Babcock in dispute over extra Type 31 Frigate contract costs

Interestingly it’s also not the growers and producers, as your average farmer is feeling it….feed, power etc all through the roof. There is massive gouging in the system but its the producers of those resources right at the bottom that seem to be having a field day….especially if your producing energy your printing money….everyone else is suffering the cost…that’s why Russia is still flush after western sanctions….it’s why BP etc are making 100billion and owning a windfarm or solar farm is just like picking up diamonds on a beach.

I’m not pro large profits but there’s been misrepresentation of some of the numbers publish in the UK press to get clicks or push a political narrative.

BP don’t make 100b from the UK, so those types of headlines are misinformation and posted for political reasons rather than actually informing the UK public and has be the drive for the call for windfall tax.

But BP is to return its profits for the UK, then it should return them in every country in operates, which is only fair. What would that do to BP? (a company the UK benefits from being headquartered here) It would essentially fail.

The reality is, the profits are still single digit % and UK % profits are below global averages for BP but hey that’s not a great headline to push a political agenda. Anyone who actually cares to research the topic knows domestic energy market in the UK is less than £50b revenue! If you actually take the UK profits from energy its around 8b per household approx £300 p.a. on average, again that’s hardly going to get you average Guardian reader all hot an bothered. But 100b wow that’s a great re-tweet and who’s will actually going to bother getting into the detail.

UK government can’t tell other countries to keep their hands of BPs profits if they are leading the charge on the topic and could be lighting a fuse that they have no control over once others jump on the band wagon. For what? according to the governments own figures at best 5 billion a year.

If you look a companies who only produce in the UK, they are cutting back in the UK and moving investment overseas as the new taxes is making operations less attractive. This will leave a gap that will be filled by imports from foreign owned energy companies! This will not only reduce windfall tax, but income tax from employees, making the 5 billion raised rather questionable, its Trussenomics 🙂

Hi expat, it was not so much aimed at the Just the UK production but world wide as it’s a global market and pricing. Energy producers have basically been raking it in due to supply and demand.

Global, but unlike China who’s doing its upmost to boost its global companies we appear to want to destroy the few successful ones we have!

What is this garbage about Brexit, we have copied the exact same terms we had when members of the EU with these third countries! Please refrain from such falsities. Have you read the actual U.K./E.U. deal? The first page says that any following agreement signed by the U.K. is a supplement to the EU deal. Jesus Christ.

Well, that was an angry response and you missed the point on Brexit which to be fair I didn’t elaborate on.
One of the issues business has had is the complying with the legislation and the masses of paperwork required for both importing and exporting as we are no longer a member of the EU. It has nothing to do with tariffs and volumes. Certain products cannot be legally sold into the EU where they could be when it came from a member state.
I’m not having a pop at Brexit, I actually wanted it! And not for immigration reasons.
All of this occurring pretty much at the same time has been a real issue for business. Reading the trade deal is just part of the story.

Things are already moving in this direction, in the energy market reform. However HMG must ensure that (for the next decade at least) that gas generation remains financialy sustainable to provide backup to intermittent renewables. This will still insulate UK from high gas prices because it will allow the price of gas generation to rise, ensuring gas is increasingly used only when needed due to weather.

The amount of gas actually used will thus fall. HMG need to get a shift on with Nuclear new build too (e.g. Sizewell, SMR), as this is the only thing that can reduce the total of gas plant required in the system. Renewables don’t because they still need backup. We also need to get rid of gas heating ASAP and abandon the fantasy of replacing it with hydrogen.

The Government are not moving in this direction. If they wanted to they would have done it already. There are no bills and no proposed changes that I am aware of that are being put together. We can actually be fine with 100% renewables if the infrastructure is done right. However not enough money is being put into storage solutions and not enough is being done to roll out new schemes. For instance there are wind farms that are due to be connected in 13 years time despite being ready to be built right now! If the Government were serious then they would make sure that these projects were connected as soon as they were built! We have to remember that there are an awful lot of MPs that are paid by the oil industry and plenty that are willing to lobby against any environment bills. My MP put his name to a cross party paper (I say cross party but almost all of signees were Conservatives) which was basically a total set of lies and misinformation. It even contained a piece on how a man had invented a negative carbon petrol car… However provided no details on this magic invention. When I asked my MP to point me in the direction of the info on this, he refused… Yet he had signed his name on the paper knowing that this was not truthful information…

Can’t speak for the UK but in Canada’s case, absolutely the government’s massive printing of money for COVID give-a-ways is our inflation source. Our neighbour to the south did the same albeit not to the same level.

So yours is nothing to do with energy prices? Unlike almost every other country in the world…

I am not sure the Bank of Canada agrees with you.

https://www.bankofcanada.ca/2023/03/understanding-the-reasons-for-high-inflation/#:~:text=With%20demand%20increasingly%20strong%20and,inflation%20taking%20hold%20in%20Canada.

Did not realize that the Canadian government had indulged in the same idiocy as the US. Absolute disaster, as Canada has always been my alternate rally point. 🤔😳😱😉

In UK its mainly fuel and food price surges caused by Ukraine conflict shortages and some lingering co-vid shortages such as in building construction materials. Everyone wants double digit wage rises to match the temporary inflation and if their granted it then locks in the inflation permanently due to higher labour costs.

The US and China print money all the time. It is not a bad solution to many issues. The current Inflation issues are mainly energy based not to do with the printing of money during Covid.

The only energy based inflation is due to Ambientalism punishing food and industrial producers with heavy regulation and costs. Plus G20 saying to everyone that there would not be any credit to develop fossil fuels anymore.

The main inflation issues are due to QE printing money to put out of 2008 crisis that was due to printing money due to credit. QE was bascally a tool that put huge amounts of money in stock exchange to sustain the retirement packages.
Stock exchange is not part of inflation statistics…
Then came the huge COVID money printing.

I am sorry but you are talking utter rubbish…. Energy and global manufacturing bottlenecks are the reason for the inflation. Environmental policies are not the issue. Wind power costs 5 times less than gas produced power. The quicker we move away from fossil fuels, the more money we save….

Everything we produce uses energy, if energy prices go up then everything we buy goes up and hence inflation goes up…. It is not rocket science….

I see you don’t have family and friends in agriculture and industry…Maybe you should go to Sri Lanka to learn…

Wind power needs to subsidies to run. There are days it do not even run.

Bottlenecks exist for a reason: when silly government makes lockdowns.

