Demonstrating a sad lack of specialist knowledge and strategy.

Assault on a Friday afternoon, obviously, because then you will catch them drunk and asleep with a couple more days before they even notice the ship has gone.....

The jokes about windows are unfortunately a bit close to the truth. I remember a very disappointing exercise where Bulwark bobbed around with no engines, ops capability or comms due to a blue screen of death.

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.

In the USA it's the members of Congress who run the jobs creation programmes............

Really?

Does that mean the Cocktail Parties start on Friday Morning? I mean,the Sun's not even over the yard arm so to speak... Seeing image of matelots lying about in pools of spilt pink gin and barrels of rum! :D

Ken

1. Scotland is a part of the UK, so yes.

2. Unions are very defanged here, far more so than in the US actually, but they still talk a good fight.

p.s. I'm right wing, but even I think that unions should have a bit more power.

Briefly returning to the Thread subject; Rosyth has the only dock capable of taking the QE Class. That also means we are stuck with it for all Upkeep Periods and certain DEDs (or whatever they're called this week). There's a dock in GUZZ that could be extended, at a cost. To get in or out, though, it means passing Cremyll Shoal and they're too big to do it. Hence the departure from Basing real carriers in Devonport. How the Deities conspire against us.

Massively disrespectful.
 

To call all coal miners who worked within the UK Herberts (which is a sort of scroaty, no gooder insinuation word) is deeply insulting and very disingenuous.
Its true of course there were some bitter industrial disputes, but only 3 or maybe 4 in total, nationally in the 20th century (STBC).
1926 of course....(Now a 46 year gap) Then was it 1972 and I think 1974? (I always think of this as one long dispute). (Then another ten year gap). And finally the end of serious production after 1984-85.
Think most miners had the countries interest at heart.
Never ever mentioned of course is that so dangerous period in early 1944. We practically ran out of energy at this time-our war effort would have collapsed (was about to collapse). Many, many brave men died unsung, unknown and underground to beat or destroy previous production records to supply our coal, to meet this challenge. Bevan boys drafted in as well... I have some photos knocking about....totally put aside their own safety for the war effort. Its documented of course.
There's a healthy place for trade unionism in the UK, y'know ?- all sides just have to apply some grey matter to make it work.
But we are a different country now to then -I concede it. We in the UK are very divided now.
The legacy of the supposed benefits and the personal reputation of Thatcher(ism) is slowly unravelling-I knew it would eventually.

Further to GBZ post above about the dry dock the answer is simple but probably impossible to square - make the UK what it should be - a United Kingdom. But we are not-we are splitting and rapidly fragmenting all over the place. A true legacy of Thatcherism is how it (absolutely and very deliberately) destroyed the UK.

"Absolutely and deliberately destroyed the UK..." Odd you should blame Mrs T while Tony, who did more to break up UK than any leader in history, doesn't get a mention. And how did we we get from carriers to coal miners? If you're trying to imply that both coal miners and shipyard workers are vital to the nations defence you have some convincing to do. The Clydesiders are hardly doing this because of a commitment to defence. More of an invitation to get the next ones built in Korea

Yawn and sleep.

Interesting idea that anyone would go into politics with intention of deliberately destroying anything to do with the country and its industries. Sometimes it's all too easy to confuse personal feelings about people with what they actually do or did. And what has that to do with a fractious Union in Scotland?

It would be tempting to ask why the UK Government would base procurement policy on anything other than carefully considered military need. Or is the MoD, once again, to become an instrument of supporting British industry over and above its own needs?

Hangarshuffle, I invite your response, especially as you were complaining about exactly this a few months ago.

Go easy on the Night Nurse Hangarshuffle. You might fall off that soapbox of yours!

IMOP - Corborons, Comerons, Stugerons, they are all completely useless to our nation's defences. Is there a single politician who can save us?

"Cometh the hour, cometh the man", from whence I know not. My great hope is that the man appears before the hour.

I might be completely wrong but if it all were to hit the fan, the Flaxen Haired one might stand up and be counted. :rolleyes: or he would claim his birth right.

