Funding ‘ringfenced’ for Britain to operate 74 F-35 jets

Agreed – the Republican party has blood on its hands. Hopefully though this will provide the wake-up call as regards Defence that Europe so badly needs. In the mean time however our 🇺🇦friend are out of ammo and losing ground . 👎

So not a mention of Germany who underfunded its own defence for how long, did very well out of it to. Had countries like Germany spent 2% plus there would be more for Ukraine today.

… and the Democrats have blood on their hands. They refuse to put forward a straightforward, resupply based bill that could be bi-partisan and instead they add in other clauses covering climate change and other woke agenda items the Republicans oppose. The Republicans either vote for the Bill entire or get blamed for Ukrainians dying. It is dirty politics at its best and sadly you fell for it.

Time will tell.

The mood music coming from Labour suggests they will commit to Tory spending (in the first parliament as per Blair) so in theory if the Tories commit to 2.5% or 3% then Labour will meekly follow.

2 or 3 % is irrelevant, If you growth GDP per capita we’ll have more money for defence but we will not need to provide more for services as the propulation won’t be increasing. Growing GDP by adding people is a busted flush, you get some tax but you need more infrastructure and services so there’s no net gain and as it take time for those tax £ to acculuate enough to build an extra school room or hospital ward the only way is to fund the infrastructure up front with borrowing (which makes it more expensive)and whilst is all being built we all suffer.

Shame neither political party can grasp the basics.

😂Try removing the hysteria about increased GDP due to population growth and replace it with productivity and recalculate.

It’s hardly hysteria, the OBR have said population growth to drive GDP does work. GDP per capita increase will always provide better living standards than GDP driven by increasing population, always has always will.

Increasing loads on infrastructure actually decreases GDP per capita, example a lorry now takes 20 minutes more to travel A to B due to increasing traffic, That’s 20 minutes of unproductive time, now apply that to the 100k of lorries on the road daily. Pretty basic stuff really.

Expat the OBR are a bunch of civil servants who know little if anything about business otherwise they would be in it making their fortunes rather than working 9-5 (if that) manipulating spread sheets.Sure injecting new workers into an economy which is short of workers can increase GDP however so can getting the existing workers to work more efficiently which is a far better way of improving GDP. It also means you don’t put further stress on the country but requiring extra housing, extra doctors, hospitals, retirement homes and so on. Lorry drivers is a daft measure of productivity as they produce very little and their jobs are already being threatened by automation.

What we need is highly skilled people working efficiently. Not low skilled people injected into the economy who will have no future. We will need to upskill the ones that we already have.

So it appears we’re in agreement I used lorry drivers as a simple example as is a very obvious case when you see how many are stuck in jams every day, not a hugely productive job by some measures but the volume of them is quite high. If course there’s higher value added jobs i could have used. But yes agree we should be excelerating the use of autonomous vehicles and tge most obvious example is trains. The retail drivers to do other jobs.

Problem is with the OBR is a government has to listen to them, or they risk a Liz Truss moment.

The benefit of the OBR is that it gives everyone the same independent set of figures. This doesn’t stop any Government from introducing any policy providing they have the all important support in parliament. Liz failed to anticipate that the markets would freak out and that many of the MPs that inhabit the commons didn’t have the backbone to support their leaders (any of them). But then that is democracy.

But it was also comments from the OBR that contibuted to freaked the markets as they claimed Trusses budget would have left a black hole in the economy with tax cuts. But the OBR is also criticise for not allowing for the positive impacts of cutting taxes. To be clear I’m not going to argue the pros and cons of low taxes.

The markets know that given favourable circumstances reducing taxes can be favourable – I just don’t think that the markets thought that the timing, global circumstances etc. were favourable and the OBR picked up on that. Truss was trying to recreate the effect that lowering taxes had for Maggie without doing any of the work. Not a winning formula as she found out.

The problem is that the population is increasing, including a lot of non productive people through immigartion. If we carry on the way we are services like the NHS are going to go bankrupt. Both parties have thrown money at it and it still doesn’t work.