Wind farms do not need subsidies. They are only given subsidies so that they can compete in a more level playing field with fossil fuels which get subsidies in orders of magnitude greater than renewables! If we stop subsidising the oil industry we can stop subsidising the renewables industry….and yes I do have friends and family in agriculture. Not sure what your point is there…. All of them have installed solar panels all over their sheds and one installed a wind turbine which the others would also have done if the UK government had not banned them.

As for bottlenecks. Many were due to poor planning by companies but some have come from the war in Ukraine etc. However the overwhelming cause of inflation at the moment is energy price. Something we would not be experiencing as much if we had moved away from fossil fuels much earlier.

Well I think you are not taking into account the utter tragedy that would have occurred without the lock down. The simple truth was the NHS would not have coped with the number of cases of covid 19 we would have seen in a spike that was not flattened by the lock down….what most people miss is the lock down was less about preventing everyone from getting covid 19 but about spreading the load….simply put the NHS would have collapsed ( and I say this as a senior leader and planner of emergency services). The level of death and harm would have been awful…as is the NHS has been in a slow collapse since the beginning of the pandemic…even now if you looked at any system you will find 100+ beds closed due to infection control ( covid) and a number of nursing homes closed to admissions..with staff sickness due to covid in social and health care still being an issue ( the NHS has a four level score opel 1 (normal) 2 ( services are under stress delays will occur 3 ( they system is beyond capacity, people are in beds in corridors, ambulances are not able to response on time, 111 is failing, people are being harmed and may die unnecessarily ) opel 4 the system is not able to provide the care required and people are dying…before covid you would expect a system or organisation to only hit opel 4 in the most extreme times and at most it would be for a day or two….almost al NHS systems have been running at opel 4 since the pandemic…occasionally dropping down to opel 3…..if we had not had a lock down the exponential growth of the disease would have see 10s of millions of active cases at one time….at this point the NHS would have simply stopped as a healthcare system and every person that had significant accident injury, MI, bleed etc would have almost likely have simply died..most people simply have no conception of what an overwhelmed health system means…..it means children dying of sepsis…

.as a healthcare professional who organises systems a disease with an R0 of 5-10 and a case mortality of 1% ( covid 19 variants pre vaccine) doesn’t terrify me as an individual..but as a person who would try to keep healthcare running it still gives me the willies…give me a disease with and R0 of 1 and a case mortality of 80-90% ( some the most terrifying and personally deadly diseases in existence ( interestingly 2 of these are close relatives of covid 19….one you catch from camels is literally a death sentence…but luckily can only be transmitted between people through close intimate contact).

the big problem is the governments incompetence at implementing the lock down…it should have been less draconian…more focused on sensible public health and have less draconian implementation ( arresting people for driving to the country etc).

All modern currencies are fiat and are essential unbacked and its value is decided by exchange rates with other currencies which is all driven by the international currency markets using the law of supply and demand both the demand which is set by the market and supply which is set by a government or central bank using monetary policy tools…but the value of any modern currency is no more or less than what someone is willing to buy it for….so countries do not create unbacked currency it’s all unbacked effectively the central back creates more currency (digital) that it’s uses to buy government bonds from the market…( quantitative easing) so releasing more money into the economy…this lowers interest rates and encourages spending…inflation goes up….one of the other things this does is possibly devalue your currency If there is more than there is a demand for….this can fuel even more inflationary forces than you may have wanted…the opposite is quantitative tightening is when central banks removed money from the system by either selling those bonds back out to the market ( so bringing the money back and then removing it) or just letting the bonds mature and remove them and the money that way…..this reduces the amount of currency and slows the economy reducing inflation….remember all modern fiat currency is simply created by the central banks it’s not a actually real…the only issue is when you get outside things beyond a central banks control…classic examples are the last primminister If the markets loss faith in a government a ability to pay on its bonds maturity due to poor management that then has contagion to the currency markets and demand can crash for that currency.

But basically all modern currency is made up with made up value dependent on people wanting to buy it…sort of like art.

Excellent summary.

Yes, I say the same. Nice one Jonathon.

I’ve got a headache just reading that. 😂😂😂😂
What does Fiat mean?
Currency and markets is one of these things that some people understand easily and can use to their advantage while others don’t get it.

Basically made up money, fiat currency has no intrinsic value and is not backed by a commodity it’s only value is in what someone is willing to pay for it ( currency markets).

then you have representatives currency which is a currency based on a specific commodity that is held by the issuer and example for this is gold standard..before 1971 every global currency had a nations gold holding behind it…so every pound was guaranteed by a bit of gold held by the Bank of England. It therefor is backed by something with intrinsic value.

Every days a school day. Thank for the explanation.

Sad really but I love currency…im a collector and trader of specie and numismatist Also a dabbler in crypto, which I find utterly fascinating. One good idea is to alway hold about 10% or your savings in specie..silver is best to be honest unless you’re very wealthy…If your own nations money has a collapse..Silver specie is still worth what it’s worth ( even if the silver market collapses you still have the numismatic value of the coin….).

One of my favourite Fiat currency stories is of the pacific tribe that traded ownership of big carved rocks as a form of currency. This was already close to a fiat currency as the rocks where big, and basically immobile, but still technically the currency was backed in stone. One of the rocks, having been carved and being moved to the island by canoe was sunk.

The islanders decided that it was “good enough” and the rock, now at the bottom of the sea and beyond reach of anyone to check if it was really there, entered the economy. A fiat rock as it were.

Fiat rocks I like that….fiat currency rite large…another really interesting one is shell currency….really common in societies that could not process ore.but again it was linked to an intrinsic value..they shells were pretty and used to make beads and so had value linked to the shell itself, trade beads were another interesting currency but again their value was based on the intrinsic value of the bead as an item of beauty that can be used as jewellery……one of the interesting things is that the majority of currency across history is based on what people consider beautiful and the basis for jewellery…gold,silver,copper,shells and beads that makes up pretty much the bulk of all currency throughout the history of humanity….all pretty shiny jewellery based…it says something about the human soul that what we always really craved is something shiny and pretty….even now look at your pocket change and consider how much effort the royal mint puts in to make make nice pretty coins.

In theory currency creation should be linked to economic growth. Credit for example is currency creation that in theory should lead to economic growth.