ImageGear

TUC | History Online

Until 1941 when the Soviet Union entered the war, communists in Britain, having little commitment to the war effort, refused to be bound by the national unity consensus and in particular the ban on strike action. During the first few months of the war, there were over 900 strikes, almost all of them very short but illegal nonetheless. Despite the provisions of Order 1305 there were very few prosecutions until 1941 since Bevin, anxious to avoid the labour unrest of the First World War, sought to promote conciliation rather than conflict. The number of strikes increased each year until 1944, almost half of them in support of wage demands and the remainder being defensive actions against deteriorations in workplace conditions. Coal and engineering were particularly affected. A strike in the Betteshanger colliery in Kent in 1942 prompted the first mass prosecutions under Order 1305. Three officials of the Betteshanger branch were imprisoned and over a thousand strikers were fined. Such repression and the general 'shoulders to the wheel' approach to industrial production in support of the war effort (strongly backed by the Communist Party after 1941) did not stop strikes. The fact that so many strikes took place in the mining industry was due in the main to the fact that the designation of coal mining as essential war work entailed the direction of selected conscripts to work in the mines ('Bevin boys'). This was very unpopular among regular miners.

In 1943 there were two major stoppages, one was a strike of 12,000 bus drivers and conductors and the other of dockers in Liverpool and Birkenhead. Both were a considerable embarrassment to Bevin since they involved mainly TGWU members. 1944 marked the peak of wartime strike action with over two thousand stoppages involving the loss of 3,714,000 days' production. This led to the imposition of Defence Regulation 1AA, supported by the TUC, which now made incitement to strike unlawful.......

"designation of coal mining as essential war work entailed the direction of selected conscripts to work in the mines ('Bevin boys'). This was very unpopular among regular miners."

having talked to a few "Bevin Boys" it was a damn site more unpopular amongst the draftees - they really thought it was more dangerous and less comfortable than being above ground in the normal military.......

Courtney ...

In spite of our recent japery ... it would seem the T1stSL and OC 617 Squadron have now acquired a copy of PhotoShop :ok:

http://i1004.photobucket.com/albums/...pseti5i7wi.jpg

Image Credit : MOD

And that's certainly not the Cuckmere where she is 'parked' ;)

Best ...

Coff.

A Dry Dock somewhere in mainland' Europe might oblige if Rosyth is not "available". St Nazaire? Presumably they have repaired the gate(s)?

Dazzle Camouflage? How very retro!!

Or is that shadow?

I'm just saying, as ever, to call all the miners in the UK "Herberts" is disrespectful and very uncorrect. Amazingly, you may find, if you were ever as so motivated to research the columns of the dead on your local war memorial-you will find a real political cross section of our nation - and believe me they wont all be true blue flag saluter's. We are a true cross dressing humorous nation and long be it.
Got pictures somewhere of March 1944 where the local "Herberts" broke all records for production, around my way- for the national war effort. At a cost in their mates health and lives, of course.
Anyway-up the Republic.

Hangershuffle,
I am with you on this comment, but not being from coal mining areas in the UK, but growing up in a coal mining township in the USA, probably not much difference.

I am going to be much more blunt relative to the use of the word "Herberts" than you were directed at those that like to use the derogatory word.

Apparently to unknowing and unintelligent folks this is somehow a cute characterization of workers in an industry that supported England and the USA and other countries in times of greatest need. Miners at the Coverdale Mine, south of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where I grew up, said it was safer to be in the above ground battle of WWII than working in the mine, but they couldn't get release from mining duties during the war. Today not a lot has changed in the coal mining industry.

So I ask, when airline pilots go on strike for shorter hours, better working conditions, higher pay and better benefits, are they known as "Herberts" or :mad:-heads, today? When that happens does the government step in and nationalize the industry like they have done in the coal mining industry or railroad industry?

I went to grade school with coal mining sons and daughters, their future was less than assured. When there was an accident at the mine the sirens around town wailed. If it was a miner/miners disabled or killed, the family had to move out of the company owned housing (shacks) to make room for those not disabled with no benefits or no place to go. There was a famous song by the title of "You Owe Your Soul To The Company Store", and that was so true.

My uncle worked in the coal mines in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, He died at age 48 from black lung disease along with many more miners. I don't think that condition affects pilots that don't understand the hazards of coal mining or the real life that miners lived producing a product you couldn't fly without.

So my thoughts are these, if you want to diss workers in an industry you have never been associated with, start in the industry you are associated with and before you do that go back and study history before you were born to get a full picture before you write.