Geoff it’s not so much migrants aren’t unproductive just in many cases the contribution to the economy doesn’t match the the cost of services that need to be provided, we’re currently borrowing to pay for services and theres no free capacity in the service. We need more wealthy migration, someone with say 10m in the bank will send their kid to private schools and use private medical but will pay far more than they consume back through tax

I think that’s “nail on head” E. The population has gone up by ten million in the last 25 years and an awful lot of the immigration has been, if you’ll excuse the phrase, lower end. Families joining the worker who may already be here, asylum seekers, refuges, students and estimates of tens of thousands of illegals. Probably nothing wrong with the vast majority of the people but they are a drain on resources. Talking about the NHS in particular the budget there has gone from £130 billion to £180 billion in the same period, not counting the Covid money and we’re goig backwards. It has to stop.

And we seem intent on putting off wealthy migration into the country. I’m a socialist but not a labour or tory voter because labour do class politics where as I believe in supporting wealth and making more money so we have more to share amongst the existing population. We have the top 1% paying 30% of tax, Labour will say that shows how unequal things are and that 1% should pay more, where I would say triple that 1% to 3% by attracting wealth and give more back to the rest of us and/or elevate public services. The political class in this country are wedded to out of date ideologies so nothing will change for the good.

NHS will become unstastainable with 20 years its current budget growth level is too high and its still can’t keep pace with demand. We need a complete rethink on public health. There’s some completely bonkers policies like taaxing people who get private health care, my company offers this but I refuse it because it hits my pocket, so I use the NHS when I really could be using private health care and removing pressure and costs on the NHS. The only reason for this is private health care, which is seen as the reserve of the upper class so must be taxed. I can assure you I’m not 😅.

Outdated ideology irs right. I have seen this merry go round of policies three times now at least starting in the seventies. MT had some ideas that did make a difference, so did TB. Neither of them got it all right by any means but comparitve to what seemed then like crisp decision making today it’s like walking around in slush. Nobody seems to know what to do. The Tories are totally confused and Labour are led by envy.

Realistically the NHS has had i, so as you say it’s a question of time. I wonder whether part of the answer would be to de- poiticise the NHS and make it a non party system. In theory it is non politiacal but that doesn’t stop NHS England threatening every successive government with disaster unless it gets more money.

As for welfare I’ve seen enough in my time to know that an awful lot of money is being badly spent, a lot of it on the wrong people. Again the system is shot.

Mentioning Defence “in passing” I don’t think there is a cats chance in hell of any extra money for defence for years so we had better work out what our priorities are going to be.

Both would be good to see. 🙄

TUC wouldn’t care what work comes their way, if Labour pushed offshore wind work to shipyards instead of ships the TUC wouldn’t give a flying….

By all means leave politics out. If you had read my post properly and read what I’ve been saying for months about both political parties you would have noticed that I didn’t mention any one particular party. You’re the one who mentioned the Cons. Perhaps you should leave party politics at the school railings.🤔

Fail. Please re-read your post and show again 😉

Yep. Got me . I did say Labour in that post but only because I was responding to Mark B’s mention of Labour and I don’t see anybody going to 3 per cent.🙄

No worries Geoff, we’re on the same side.

Defence is in a world of pain and a paracetamol is not going to help.

👍In a world where we throw money at almost everyhting other than defence your analogy is a very good one. The tens of billions wasted every year is heart breaking.

Labour can always raise taxes to pay more into defence or they can cut elsewhere, its their choice. I’m no fan of the Tories but to say Labour can’t make changes because of Tory policy is, well obsurd, the reason we vote for a change in goverment is for change of policy. If Labour don’t have the balls to make tough choices to raise defence spending then why vote for them, may as well vote for the Greens 😀

Baiting comment. Poor effort, total fail.

Explain why it’s a baiting comment it’s factual the government of the day has the ability to craft its own policies and make it’s own budget decisions.

As I don’t support either party it’s I’m not looking for an argument, just stating facts and the fundamentals of our political system. Please except my sincere apologies if this upsets you.

Because at the moment Labour have a reputation as a bad manager of public finances.

