Reform UK leader Nigel Farage launched his party’s election manifesto, titled “Our Contract with You,” with a pledge to recruit 30,000 personnel to the British Army, aiming to restore its strength to 100,000 troops.
Speaking at a community centre in South Wales, Farage also advocated for increasing defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, with a goal of reaching 3% as soon as possible.
“I can’t think the world has been in a more perilous place at any point in my lifetime,” he stated, noting that he was born after the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Farage criticised the Conservative Party’s idea of reintroducing a form of National Service, instead proposing the recruitment of 30,000 full-time personnel.
“Frankly, this barmy idea of saying ‘we’re going back to National Service’ – ‘Oh no we’re not, all we’re going to do is take 30,000 young people and, at vast expense, give them a year’s training’… Let’s actually recruit 30,000 people full-time to be in the services,” Farage said.
Key Defence Policies from the Reform UK Manifesto
- Increase Defence Spending: “Increase Defence Spending to 2.5% of National GDP by year 3, then 3% within 6 years. This will increase the size and capacity of our armed forces and ensure our lead role in NATO. It will also improve equipment, quality of life for services personnel and boost morale in military communities.”
- Urgent Pay Review: “Increase basic pay across our armed forces to boost recruitment and retention. It is unacceptable that a private soldier is paid less than an Amazon worker.”
- Armed Forces Justice Bill: “Introduce new Armed Forces Justice Bill to protect our servicemen and women on active duty inside and outside the UK from civil law and human rights lawyers. The bill will also create an armed forces watchdog to fast-track complaints and appeals in housing and welfare.”
- Veterans’ Department: “New, Dedicated Ministerial Department for Veterans. A properly funded and resourced whole department is essential to guarantee no veteran goes without and that our former servicemen and women play a leading role in our society and economy.”
- Recruitment: “Recruit 30,000 for the army. Military national service for 30,000 young people for one year is not the answer. We need to recruit 30,000 to join the army full time.”
- Defence Manufacturing and Technology: “Regenerate Britain’s Defence Manufacturing and Technology. Introduce incentives and tax breaks to boost the UK defence industry. Improve equipment self-sufficiency and manufacture world class products for export.”
- Defence Procurement: “Reform Defence Procurement. Launch a Joint Acquisition Corp to ensure world class procurement. The Ministry of Defence must listen to soldiers on the front line and ensure they get the equipment they need.”
- Education for Military Personnel: “Education for Military Personnel. Free education both during and after service is vital to ensure a successful return to civilian life.”
Farage positioned Reform UK as a party with clear beliefs, in contrast to what he described as the internal discord within the Conservative Party. He expressed confidence that Reform UK could become a real opposition to a Labour government, asserting that his party knows what it stands for.
Easy to say. Recruit an extra 30,000. Doing it, and funding it is another story all totogether. But partys like Reform don’t really have to take responsibility for what they say.
They do if people stop voting for parties that cut, cut and cut defence (and everything else that matters) while raising tax to pay for the unemployment they create, the immigration they encourage. Funding it is EASY, if we buy their uniforms, their guns, their ammunition, their tanks, helicopters, radios etc etc et from UK manufacturers and insist those manufacturers use British made machine tools and British produced components we will go from 20% of the working age population not working to genuine full employment with the corresponding cuts i disability pensions, unemployment benefits, policing costs and the rise in tax income. It is Keynsian economics and it WORKS because it has done multiple times in multiple countries over hundreds of years.
Unemployment is close to an all time low and employment is at its highest ever level so what the f**k are you on about?
Unemployment benefits cost the government almost nothing.
It’s pensions that are bankrupting the government along with NHS costs.
Go and check the ONS, over 20 percent, that is more than 1 in 5 of the working age population are not working. That you are moved from unemployment for any reason they can think.of hides that fact in the headline figures (but I can still remember unemployment getting to near a million and the conservatives saying labour isnt working!). That is before those on zero hours part time piss poor pay are apparently working and the overpaid diversity managers, NHS paper shufflers, army of tax collectors and the rest that do nothing remotely productive but get paid by the tax payer are taken into account
Tax collectors, I would respectfully suggest, do do something…they collect the tax* that pays for stuff. With you on the rest though.
*(The UK tax code is apparently 21,000 pages long….Hong Kong’s is 500. Changes begging there I would say?!)