Yes and if you look at how gold standard/silver standard currency worked it generally did well. It was the very best way to prevent hyper inflation evens as a nation only had the currency its gold and silver reserves backed.it allowed people to trust the money over government: fiat currencies fundamentally require complete trust in a government, central bank and monetary policy…when that fails the fiat currency becomes utterly without value….this has happened to a number of nations and is utterly catastrophic…this can also happen to a representative currency if a nation is stripped of its gold reserves…this is what happened to the German mark post WW1 the allies insisted on reparations in gold ( they essentially stole the German gold reserves)…this crashed the Mark.

“We have gold because we cannot trust governments,” President Herbert Hoover famously said in 1933 in his statement to Franklin D. Roosevelt”.

modern fiat currency is entirely based on trust in a government and nation and as you way is simply a monetary policy to to stimulate growth in one had and manage inflation on the other….but you must always remember that it’s all fundamentally nothing more that a market based value ( the value of the pound is what the international money markets say it is) so modern currency is no more or less that tulip bulbs ( the most famous market bubble ) and can and sometime does go pop on a nation.

Gold backed money limits what a country can borrow and therefore limits Government spending. Gold would all be flowing out of the country with trade deficit to China etc . Living within are means would be like living in the 1950’s with make do and mend instead of over consume and waste lol

Well you’ve sold it to me Peter Im a firm believer that the trade deficit with china being sustainable without ending in us being a client state to china is a bizarre delusion of the neoliberal world.

what trashed the gold standard in the end was the global catastrophe that was world war 1……..

All currency throughout the ages has been contingent on the trust people place on it.

Yes but before 1971 currencies were backed by gold as a commodity.

No, it wasn’t. Gold was simply the wool we pulled over everyone’s eyes to imagine a physical representation of value. Just like cowry, whales teeth, and rice in other civilisations. The value of currency has always been backed by trust in the Government issuing that currency.

Sorry Matt that’s a gross simplification and in many ways not true..infact many currencies have existed long after the government the created them is no more…the classic example is possibly the most well know currency and trade coin ever the Marie Theresa Thaler (MTT) this coin has been minted and traded with literally 270 years…it has been minted in many nations. It was a Conventionsthaler that was first minted in 1751 and on the death of Marie Thaler in 1780 every MTT was dated 1780..it was the definitive trade coin of its age and had such longevity that in WW2 the US even minted it’s own to supply to forces fighting in the East Indies. The British, French end every infact minted them to support forces across the globe.. It is infact still minted now and if you were stuck in somewhere like the Congo it would still get you feed and watered and a roof over your head. It’s own government ( Austria) suspend it as its official currency in in 1856….but it still retained it’s value as a currency

because it was a representative currency that had intrinsic value ( .73 Troy ounces of silver). Before the early 20c all major western coins effectively carried their value as an intrinsic part of the coin ( its weight in silver or gold)…later the county would carry and hold that weight in gold promised by its printed currency if it did not its currency became valueless ( the German mark post war)…but and this is important every coin or note either held it’s intrinsic value in its own weight ( the 1817 gold sovereign with a nominal value of 1 pound sterling contained .23 Troy ounces of gold in 1920 the 1 Troy ounce of gold was fixed at 4.25 pounds sterling so in 1920 a second issue 1 pound note was still valued at the same value in gold as a 1 pound gold sovereign..the note was promised and held in the Bank of England vault for you to pick up any time you wished to pop to the Bank of England ( it promised you that lump of .23 Troy ounces of gold) the second was actual that lump…both representative currency..modern fiat currencies literally has no value other than the value the currency markets place on it..there is no promise and nations can create as much as they like with the only control being the supply and demand of the money markets…if the money market says your fiat 1 pound has no value it has no value…but with a representative currency you can alway get the gold or silver from the bank or if it’s a sovereign or Thaler is worth the value that it’s worth whatever money markets state.

Simply means that the MTT was backed by several governments, those that accepted it as legal tender. Silver, like gold, is a representation of value, which again is based on trust. When you receive MTT you’re trusting that you can sell it off to someone else for goods and services that you want. You might not accept rice whereas an Edo Japanese would – this is a reflection of that trust. Reality is that we’ve always used fiat money, because no government ever tied itself down to however much gold and silver was mined out of the earth that day, they’d also trade in other commodities. The modern system of money is better able to capture all the workings of the economy, though imperfectly.

No the last government that backed the Thaler was the Austrian government and they stopped backing it about 2 hundred years ago….no one backed it they did not need to it was alway minted to a specific measure of silver and it’s value was entirely from that…nothing else…as all coins and currencies were…..there only value was in the silver or gold content or in the case of paper money the promise that that government would hand over that amount of silver or gold.

as for Edo Japan…and being able to barter with rice..so want all societies have used both barter and currency

EDO Japan had a tri metal currency based on gold, silver and copper coins…almost every culture of any complexity has used some form of metal based currency based on gold, silver and copper. When the english had silver pennies in the Middle Ages they still swapped 5 chickens for a pig….

Anyway back to representative currency…Most will have also had a fixed value between gold silver and copper….society generally used a silver standard and then moved to a gold standard that fixed the price of silver against the price of gold…to say otherwise it to pretty much ignore the economic history of well money….and humans have been minting coins for a very very long time…ask the romans, Greeks and Turks..with the oldest coinage ever found being from the area of modern turkey…it was 2700 years old and made of guess what…yep gold and silver….

as an example which is more modern and quantifiable pre 1920 Uk currency…coins they were not promised they had their specific value based on the Silver content…..1 crown has exactly five times the silver content of a british Shilling and a shilling had exactly 4 time the Silver content of a 3 penny….four crowns contained exactly the value of silver of 240 pennies ( of any denomination) this 1 pound value of silver coins had the amount of silver worth .23 Troy ounces of gold..and a British gold sovereign was worth exactly 1 pound and contained.23 Troy ounces of gold….i British 1 pound bank note was a promise that the Bank of England held that .23 Troy ounces of gold and would provide it on request….all money had a set intrinsic value beyond the British government based on the silver and gold content. International exchange rates were set on how much gold was sitting behind each item of currency….a U.S. dollar was worth just less than 1 UK crown because the UK crown had more silver in it and the silver content of both coins was set against the gold standard…so the Uk government set 4.2 ish pounds to be backed by 1 Troy ounce of gold for every £4.2 pounds in circulation it either has the silver and gold content in coins equivalent to the value of 1 Troy ounce or gold or for every 4.2 pounds of bank notes issues the Bank of England has in a safe 1 Troy ounce of gold ready to hand over on request….the US set there currency at around 20 dollars per 1 Troy ounce so you would need around 5 silver dollars to have the correct amount of silver to equal 1 Troy ounce of gold…..so the exchange rate of the Pound vis the dollar was set on how much silver and or gold each currency either had in the coins or was available in a vault…that’s how money worked…after the early 20c the silver value was decoupled from gold and removed generally removed from currencies as it was needed for other things…but the gold standard was still used and the value of each currency was based on how much gold each unit of currency had behind it.

going back to MTT it’s not been backed by a government for almost 200 years it simply was a currency with its own intrinsic value as in the silver content… no government backed it but loads of mints made it and as I said you can still trade with it…..silver and silver have always retained an intrinsic value separately from governments but used by governments to understand the value of each others currency.

