I quite agree, but anything beyond a carrier force is surely unnecessary now, don't you think?

No, bear in mind we hardly have enough shipping to do the job as it stands. Not forgetting we have other jobs to do WIGs, Training, etc etc.

Abandoning the traditional policy of maintaining a comprehensive naval fighting force will save a trillion pounds and more over the next twenty years. If the United Kingdom avoids situations that would require such a force, this will be seen as a brilliant, prescient analysis of the emerging world geopolitical environment which enabled a better life for all the people of the Kingdom.

On the other hand .....

Ladies and gents, I bring you the Tax Abuser of the Year Award....



lets see what these "savings" are being spent on.

Golden Trough Award for individual Tax abuse 2006
Commissioner of Transport for London £1,146,425

Silver Trough Award for individual Tax abuse in 2006
Chief executive of Network Rail, £1,038,000

Golden Trough Award for mass Tax abuse in 2006
Ofcom
Chief Executive, £440,667
Chief policy partner £338,579
Chief Operating Officer, £308,930
Competition, £251,186
Content and standards, £243,387
Ofcom Chief technology officer, £238,540
Director of the CEOs office, £221,692
Competition and strategic resources, £210,811
HR director, £210,191

Silver Trough Award for Mass Tax abuse in 2006
The BBC
Director general, £619,000
Deputy Director general, £456,000
Chief operations officer, £444,000
Director television, £353,000
Finance Director, £324,000
Director radio and music, £322,000
Director of strategy, £317,000
Director of new media, £311,000
Head of BBC people, £292,000
Director of marketing, £287,000
Chief executive, £228,000

Royal Mail Tax abusers
Chief executive, £1,038,000
Chief executive of Post Office Ltd, £816,000
Finance Director, 656000
Executive Director, £562,000
Executive Director, £448,000
Royal Mail Chairman, £201,000

Network Rail Tax Abusers
Chief executive, £1,027,000
Deputy Chief executive, £924,000
Director, £683,000
Director, £678,000
Chairman £210,000

Financial Services Authority Tax Abusers
Chief executive, £572,619
Director, £445,303
Chairman, £436142
Director, £383,121
Director, £379,540

Parnerships UK Tax Abusers
Chief Executive, Partnerships UK, £443,000
Deputy Chief executive, £349,000
Finance Director, £324,000
Director, £306,000

Other Tax abusers
Chief Executive, Horse race Totaliser Board £314,000
Chief executive, NHS Connecting for Health, £275,340

Chief executive, UK Atomic Energy Authority, £277,264
Chief executive, UK Shareholder executive £261,369
Chief executive, Office of Fair Trading, £255,000
Chief executive, Crown Estate, £250,000
Chief executive, British Waterways Board, £241368
Chief executive, Qualifications and Curriculum Authority, £236066
Chief executive, Construction Industry Training Board £230,149
Chief executive, Learning & Skills Council Mark, £230,000
Chief executive, Audit Commission, £223,000
Chief Executive, Environment Agency £220,000
Director general, Department for International Development, £220,000
Chief executive, Job centre plus, £209,000
Chief executive, UK Film Council, £206,367
IT director, HM Revenue & Customs, £205,000
Executive chairman, Office of Fair Trading, £205,000
Executive Chairman, Monitor (NHS Foundation Trusts), £200,000
Chief executive, Partnerships for Schools, £200,000
Head of PM's delivery unit, Cabinet Office, £200,000

From what I read here surely some OF-6 and above could be on that list. How much do they get?

This is what the reserves have to put with now.

PRESS RELEASE

PRESS RELEASE **** PRESS RELEASE **** PRESS RELEASE

Tony Blair will be issuing this shortly to all Reservists:-

Under the Emergency Powers Act (1939) as amended by the Defence Act (1978), you are hereby notified that you are required to place yourself on standby for possible compulsory military service in the British Section of the America/NATO Conflict. You may shortly be ordered to depart for the Middle East where you will join either the 3rd Battalion The Queen's Own Suicidal Conscripts or the 2nd Foot and Mouth.

