AFAIK: A few are in storage at Shawbury but others are active; a quick goggle for ZJ913 (the earliest unstored serial) shows it was flying at Coningsby in January, and it has been seen recently with 29 Sqdn.

We're always told how much poorer we are because of Brexit, usually by the same people (I dare say yourself accepted) who insist that we can take in any number of migrants and spend more on foreign aid because we're the 5th or 6th largest economy on the planet for God's sake!

FB

If an extra £20bn were made available tomorrow we'd all have to hope nothing it might buy would be needed in the next 5 years. You could make that £20bn for the next 5 years, same outcome. It's not only money...

CG

The best thing that extra £20 bn could be used for would be fixing the people issues.

We have US style taxation with pretentions of EU & Scandi public services - the sums don't add up.

\we slso see politicians led by marketing people rather being able to convince the electorate of our real priorities.

lots of rubbish on here about the us. You are taxed far higher than I was in the us. My max rate was 36 percent after AMT. I could save money for health commuting etc pre tax !!

health care wise after the IRA act if your over 65 or below poverty line you are very well treated for not a lot - NY Medicare advantage plan 38 bucks a month plus 10buck if I see my gp or 30 bucks if a specialist. Max spend is now 2000 bucks a year. I get seen straightaway and a doctor of my choosing.

We need to get a grip on social and health spending in the U.K. if any party was going to seriously look at this I would vote for them. The nhs is way beyond broken.

For the longest time, I thought those big houses like in Gone with the Wind were anti-bellum, then one day I realised they were ante-bellum :8

Aren't these the two squadrons of T1 Typhhons which the RAF found money to keep in front line duty for a short term as QRA in around 2010 when other T1s were being taken out of service?

I suppose we could legitimately call the RAF a "Track and Trace Organization" and qualify for £30 billion to be spent in three months!

That only works if Tory mates can get their snouts in the trough :bored:

The first priority of this government is to get re-elected, everything else can go to hell in a hand cart as far as they're concerned.

No, they are not.

And the next Government , regardless of political colour, will be exactly the same.

FB

Speaking as one who has worked in the NHS, the monetary problems are mostly caused by much of their budget going straight into the pockets of private companies doing things the NHS are perfectly capable of doing themselved but a much inflated cost. For example, the water heater in our toilets consistently broke down several times a week. Serco, who provided the maintenance for us, made much more money by charging us £25 (in 2017 so it's probably a LOT more expensive now) just to attend several times a week, then an exorbitand hourly rate messing around for a few hours trying to fix it plus inflated spares prices when just fitting a new one would have been much cheaper and much more cost effective for the NHS.

Doctor Cruces,

But no doubt "fixing" it came out of the maintenance budget, which had some money, but the cost of replacing it would have come out of the "procurement" budget, which was already spent....

And never the two budgets shall meet...

Or something along those lines...

Budget problems are everywhere not just the public service. I remember my father in the '70's using Golden Treacle instead of resin on a drive belt because it was a fraction of the price, whereas when the belt had to be replaced it came from the maintenance budget.

My last job was the same in the noughties. Generator US so no ETOPS and an extra '90 mins for every Atlantic crossing. The engineers said it was fit to fly so their budget was not paying for the hotel bills and down time. Operations/fuel departments would not ground it since they said it was an engineering cost, and the pilot management sat on their hands and kept their mouths shut.

Was it the accountants or crap management not banging some heads together to blame?