Infact that was why mercantilism was born the nation with the most gold and silver had the most currency and won. Infact our entire economic system and the development of modern nations was based on the simple idea that each denomination of a given currency was directly backed by a specific amount of silver or gold.

But it is based on a culture that value such metals. It could value “kriptonite” instead.

The fact is that money value is linked to prodution.
You can have billions in bank notes but if there is nothing to buy it has no real value. That often happned in Communist countries that people had to wait years to have a car despite existing money.

Hi Alex yes but and this this the important but, humanity has always valued gold and silver and other pretty things…almost all currencies in history have been based on pretty sparks…if you are going to get down to absolutes it’s alway Market value….how much can you sell a cup of water for….depends if it’s next to a tap that’s working that anyone can access or in a desert to someone dying of thirst….but the difference is fiat money is really based in nothing more than money market valuation…representative currency currency is based on something physical…( which still have a value based on markets) not making a value judgment on better or worse (as both systems have negatives and positives) that’s just what it is simple fact and can be read in any text book but people who have an interest in currency (which think people should do as knowing what your wealth is based on is important or you could find yourself holding a bag of tulip bulbs)

And what people give how much value to…
How much Mona Lisa value have?
For an European vs a Pacific Islander?

If Internet stops what is Google value?

Currency is theoretically backed by production, when you print money and put your country in lockdown you are logically creating inflation.

I am not even talking about the imablance of production vs money printing/credit in “normal” times.

Well that’s not actually true per se….there is nothing backing fiat currency other than the currency itself…the value of a pound is what the markets decide it is….yes things like production Come into it…but it’s more actual based on how much money a government or central bank created vs have much of that money people want to buy…so a county could be doing poorly economically but if the monetary policy of the nation is quantitive tightening its currency will maintain it’s value ( reduced demand is countered by reduce supply and the value is retained) …if on the other hand the nation is doing poorly economically and the central bank used qualitative easing (making more money) then the supply goes up as demand drops and the currency value drops….this is not alway a bad thing and is used to eclogue growth ( cheap money) …but it does creat inflation and can be crappy for the individual….but because it’s a market in itself without link to a physical asset it can be impacted on lots of stuff….like a prime minister who does some odd stuff….or anything really which means fiat currency is far less predictable than representative currency ( not saying representative currency cannot be totally buggered up….if a nation looses all its gold reserves ext)…but a currency based on northing but the intrinsic value of its specie ( a Thaler for example) is essentially immune to everything other than people suddenly deciding silver has no value.

Currency is connected to culture. For example billions in currency appeared when Western world political culture evolution gave value to CO2.
Wonderful we now trade CO2, rejoice we are getting richer.
More money created.

I don’t believe there’s been official confirmation either way

And, CAMM (actually the whole SeaCeptor system, including systems integration into TACTICOS CMS) is NOT included in the £1.25Bn contract, to my understanding.

And space for 1-2 MK41s FFBNW!?

It needs to be assured very quickly. With so few escorts, we can’t afford to have any inadequately armed. They must be able to withstand prolonged attacks. 24 should be the minimum, it’s the only SAM system they carry.

Totally, 24 as an absolute minimum….

“Totally, 24 as an absolute minimum….”

As is a sonar

They have sonar…

I thought that they didn’t Sean. I’ve not seen anything to suggest otherwise but I’d love to stand corrected.

RN calls it Sonar 270, it’s more for defence against torpedoes than offensively hunting submarines.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/SSTD

Which means the submarine can keep trying again & again, unless you have some means of making it stop, make it go away or killing it. An active sonar can be very good at making submarines go away (even in peacetime). Changing your hull mounted sonar from passive mode to active mode while sitting near on top of the submarine will usually make the nosying submarine move along (they now know that you know they are there).

It does, it’s called a helicopter armed with Sting Ray torpedoes.

In a conflict if a submarine is sat beneath or near a surface combatant the crew should be seriously questioning the sanity of their captain. It’s like someone with a sniper rifle closing distance to shoot at point-blank range.

S270 is designed to detect torpedoes, not submarines. The submarine that launched the torpedo is not going to stay there. S270 can tell you all about the torpedo, but little about the submarine that launched it. Shifting to a land perspective, it’s like the active protection system on an armoured vehicle (if you should be so lucky) or the laser designation detection system on same (if you are again so lucky). It helps you defend or tells you you have been targeted & from where. If all you can do is defend, eventually you will loose (unless someone comes to save you or they give up or you take them out yourself).

Re-reading your post, makes me think you seriously misunderstood me. Sorry, I thought I was clear. S270 won’t locate (other than torpedo launch extrapolation), where the submarine is. The submarine tends to move. If my mention of active sonar throws you, I can give an actual peacetime example. In the East Timor intervention (look it up), a RNZN Frigate identified an Indonesian submarine trying to keep a close eye on events (note: hull mounted sonar only). Active sonar was a message delivered. The submarine relocated, repeat. It was not an accident. The Kiwi Frigate knew exactly where it was. Submarine withdrew out of range. Message received & understood. Hull mounted sonar is usually both passive & active capable. If they arrive unannounced & then blast away on active, you have been pinged. Do it again, you have definitely been pinged. Retire gracefully & pretend nothing happened.

Active will find the target but tells everyone you have done so. You can actually use that fact to hone in on the finder (if that’s your intention). Passive tells no-one (hopefully until it’s too late). A submarine launching torpedos wants a degree of seperatation to avoid ship launched LWT & to give the torpedo time to arm (just like bombs from aircraft). However, turning up under a ship is a known submarine tactic, especially SSK’s (even in WW2). If you can stay between the forward hull mounted sonar & any potential towed sonar, you are undetectable (especially SSK), if you are good enough. This is how certain ports in certain un-named places are so well known (to those that need to know). It’s also the source of a few damaged submarines where they have got that wrong in training. It’s not for the faint hearted (or untrained).