Due to the recent rundown of the Navy and the refusal of P&O to lend us any of their liners, because of the deplorable state in which they were returned after the Falklands adventure, it will be necessary for you
to make your own way to the combat zone.

H.M. Government have been able to negotiate a 20% discount on one way trips with Virgin Airlines and you are strongly urged to take advantage of this offer (RyanAir also do a nice little £9.99 trip).

Because of cutbacks in Government expenditure in recent years it will be necessary for you to provide yourself with the following equipment as soon as possible:
* Combat Jacket
* Trousers(preferably khaki - but please no denim)
* Tin helmet
* Boots (or a pair of sturdy trainers)
* Gas mask
* Map of the combat zone (the Ordinance Survey 1:2800 Outdoor
Leisure Map of Afghanistan will do)
* Rifle (or any similar weapon)
* Ammunition (preferably to suit previous item)
* Suntan oil

If you are in a position to afford it, we would like you to buy a tank. (Vickers Defence of Banbury are currently offering all new conscripts a 0% finance deal on all X registration Chieftains, but hurry, as offer is only available whilst stocks last).

We would like to reassure you that in the unlikely event of anything going wrong, you will receive a free burial in the graveyard of your choice, and your next of kin will be entitled to the new War Widows pension of £1.75 per calendar month, index-linked but subject to means testing, and fully repayable should our side eventually lose.

There may be little time for formal military training before your departure and so we advise that you hire videos of the following films and try and pick up a few tips as you watch:
* The Guns of Navarone
* Kelly's Heroes
* A Bridge to Far
* The Longest Day
* Apocalypse Now
* The Matrix
* Blazing Saddles
* The Desert Song
* Mary Poppins

We do not recommend that you watch Khartoum.

To mentally prepare yourself for your mission try reading the works of Wilfred Owen or Rupert Brookes. This should give you some idea of what may be involved.

Yours faithfully, T Blair PM
A Bush - Blair Production and ....
Sponsored by Mars, The Official snack food of World War III

I would have thought that hummus and flat bread would be the official snack food of the next go-round?!

Extremely poor piece of news regardless of the colour of one's uniform. The military are often accused of planning to fight the last war. Surely this is a case of planning to never fight any kind of war except the current one?

Is there a serious case for 1SL to be charged with Treason and Dereliction of Duty for failing to protect his navy and the nation?

That depends on at the end of the finacial year which MD has contributed most to party funds.:yuk:

Jacks I dunno whether it's bad news or just an inevitability. Okay, there's a case for a carrier force to assist with our various crusades, but this presupposes that any post-Blair government is still going to be quite as keen to follow George on his ludicrous campaigns for much longer. It's not impossible to see how when Georgie has gone, even the USA might eventually "do a Vietnam" and withdraw from this obsession with global warmongering, in which case the United Kingdom is going to be primarily concerned only with its own defence again, as it should be.

Okay, we have to accept that there are always unforseen developments which might require military power but it's almost impossible to imagine any situation which would require the presence of our Navy. Blair can justify sending the Navy to support wars that we really don't have any reason to be involved in, or to do a bit of drug busting here and there, or even the odd bit of hurricane relief... but in terms of a real need which requires huge sums of taxpayer's money? Nope, I think not. Nuclear posturing aside, we don't have the means or even the desire to concern ourselves with anything other than the direct defence of the United Kingdom, therefore a global naval power is patently at odds with our needs. Nobody (well, nobody with any sense) buys into this nonsensical notion that we're somehow defending the UK by fighting wars overseas, so surely it's inevitable that when our forces are withdrawn from Iraq, and somebody comes-up with a neat political excuse to extract ourselves from the ridiculous and bloody saga in Afghanistan, we'll be very unlikely to have any stomach for any more silly crusades. I'd venture to say that is is by no means a bad thing.

Although the UK doesn't appear to have the resources to act like a world power any longer, we can surely afford to defend our nation effectively, if we rid ourselves of our historical baggage. Naval power was once vital but then became merely useful. It must now rate as simply unnecessary.