Rachel Reeves, as a former Bank of England, has sought to assuage such fears on public finance, as such, in the first term Labour are constrained by the finances.

Could the finances be changed overnight? No, but if you take the railways, there are massive savings to be made and make a significant dent on £8Bn/year subsidy.

However, the big one is the NHS and Jonathan can answer that one.

My two penneth is that National Insurance should not be scrapped but linked, hypothecated, to the NHS, dentistry and DWP. That’s radical but now people see what they pay for and giving nurses, doctors, consultants et al pay rises will be seen directly in NI contributions.

So you agree. Labour when they get in power can make changes, you’re suggesting some yourself.

Constraining public finance are a political choice, Tories made the same choice when they came to power a sighted the previous government as the cause. Seems to be the go to for our political class tbh. Labour can choose to raise more tax also again it’s a political choice not to, the OBR is more supportive of tax rises than cuts and if they go after the top few % it’s unlikely to be a vote looser.

I would be all for a tax breakdown that was clear what I paid for. Political class like to hide behind one number in your pay packet. They would held more to account if the split was evident. NI or Tax, its still a government deduction, so just simply the whole thing to one tax. The break that down by government department on the pay slip.

A Government with sufficient votes can do what it likes obviously. The problem is that if Labour say they will match the Tory spending plans they have half a chance of actually getting into power in the first place.

I would say distancing itself for any Tory plans would be a vote winner. But here’s the stark reality, the biggest impacts on the UK economy have been external, and with it Labour has pretty much supported the government line and in some cases called for more. Covid for instance was a huge inflation driver, shut down the economy so you restrict supply then pump in money so theres a surplus of cash, excess of money over goods = inflation. Labour called for more money and longer lockdowns which would have made the looming inflation post crisis worse. Now I’m not saying lockdowns weren’t necessary but the dishonesty of our political class is fairly clear and irrespective of who was in power we’d be in fairly similar situation. Now wouldn’t it just be nice if they’d all come out and say that.

Hence why I don’t align politically.

Distancing from Tory policies will only attract votes you already have. Kier knows the battle is for the floating voters. That is the difference between winning and losing. Personally I thought the Ukraine conflict and the oil and gas price hikes was the source of the major inflationary pressures. Covid was effectively a war and took exceptional spending – the enemy might not have been conventional but the effect was the same.

I’m a floating voter and will vote for the party which is making the most sense at the time.

Ukraine was another factor but again there no difference between Labour and Tories on Ukraine both support the war. Labour never highlighted energy as a concern in backing Ukraine. The only brought it up when prices actually rose and used it as political collateral. So again we would have been in the same position with Labour government. They will have hammered big oil more with taxes, again a sensationalist policy as energy prices have now dropped and the 10s of billions energy companies make are made outside the UK and untaxable by the UK government, They really don’t harp on about it now which tells us alot.

Actually the Labour attitude especially in the run up to the Ukraine war is one of my particular gripes with Kier. Those who had an interest in Defence matters were being kept up to date with the Russian preparations and were even privy to the Russian plans being leaked to defence experts and any of the media which would listen. Keir kept the focus firmly on party gate which to me is putting party politics before country.

The issue with oil & gas seems simple to me. Over the next 26 years the UK wants to transition away from oil & gas. Science has not provided all the necessary answers yet so in the meantime we still need oil and gas as part of the mix. Again Keir appears to be playing party politics with serious issues. Much of what Keir does not not sit well with me. He might end up in power anyway and then we will see what he can do.

How it was originally you mean. It don’t think the plan is to scrap NI but to merge it with normal taxation. I’m not sure it’s a great plan to have two taxes – one for the stuff we like and one for the stuff we like less😀

I know but, EVERYONE, loves the NHS and thinks more and more money should be thrown at it… until they realise just how much, this will always be an issue and Defence will suffer for it.

I suggest people should truly understand how much their triple lock pensions and NHS treatment really cost the actual taxpayers.

Increase the Defence budget to 3% NOW! Let fatties, druggies, transits etc al fund their own treatments! We are in a Munich Beir Kellar, right?