BTW, most snipers don’t like point blank range. It’s a two way street. Any grunt in any modern army can (should) hit a human sized target at 200m. All else fails, use a MG. It’s the sort of range that gets you (the sniper) killed (my definition being 200m for point blank for infantry). I have seen others define it down to 50m (but then I am old school).

Yes I’m aware of what the Sonar 270 is, it’s a defensive measure to submarine attacks just like the guns and Sea Ceptors are defensive measures against incoming airborne attacks.
The Sea Ceptor will take out incoming missiles but do nothing about the aircraft that launches them – which don’t need to come within the range (official 25km/ unofficial 60km) of Sea Ceptor.

Well the T31 is 50% faster than most diesel electric submarines so that is one option. Of course while it’s using its speed advantage it can also deploy its helicopter with Stingrays. Of course there it depends on the helicopter carried.
If it’s Merlin then it’s got dipping sonor and sonorbuoys. If it’s Wildcat then it has to rely on data from the frigate.

Being directly under a ship isn’t exactly a great place from which to fire a torpedo though.

Doh, obviously snipers don’t shoot at point-blank. Which was exactly my point. 🤦🏻‍♂️
If you out-range your opponent you’d be stupid to close so that your within his range.

They have a very good towed passive sonar system tuned for ASW but dont have an active sonar system.

Only T26 have towed system. Not the T31.

Type 31 are getting the S2170 sonar, SSTD – Wikipedia

Well that is an counter measures system. I never saw anyone calling the venerable Nixie a sonar, but maybe this one is a more evolved system and can have other uses, still its mission is making noises for the torpedo to hit it instead of the ship.

24 by the ’30s… that’ll be welcome.

It could be they have defined CPI/RPI clause but they are getting hit with price rises higher than CPI/RPI for some items, but you’re point is valid they should have back to backed the contracts with suppliers, so the supplier can only raise in line with what they get from the government.

Not sure what political theory you think I’m proposing. Suspect you think I’m a commie. Can assure you I am not. Have we spoke. Before? Usually I need at least 2 messages to illicit such anger. Apologies if I caused any offence.

Not suggesting banking bailouts caused it on a 1-1. That’s asinine. There’s a Nobel laureate economist called Milton Friedman. Please go and look at his work on Gov spending and inflation. In short, they’re directly linked. There’s a lag from the time of issue to effect that we need to be aware of but in simple words; the more of something in the marketplace, the less value it has. In this case, money. You’ve kindly listed the amounts yourself. You don’t think this could of had an effect?

QE is actually one of the tools the Bank of England use to drive inflation. They aim for 2% to discourage saving and hoarding wealth. It’s on their website: https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/quantitative-easing%20
So the BoE state categorically that QE and inflation are linked. We started using QE as a result of banking crisis (probably the right move). I’m simply suggesting (per Friedman) they kept doing it and added too much fuel to the fire… other events have certainly exacerbated it but, the root cause isn’t Putin.

Regarding energy, the prices of gas on the global market have certainly spiked as a result of Putin. But look at the trends, they were spiking after Covid anyway as supplies restarted. For sure, Putin made it worse but, not wholly down to him. They spiked May22-Oct22. They’ve been at or below the same price as Dec21 (pre-invasion) since Oct22.

For oil, prices from 2000-2010 were the same per barrel. The RAC did a study showing diesel prices were 17p/litre more than necessary. Everything we buy is shipped with diesel so… that affects the price of all goods. So, it looks like the oil & gas companies have charged a bit extra to cover their losses from Russia doesn’t it? Fair enough. But then they kept it up. There’s another cause that isn’t directly Putin.

I’m well aware of the work of Milton Friedman, Thatcher based her approach to economics upon his work. There are many factors that determine inflation, one of these is government spending. Another is QE. Another is increase in production costs; eg wages, resources, transport or energy. That’s why it’s so difficult to correctly manage the economy, there are many factors, not to mention feedback effects.
The BoE is charged by HMG with keeping inflation bellow 2%. It had only 2 main tools, setting interest rates and QE. With virtually 0% interest rates (and negative for the ECB) since the financial crisis, that tool was unavailable. So QE was initiated to advert a collapse of the economy- definitely something to be avoided at all costs.
Another reason why the economy is difficult to manage is “lag”. It can takes months for any change, interest rates, QE, currency devaluation, etc, to begin to have effect or for its effect to finish.
But it doesn’t take 13 YEARS to have effect!!

Inflation started rising in late 2021. This was due to the global economy restarting after the slowdowns caused by the pandemic. Unfortunately in many areas capacity had been reduced due to the pandemic which meant that their wee increased costs trying to rebuild that capacity quickly. Increased costs pushes up inflation.

Another issue was shipping. The pandemic had left both ships, and shipping containers, in the wrong places. The delays these caused, plus the costs of resolving this mess again increased costs.
Increased costs pushes up inflation.

But what then rapidly increased inflation was Putin’s war. The Russian economy is built upon exporting rare resources, and blocking these made sense. But it resulted in less available natural gas and diesel. Reduced availability increases the prices that producers can charge.
Increased charges by producers pushes up inflation.

Transportation of goods is a contributory factor to inflation.
But what you overlook is that:
• Many goods have zero transportation costs – eg services which range from financial and legal services through to digital services such as buying a movie online.
• Where goods are transported, the energy consumed in manufacturing the goods far outweighs the cost of transportation of the finished goods.
• That your statement
“Everything we buy is shipped with diesel”
is another ridiculous generalisation.
I’m pretty sure the ciabatta I bought from Waitrose today wasn’t shipped from anyway. The U.K. is the 11th largest manufacturer in the world by value, and the amount of manufacturing has actually been increasing in recent years.

Your offence? Stating flawed conclusions as gospel when the facts and figures simply don’t support them.

I think you replied with such vitriol because you thought I was Jonny or was coming to his defence… hence your original “political theory” statement because you thought you were replying to someone (him) whose political theories you’ve already debunked. Am I right? And are you big enough to admit it…?

If you’re familiar with Friedman, you’ll be aware of his assertions that Gov creating more cash is the primary driver of inflation. You disagree with him?

Again, not saying QE was wrong, especially in 08/09. I’m saying they over did it since then, especially during Covid. I’ve NEVER said the QE from 2008/9 was the cause of our current problems. That’s just when we started using it. Please let me know if I said otherwise and I’ll correct it. Otherwise, that is a strawman sir.

I’ve also never said it was the only cause. Just a major factor. The other stuff (which you seem to agree with) also played their part.

You said it yourself, inflation was already at 3% in Aug 21, 5.3% by Dec 21, 7% and climbing by the time Putin decided he wanted to imitate Hitler. Peaked (hopefully) at 11% Oct 22. There’s certainly an argument that he’s made it worse, maybe to the tune of an extra 2-3% pcm, or his actions elongated the timeline, but since it mostly existed before and was climbing, not the root cause. Can’t be. Effect cannot precede cause.
My source for figs; https://www.rateinflation.com/inflation-rate/uk-historical-inflation-rate/

‘Goods with zero transport… like services’. Yeah, they’re services. Different thing. Hence different name.

‘Energy consumed v transport’ – true. But still have to cover transport costs and those costs are passed to consumers.

Calling me ‘ridiculous’… ad hominem. Nice. So the ciabatta from Waitrose; the wheat was grown in the parking bay or nearby park? Harvested by scythe, brought inside by mule and ground up by hand? No. Was farmed with diesel, even if wheat was from the U.K., was transported to a mill by diesel, from the mill to distribution centre as flour by diesel. Distributed to the store by diesel. All costs passed to the consumer.

So I’ve included some facts and figures for you now that do support my assertion – Putin wasn’t the cause. ‘Made it worse?’ Sure. I’d go with that. Never claimed “as gospel” otherwise.

Strangely, most of your statements agree with me. You seem like a smart chap & understand the myriad of factors involved in inflation, but still seem to be angry and have issue with my saying ‘Putin wasn’t the cause, look at these other things’. You said yourself ‘there are many factors’, and that it started BEFORE the invasion, so how is it Putins fault? We can place responsibility on that w@##*r for many things; Deaths of innocent civilians, yep. Expansionist unnecessary war, sure. War crimes including inhumane treatment and torture of POWs, 100%. Inflation though…

Blaming it ALL on Putin, or even the majority is demonstrably factually false. My opinion (which you’re welcome to disagree with) is; Putins war is being used as a distraction to stop questions being asked about excessive Gov spending and massive transfer of taxpayer wealth caused by an overreaction to the pandemic. Much simpler for the general populace to swallow ‘Putin did it’ though eh?

No, I assume you simply have a political agenda to push which is why you’re ignoring the facts and counter-arguments that I present or you misrepresent them. Is there another reason?

Yes like most economists I disagree with Milton Friedman’s assertion that government spending is the primary driver of inflation. It CAN be, in some situations/ economies. But to claim it is the primary driver in all circumstances is not scientifically credible. Friedman was not an apolitical economist, he had a political ideology to promote, that was furthered by his assertion. At best it coloured his economic thinking.

The Central Banks – I say this because it wasn’t the BoE alone – used QE for crisis situations. Without the ability to cut interests rates it was effectively their only weapon.

I’ve already explained the various reasons why inflation was rising at the end of 2021 in the wake of the pandemic ending. And these were all transient issues, that would have resolved in a year at most, and none of them were themselves a result of QE either.
However then we had Putin’s invasion and the consequences of it. It immediately increases inflation by 2% to 3%. But as the other transient contributory causes of the inflation dropped-away the effects of the invasion increased, maintaining the high inflation rate. So while his invasion contributed a small amount to inflation initially, by the end of the year the majority of the inflation was due to the invasion and the positive feedback loop it generated via higher wages.

You might like to be dismissive of the service sector of the economy, but it contributes to a large proportion of the economy. In addition, inflation is composed of increases in prices in BOTH goods AND services.

Those diesel costs you gleefully pointed out in the production of my ciabatta. Well they were just a small fraction of the cost, but those higher diesel prices: down to Putin.
Baking the ciabatta would have have been more expensive a factor than transport. The higher natural gas prices to heat the oven: down to Putin.

You’re clearly on the far right, one of those plandemic types who believes the government overreacted. Well we saw the result with Sweden of a government that failed to react. A death-rate an order of magnitude higher that it’s neighbours Finland and Norway. So disasterous was Sweden’s approach that the Swedish prime-minister admitted it and too late, changed policy.

That you think world governments, of a spectrum of political ideologies, are conspiring to blame Putin for inflation just shows how far down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole you’ve fallen. To any impartial person reading your final comment, you sound bonkers.

Not pushed any political agenda. Please do quote where I did.

‘Ignoring facts’, another strawman. I’ve actually agreed with most of what you’ve said.

‘You disagree with Friedman’. Ok cool. But we do agree QE is used by Central Banks (including BoE) as a tool, one of which is to drive inflation? The BoE do say this on their own website so hopefully we can both accept that.

We also both agree that inflation started pre-invasion, a large part of which was the global economy restarting after the pandemic.

I think we both also agree that Putins invasion caused a large spike in prices for gas, oil, steel, wheat etc which exacerbated the problem.

We start to disagree when you say “by the end of the year the majority of the inflation was due to the invasion”.

By the end of 2022, Oil had returned to around pre-Covid levels https://www.macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-chart

Global gas prices whilst still high, still lower than late 2021: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/uk-natural-gas

Wheat, lumber, sugar etc all returned to pre-war levels and falling: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/coffee

So how is inflation still running at 10% months after the market responded to the short term reduction in supply? Don’t say wages since any wage increase to respond to inflation hasn’t taken effect in most industries yet. I’ve been good enough to provide my sources so I’d like specifics on the mechanism please, cause and effect, so I can understand your argument.

I wasn’t dismissing the service sector. I think it rather disrespectful of you to assert I was. I was correcting your error when you said “ Many goods have zero transportation costs – eg services”.

‘Baking ciabatta more than transport costs’. Yes. I agree. But those transport costs still need recouped. And it’s ONE factor. And since we know diesel was artificially inflated… corporations have been taking advantage.

Despite your claim of me being “far right” here’s an article from the lefty Guardian supporting me; https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/mar/12/global-greedflation-big-firms-drive-shopping-bills-to-record-highs

Here’s one specifically about diesel; https://www.fleetnews.co.uk/news/car-industry-news/2023/04/05/fuel-prices-continue-to-fall-but-diesel-remains-overpriced-says-rac

As you can see, I’m not pulling my sources from one place with any ‘agenda’ & I’m evidencing what I’m saying.

“one of those plandemic types” more personal attacks with zero evidence. I said the Gov (meaning the U.K. government) overreacted (was meaning fiscally by the way since we were talking of inflation). How in the world have you interpreted that to mean ‘ I believe they deliberately released the virus’?!?! Look up ‘nuance’ pal.