Unless you're an island nation with trade routes, fishing grounds and a fiscally vital offshore oil industry to protect.

I don't think we're in the business of protecting international trade routes with military force, are we? Our fishing grounds are largely at the mercy of EEC nations in any case, and both they and our offshore oil assets certainly don't require any significant naval power to protect them. Once upon a time we used Nimrods to monitor both, but even that was (rightly) considered to be a monumental waste of money.

Succinct and to the point, An Teallach. Who would have believed where we find ourselves now? It's shameful.

Clearly Tim, a total force of around a dozen interceptors (sufficient to intercept any 9-11 wannabee) would be sufficient to defend UK airspace then? If we're not off "crusading" as you put it, we don't need AT or SH either. The interceptors wouldn't even have to be hi-performance (ie dogfighters or low observables), because there are no "direct" air threats to our borders anymore.......

See how easy it is once you get going.......

Tim

We'll always need to protect our trade routes, I believe the RN still does a fair bit of fisheries protection, though some of it is done by the Scottish Fisheries Protection Agency. I think I'm right in saying that the last international British naval 'operations' before the Falklands were in the Cod War.

How long will it be until AQ learn the PIRA lesson that you can shoot as many Jocks & Toms as you like, the Western Powers only ever sit up and take note when you hit them in the pocket? For PIRA, it was shifting target from Belfast to The City. The offshore oilfields are vulnerable and our Fishhead brethren may correct me, but I'm sure they have significant operational plans in place to deal with threats to the platforms.

I take your point and I do agree that it's very hard to determine precisely what amount of military might can be regarded as being sufficient to protect one's own country but I'm sure you can see what I'm getting at?

There's a very big difference between addressing the defence of the United Kingdom (including our offshore interests which Al mentions) and the desire to engage in all manner of global conflicts which ultimately have no connection with our defence. What on earth are we pouring huge amounts of money and manpower into Iraq for? Has our presence there saved so much as one British life? Nope, it's actually lost quite a few. Likewise, has our presence in Afghanistan helped to make us any more secure? Nope, it's resulted in the needless deaths of British servicemen. What an earth are we doing? Unless I'm missing something very obvious, I thought the purpose of our armed forces was to defend the United Kingdon, pure and simple, which is why I have to question what possible motives we have for maintaining a significant surface fleet.

Sending a warship recently to the Lebanon to evacuate Brit nationals isn't/wasn't impossible to imagine. Doubt the same effect would have been generated if a P&O ferry had turned up instead.


:hmm:

Bear in mind, this could be a politically motivated fishing exped by Strangely Brown et al to put them in a good light - come up with an option to save millions by scrapping half the RN. When they only scrap a quarter of it, they look as though they have saved the RN and that the nation should be thankful. Not that Noo Labour would ever do anything like that. Would they?

Alternatively, it could be the truth and the money is needed to pay off Tony's mortgage or fund a drop in centre for disabled Welsh Afro Caribbean single parent lesbians.

If our Parliament isn't taking this seriously, I can guarantee that there is at least one person with an eye on this topic: Carlos Aníbal Aguilar.
And for those of you that don't know who Snr Aguilar is, he is the current director of the Argentinian National Directorate of Strategic Military Intelligence, the Argentine agency tasked with producing strategic operational and tactical intelligence and planning and the conduct of military operations.

The whole thing is disgraceful, absolutely disgraceful. This government is no longer operating in the national interests. It is high time Cameron showed that he has a set. He claims the Tories are ready for a snap election: prove it - call a vote of no confidence in the House: the country has lost all confidence in the current Labour administration to govern in BRITAIN'S national interests. I'm sure he would get support from the general public .... or at leas more of the general public than voted Blair back in at the last election.

PS: Has anyone else noticed that PrOOne has been strangely quiet of late on the MOD funding-related threads!

Absolutey 100% agree with Melchett. Where the hell is Cameron in all this, does he have any balls? Where are the Tories? If they fail to support the Armed Forces in their hour of need they will never be forgiven.