😉

😂As a concept the NHS is great. It just needs to be run properly (easier said than done) and we need to control the services it provides. We need some breakthroughs on diseases like cancer & dementia. Also we need to give people more control over when they want to slip off this mortal coil. We can’t keep people alive forever.
The biggest problem is people are not debating this stuff down the Beir Kellar – they are typing on their keyboards giving themselves RSI.

Anyone with a HMRC account can see how much it costs them, trouble is a huge part of the population don’t do a tax retrun and another ever increasing portion aren’t paying any tax, instead are a receipient of monies from the government. So it would be better if their was one tax then put the % split in the payslip.

Welfare and Health costs me 40% of my contributions. But here’s the thing people bang on about austerity and how it cost lives but with 12% of my taxes on debt surely raining in Debt significantly and rapidly would give NHS more money and save lives longer term, same arguement goes for defence, stronger defence would save lives as it reduces risk of conflict. But hey that would go against the illogical arguements politicians put up.

Health (19.8%)
Welfare (19.6%)
National Debt Interest (12%)
State Pensions (10.3%)
Education (9.9%)
Business and Industry (7.6%)
Defence (5.2%)
Public Order and Safety (4.1%)
Transport (4.1%)
Government Administration (2%)
Housing and Utilities, like street lighting (1.7%)
Culture, like sports, libraries, museums (1.3%)
Environment (1.3%)
Outstanding payments to the EU (0.6%)
Overseas Aid (0.5%)

Keep in mind this is just NI and Inc Tax they take 20% off me for most purchases I make.

That’s a thought provoking reply ex-pat, I’d agree that national debt has to be zeroed.

The problem with debt is that it keeps increasing and concurrently, becomes more expensive. Spiral of doom.

I’d still agree to disagree that Pensions, NHS and dentistry should under NI.

The NHS needs reform and they have been put on a pedestal that can’t be touched; only when people pay taxes and understand that the monolithic, trustee overweight, NHS, must be reformedm

Tbh, I’ve never thought much about tax and NI before the recent debate on it. For me it’s all just tax and money the government gets to do good and bad with. And its a mute point Labour are the next government so its staying. But I would like to more people made aware of how their money is spent.

Unfortunately the NHS will probably drag us under. There’s talk of taxation on private medical bills to further fund the NHS and exclude more people from using private health care. Of course that will impact the sacrifices and savers in the middle classes, the wealthy probably bugger of to Dubai or Switzerland for their private operations.

As quick as that?😉

Not sure we are that worried about skilled jobs in the UK. It’s not like we have 3 million unemployed anymore. Also replacements for F35 etc. are problably going to require vast amounts of new tech which the UK are well placed to provide. High skilled economy is what we are aiming for after all.

Nonsense again, rear fuselage is made in Walton Lancashire!

I never said it wasn’t. The fact remains less than 15% of each F35 is made in the UK, as the 15% workshare includes bits made in US factories owned by BAE and RR.
As a Tier 1 partner we were shafted and building the rear fuselage isn’t enough.
For example RR fanlift on the B variant is made in the US.

That is not true. 15% made in the UK is 15% made in the UK and does not include parts made in the US, that number is even higher now.

As a tier 1 partner we have shafted the US by only ordering 48 F35s which is less than a dozen other countries.

Originally, EAP was going to replace Jaguar, Buccaneer, F4 and finally Tornado ADV. At the end of the Cold War EAP was delayed and later became Eurofighter. By that point Buccaneer and F4 were already gone so Typhoon became a replacement for Tornado ADV alone, and Jaguar left service with no replacement.

FOAS was launched in 1995 to replace Tornado, one year later FCBA was launched to replace Sea Harrier. In 2001 FCBA became FJCA, to replace Harrier GR7 as well, and that same year JSF/F35 was selected. FOAS was ongoing, and became DPOC in 2005.

DPOC was cancelled in 2010, leaving Tornado with no replacement. The remedy for this was to upgrade Typhoons air to ground capability with Paveway IV, Brimstone and Storm Shadow, and to switch from F35B to F35C. The latter of course never actually happened.

Using their own ordinance probably whilst we wait for Block IV.