“That you think world governments… are conspiring to blame Putin” oh lovely. One more strawman and personal attack to finish. How original of you. I’ve been avoiding using any as I was trying to have a civil discussion. Never said anything about world governments. Never implied that they were conspiring. Simply that a narrative (that you erroneously believe) that inflation is all Putins fault, is wrong. It’s propagated so that we have someone to blame other than our government and BoE.

Regards Covid, I’m not even going to start a conversation about that with you.

You can protest all you like, the political agenda is obvious.

You’re like a stuck record, I counter your claims, even pointing out the cognitive dissonance where you contradict yourself. But all you do is revert back to your original nonsense.

I learnt in the early days of the pandemic it’s pointless to try a reason and debate logically with a conspiracy theorist. It’s like trying to rationalise with a member of ISIS, utterly fruitless activity.

‘Counter claims’ by stomping your feet and saying “No! I’m right!”? I’ve offered evidence to demonstrate it’s not Putins fault. Yours is where? Sad dude.
‘Contradict’ myself?? You mean, I say that the strawman you keep creating from made up nonsense about me is wrong? Pathetic.
Enjoy beating your wife tonight (see, I can just make up wild assumptions too 👍🏼).
In the absence of any evidence from you, I’m just going to assume you don’t have any but are too small (I can go for personal attacks too but was trying to have an adult conversation) to admit maybe you misspoke, and go about my day.

Nothing sets off a conspiracy theorist into a rage more than observing they are one 🤷🏻‍♂️

No rage here wifebeater. Just bored of being polite to someone like you.

As the conspiracy theorist you’re the one more likely to be a wifebeater, and a racist too.
You clearly don’t understand the word “polite”

Suggest you look up what ‘tense’ means in sentence structure.

“Insults are the last resort of the weak-minded when they feel powerless.” – Russ Johnson

If Russ Johnson was correct I would’ve expected better insults from you given all the practice you must get in using them 🤷🏻‍♂️

Personally I find using quotes is the last-refuge of those people too dim witted to compose their own reply.

I’m afraid not. It was used for both. This chap explains it better than I can;
“ Stage 1 QE started in 2009 and was last used in 2016. It created £445bn of new money. That was used to buy £435bn of government bonds, or gilts, and £10bn of corporate bonds, which we can ignore. There were three goals to first stage QE.

The first was to keep interest rates down. The Bank of England calls QE monetary policy for a reason. Buying gilts in the financial markets pushes up their price. And since the return paid on them is fixed if their price goes up the effective interest rate paid on them goes down.

The second reasons was to provide liquidity to banks and financial institutions. This liquidity froze in 2008. It was solved because QE created money ends up being held by banks and building societies on the central bank reserve accounts they hold at the Bank of England.

Since 2008 banks and building societies have not trusted each other to not go bust, overnight. After all, Lehman Brothers did. So they don’t give each other credit any more. Instead they have to hold central bank reserve account balances to settle their debts to each other”
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2020/11/22/the-history-and-significance-of-qe-in-the-uk/

New handler, last guy got whacked by a HIMARS outside Bukhmut 😀

Possibly mate, or his previous handler happened to fall from the first floor bungalow balcony, while drinking poison and stabbing himself in the back 7 times, and then rolled under an oncoming truck, twice. This form of accident happens a lot in Nazi Russia.

I think that accident is reserved for businessmen…
but given the state of the Russian economy they don’t really need them anymore 🤷🏻‍♂️

😂👍

To be honest, Russia’s plagued by all manner of deadly accidents these days. I’m surprised they’ve not banned smoking given how many ships the Black Sea fleet has loss through careless cigarette butts.
Then there’s the senior commanders who seem to keep tripping and falling into the paths of BMPs driven by disgruntled subordinates. I suspect there may be a design flaw in their army issue boots?

How the Russian insurance industry is coping with all the payouts I’ll never know. I don’t envy the task of those they employ as loss adjustors…

Agreed mate, but maybe on my next day off I should cut and paste some of his previous garbage, propaganda and anti -Ukraine vomit, for the newcomers to peruse? He isn’t even commenting on the few Russian invasion/Nazi stories, which is a serious sign he is trying to keep a more “reasonable” low profile. But, as you say, it will only be a matter of time before his pro Putin bile flows once more, and he is cracking one off at his 2023 Putin calendar!

Yes but even with this is probably not a patch on T26. Hard for the navy to accept an ASW platform that’s sub optimal. Anything that can carry a Merlin can be a decent ASW platform.

I’m sure we would all like to have built all 13 T26 but that ship sailed. That said, is there any point in having something ‘decent’ if ‘decent’ isn’t good enough bearing in mind that the newer Russian subs are getting pretty quiet?
A decision which is certainly above my pay grade.

In terms of more T26, even an optimistic view of T31 would have it out turning at £1.5bn (this excludes the cost of fitting them with NSM). Let’s say T32 comes in at the same (it’ll probably be more due to inflation). That’s £3bn for 10 ships that can’t do ASW. Add to that the cost of the River’s at £650m which were only built because of political delays to T26.
The quoted unit price for the second batch of T26 was £750m per ship.
So far the price of 10 frigates which require further investment to give them more capability than an OPV, plus 5 militarily useless River’s, we could have had a further 5 outstandingly capable T26.

I understand what you say. But as the saying goes, we are where we are. My instinct is to favour more hulls over absolute ASW perfection…but its just that, an instinct.

Really? Please tell me which OPV’s carry CIWS and SAM suites? Let alone a SAM with an anti-surface capability…

t26 is an anti submarine cruiser with land attack as well as multi role functions. I think a split but with T31 was the way to go. T31 will be forward deployed largely in to areas like the gulf with limited submarine threats. Easier to maintain a simpler more off the shelf solution like T31 in foreign stations.

I know that the T31 was conceived out of a budget snafu but instinctively I agree with the position you state. At the time we needed something like a global patrol frigate and T31 fitted the bill. By choosing the Arrowhead for T31 hull the RN gave themselves the option of enhancing its capability and/ or building a batch 2/T32 for whatever…
We are now in the ‘luxurious’ position ( subject to what we can afford) of being able to discuss whether more T26 or Arrowhead with noise reduction is what we want for more ASW. Depends on the threat assessment I suppose. I’m not qualified to say.

