and thinning out some of the MOD Civil Servants? Abolishing the MOD in toto is just plain dumb!

As for 'choosing your allies wisely' - does anyone else want to state the bleedin' obvious? :ugh:

I voted for UKIP for the local elections for one reason: they are given their own heads for local policy making and not whipped to a national 'Party Line'. It was also a sort of 'protest vote' to awaken the mainstream. However, I cannot see UKIP ever being fit to govern the UK in its current guise with its current bunch of clowns and this woefully lacking policy proves it.

LJ

LJ - if youre feeling brave you may care to air your views over on JB and see what sort of reception you get ;)


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Dead Pan

Seeing as this is about military policy then why would I post it on Jet Blast? :confused:

LJ

"Yes, 80-odd thousand MOD Civil Servants is excessive but many of them are essential if the military are to function - isn't that why the current shower are streamlining MOD and thinning out some of the MOD Civil Servants? Abolishing the MOD in toto is just plain dumb!"

the current target is 52,500 in 2 years time, and last I heard they were already down to 65,000. Its worth noting that the MOD CS is being cut by more under the SDSR than all three services combined, even though the powers that be hadnt worked out whether the same comensurate reduction in workload could be made.

The interesting stat I heard recently is that barely 2% of the MOD CS are involved in Policy, and the rest are involved in delivery or other roles.

And long may that spending priority continue. I don't want to live in a country that spends more on defence than it does on Education and Health thank you. What we need to do is be realistic about how we spend what we do on defence not spend more. We are no longer a military global power fella nor should we aspire to be so. That does not mean we become less than what we are.

New UKIP candidate ex pongo
 

Andrew on Better off Out, Fair Deal for Armed Forces, Immigration and why vote UKIP - YouTube

Sounds interesting especially on waving the flag and supporting the forces.:ok: