Feeling defenceless

A quick note, as I'll be off to the local Chinese takeaway in a minute.

Its striking the number of media articles and letters all complaining about the defence cuts that have come out based on the Libya evacuation fiasco. ( Caused it seems by ineffective civil servants - the product of Labour's emphasis on political correctness over effectiveness no doubt. )

Some complain about the absence of Ark Royal and its Harriers - without mentioning that it would be extremely vulnerable to air attack as Labour scrapped the Sea Harriers that at least had a air to air capability to make most air forces think twice. The ground attack Harriers just wouldn't be able to stop a determined air attack or for that matter defend themselves against a half decent air force.

Some complain about the low supplies in the armed forces and over stretch ( see Blair's wars and the Army's willingness to play along for the sake of a role ).

Then we have the bellyaching over Nimrods - without anyone paying much attention to the monumental waste of money and balls up that the Nimrod MR4 project has been. Apparent each aircraft had different parts and none were air worthy !

Then remember the debt. Yes the debt the repayments each year on which now dwarfs our defence budget.

If we are now defenceless - its because Labour wanted us that way.

We will have to sit out the next few wars as we rebuild our balance sheet, rebuild our stores, lick our wounds and prepare for the future without being betrayed by the monumental incompetence of the MOD.

We may well have to live through some nasty incidents and humiliations in the mean time - but its all necessary if we are to remain a sovereign ( ie solvent ) nation.

I'm all for a strong defence - but we need to acknowledge the depth of the disaster Labour have left us with and set about the very painful and not without its dangers job of putting things right.

We must also ensure that Labour and the worms like Ed Miliband are not allowed to escape their share of the blame for the weak state they have left the country in.

Why is the Govt building Labour's bribe carriers when they are already obsolete ?

Read the specs on this ...

It will be like the Prince of Wales without air cover all over again.

Somebody in the Govt and MOD really needs to get a grip. There is no reason why the unreasonable contracts to build Labour Celtic bribe carriers should be honoured.

HMS White Elephant will be built

So it appears that the irresponsible nature of the way Labour arranged the aircraft carrier contracts has forced the Coalition to build, and pay for, a aircraft carrier it does not want and thinks it does not need.

That's thanks to Gordon Brown's desperation to bribe his Scottish support base without thinking of what we can afford or need.

I propose the carrier is painted white, renamed HMS White Elephant and moored of North Queensferry where Gordon Brown can contemplate the morality of wasting millions upon millions of tax payers money every time he makes it outside his door.

The carriers should be scrapped before they are built

Engineer's in NASA used to nickname the space shuttle "Rosemary's baby" after the horror film on the grounds that it is a Satanic miscreant which could one day destroy those who have nurtured it.

NASA took a bad wrong turn with the space shuttle which eat the majority of its budget just to fool around in low earth orbit.

The UK is lining up for a similar mistake with the new Carriers, conceived as a way of making Labour look tough on defence which putting lots of jobs into Labour Celtic heartland to make the point about how important the Union, and not voting SNP, are.

The problems are the new carriers are very expensive ( much more so as they are built in UK yards ), heavily manned, require whats left of the surface fleet to defend and support them, have the wrong fuel option ( politically correct choice of non-nuclear - hence need for vast and vulnerable supply methods ), and too expensive to build enough of them (3) to be credibly used in a shooting war against another half competent navy. ( Obviously its Argentina were talking about here ).

We can't afford the aircraft to fly of them, and anyway manned flight is on its way out. UAV's are changing the nature of warfare - why bust the defence budget on a pair of dinosaurs just at the moment that new military realities are emerging.

Add to this the emergence of the fruits of Russian efforts to defeat US carrier battle groups with its Sunburn missiles ( sold to N Korea and Iran ) which smash into the deck of the carrier at Mach 3 whilst flying in with a crazy evading flight pattern. ( The US Navy has said it won't build any more carriers until it sorts out how to defend against this . )

Yes command of the air is vital to naval power - but we are going to have to figure out how to do it on less money, with smaller ships and robots.

Building and operating the carriers will destroy the UK's defence capability. They should be scrapped.

See also: Not a Sheep

And this from SinoDefence - which show a weapons system against which we have no defence which could eliminate our one carrier in minutes.

Real UK interests betrayed by the US Obama administration yet again !

The anti-British Obama administration has found another way to stab its loyal friend in the back.

This time its calling for talks over the sovereignty of the Falklands with the aggressive Argentine regime.

Read it here....

This is another reason we need to be out of Afghanistan - there's no credit to be gained from an administration that is rabidly ant--British and there are real defence concerns that they clearly won't help us with.

Maybe a new US administration will restore the Atlantic alliance, but we can't rely on it.