Of course, there are several levels of “hull quieting”. They just differ. Dutch M-class and Norwaian Nansen-class both surely meets the ASW hull standard of NATO. But, it is well known T23 is much more quiet than them. And T26 is much more quiet than T23.

NATO-standard-level quiet hull can do something. But, not sure to what extent.

What can be done with drones; sub hunting, sub killing?

Nothing yet. That why T26 is still designed around ship mounted/towed sonars

Loads could be, but it hasn’t been done yet. All the ASW dipping sonar kit on a Merlin could easily be put on drone boat which could sprint then go slowly and do some hunting. A T31 could hold a few of these and a helicopter as well.

As long as you get a vertical lift drone that can carry stringray and a dipping sonar….

🙂

I would go for that. If it’s a case to get the ships they have to be lightly equipped then that’s what will have to happen.
If the ships don’t have underwater detection devices then a merlin should probably be onboard Or sets are bought for wildcats. Hopefully drones can be made to work on nicely with the ship.

That’s the problem with ASW work, its a team game. A Merlin on its own is not really much use, as it needs queing into the search area, which is why they don’t deploy on T45’s all that often.
A Wildcat can still drop a Stingray if guided to the drop point by other ASW assets, but yes, despite its ‘short’ legs, it would benefit the RN if they were fitted with a dipping sonar much like the S Koreans have done.
Yes, the mythical ‘drones’, I’m sure in time it will be the way ahead, unfortunately not in the immediate future, there are still far too many hurdles to overcome before we really see them as an asset. The US Orca programme is running into more difficulties, while costs and delays are steadily ramping up. Its not an easy environment to work in autonomously.

So is a sonar buoy kind of similar to a dipping sonar perhaps with less power?
2 helicopters on each ship is probably ideal with dipping sonars until the drones can be made to work with a helicopters. Difficult to do that without more helicopters. Did the old lynx have dipping sonars?
The drones main goal should be improving situational awareness above and below the waves.

What I mean is T31 B2 which may well look like a T31 hull but enhanced with some more teeth!

At least T31 is an upgradable platform and got ordered rather than messing with Rivers (as one admiral suggested) or just getting nothing by waiting for the money tree.

Personally I’d rather order more T31 with a quietened hull and a bigger main gun or Mk41 from the off. Maybe more slots for Ceptor and a bow sonar and FFBNW a tail.

But maybe, just maybe, there is a cunning plan.

It would be silly not to fit things that are sitting around.
Spare space on the ships will be useful going forward.

All very interesting but the T31 contract is not SSRO.

They are interwind, well they were in my day.

They’re complementary but not equivalent.

Agree improvement methodologies are there to improves processes already in place. Project management is there to create something new. You cannot improve so thing that is yet to be created…so they can and should be complementary…but used in different time and place for different outcomes….for knowledge creation that what research methodology is for and for an actual product that’s what project management is for….for improvement of what is there already you use QI..so you can actual use QI methodology to improve your project management process…which is sort of what agile does it uses Project management with a layer of QI methodology….At it’s basic level I always teach the following:

1) are you looking for new knowledge…go to research methodology.
2) Are you creating a defined product or implementing a defined service…go to a standard project management methodology ( prince 2).
3) are you trying to define and solve a problem or reduce levels of defects or variation ( improve) to an already created product, simple service or simple process go to six sigma as QI methodology ( a Deming based approach)
4) are you trying to reduce inefficiency in a simple process that already exists…such as a production line use something like lean..( Ohno based approach)
5 if you are trying to identify and then remove a problem from a complex system and improve efficiency…you can use lean six sigma ( which allows you to reduce various ( using six sigma ) and also lean( to improve efficiency).
6) If you are trying to improve by reducing variation or defects in a system that is massively dependent on human factors..your probably screwed…as culture is more influential than process in these cases and the only really proven methodology for trying to improve a system/process which. Is more driven by culture and human behaviours is IHI QI ( based on demings for the systems and Don Berwickshire work for the culture and human fact ). This is used in healthcare…as systems have to interact with patient expectations ( I’m not eating healthy food or stopping smoke in etc) as well as the fact professionals are trained to override processes if they think it’s appropriate ( I’m a consultant I’m not doing it that way).
7 If you know what product you want but don’t know the full journey to get there ( such as a complex IT project) you can use a blended project management QI methodology the classic example being agile…but let’s be honest that one is for IT geeks.

Well met Sean.

What can I say in my defence except that my childhood hero was the boy in Hans Christian Andersen‘s story, “The “Emperor’s New Clothes” 🤷🏻‍♂️ 😆

Didn’t know the USA is paying the most to service its debts, that’s a very bad sign. Personally I think Italy is the shakiest in the short-term. But Japan has the worst long-term issues.

5 crowsnest vs 2 E2s
F35B with paveway IV with a range of 30km vs Rafale with 70km exocet.
2 carriers vs 1 carrier
8 ASW ships vs 6 ASW ships
6 destroyers vs 4 destroyers with less VLS.
Crowsnest isn’t ideal but at least it can provide a permanent capability. Hopefully in the future drones will replace it.
Again, no ASHM is unfortunate but that will be solved in the future. 5th gen vs 4.5th gen aircraft isn’t a comparison really.
Astute is better than barracuda class with 1 more astute.
Our destroyer force is much better than the French navies, as is our ASW with merlin + T23/26 + Astute being the best in the world.
RFA is better than the french equivalent.
Only shortcomings that are unlikely to be solved is our amphbious capability.

They have 3 E2D, UK have no Crownest operational.
Rafale have Exocet, ASMP, SCALP and for air to air Mica and Meteor, superior to the current level of F-35.

France have 6 modern ASW frigates, UK have none.
In total frigates are 11 vs 11 but French ships are more modern.
UK has advantage AAW destroyers 6 vs 4
No ones knows what is the best submarine but RN have number advantage 7 vs 5

They have 3 E2Cs, of which only 2 are deployed on the carrier.
The La Fayette class is inferior to T23 as it has diesel propulsion and has much inferior air defence.
Half of Frances destroyer fleet had just 32 VLS cells.
AMRAAM on a 5th generation jet is superior to Meteor on a 4.5th gen jet regardless if meteor is the much better missile.
If you look at CdGs wiki on the subsection development you will see why only one carrier is such a flaw. Or look at PWLS to see why 2 carriers is much better.
Mica is a bit of a Jack of all trades and in short range is worse than ASRAAM.

They are not cutting apparently, but putting the money in anti ship missiles and other assets for not one enemy have a chance of invading Australia.