Oh the tax and benefits system needs scrapping. We should settle on a single tax, a lot points to sales tax as being the best option as it would leave more money for people to invest or save. The tax rate should be the same regardless of where the product comes from (or the company is ‘based’). The alternative of an income tax would be ok if companies are taxed on the income (not the ‘profit’) at the same rate as everyone else but it would mean less money for investment from all.
Benefits are equally easy, a single flat benefit for people over 18 legally here, not legal here, no money, 1 leg, 15 heads… same money. I hear the screams – what about the equipment like wheel chairs? Well we have the NHS, if you dont like what they provide go to work like anyone else, we are forever saying we should make work open to all.
The whole system can run off a laptop in number 11, we can scrap the other 10 billion tax people and avoidance accountants. More over local councils should not have tax raising powers, or even be able to charge for facilities the tax payer has already provided like pools, parks, gyms, fund them on the number of people living in the area by a multiple and the number of people working in the area by a larger multiple (encourage councils to look for factory sites etc)
Government should of course be forced to buy EVERYTHING from the UK – including army cap badges and to change that from made (nowadays assembled) to created from raw materials mined in the UK over a few short years – it can be done, it has been done before, it just requires government to stop making excuses
Unemployment benefits cost almost nothing ? Are you mad ?
Unemployment benefit costs may be small, but it is the lost income tax and national insurance that really hurts us, with 20%+ of the working age population not working.
While the MOD buys cheap chinese cap badges with bugs builtin to the cheap second rate ‘metal’ that will corrode and decay in weeks.
Jim, do you do a tax return? If you do you’ll have an HMRC account you can see how much each department get from your tax and NI. Pension is 10.3% welfare is 19%.
Add up welfare, NHS and debt is 50% of government spend. So pension is high but its not whats dragging us down.
Someone with 2 kids can get the equivilant of 45k gross salary for working 2 days a week in a low stress job minimum wage job. Work is massively disinsentivised. Don’t take my word for it go to a website called entitledto dot com it works it all out for you.
There are at least a million unemployed and hundreds of thousands more on long term sick and disability. I’ve worked 20 years in the NHS and the number of people not working is shocking. The Spectator has done a lot on this subject. In addition many more left the workforce after covid and didn’t return (somehow)
Whatever, it means that there are many many fewer people paying taxes and performing useful functions in the economy.
A 30K expansion of the Forces seems reasonable and do-able (it wasn’t that long ago there were 100K in the forces) but it would have to be against a study of what you wanted these new people to actually do.
I would personally also consider “doubling down” on the Army Reserve and giving it decent training, akin to the USNG (10 weeks basic, 12 weeks special to arm) but anyone any good is never going to get the time off from their employers (unless you made it the law….but you’d probably only get co-operative employers in the public services in reality) As an ex-Reservist I know there is a lot of deadwood however (thinking of the L/Cpl-now-Cpl who sat down, burst into tears and sulked when the PTI pulled her out of a fitness test for falling too far behind….)
A vast amount of UK military kit is already made in the UK. You can’t force people to work in the defence Industry.
The f35s aren’t, not in fact any RAF plane since harrier. The rn auxillary ships aren’t. No ships are broken in the UK anymore the army lorries are all MAN or Renault, none British,they don’t even buy land rovers now. Hell the MOD is even buying cap badges from China along with all our uniforms! The light tanks from spain.the majority of defence spending is abroad especially when you include the imported components of supposedly British made kit. And no,not everyone does want to work in defence, but there are thousands, tens of thousands of engineers who would especially if the pay was reasonable. Employing ourselves cuts benefits costs,provides business with export opportunities,means in a war we have the expertise to produce what we need to fight the war, it also pushes up wages for the rest as more are employed and provides a higher tax take, secondary jobs providing sandwiches or whatever amd so on. If people read and understood all of Keynes and read history then they would understand that spending on defence inthis country would fix the economy just as it is already actually doing in Russia and china
Our UK defence industry is the 2nd largest defence exporter of defence equipment in the world and the largest In Europe. Its a global economy. You won’t find a single fast jet, warship, tank or submarine that has every single component designed and built in the one country. It is simply not how industry works. Certainly with big ticket equipment.
Oh please, a 10 second Google search and the numbers are there, 7th behind Italy, ffks we export less defence stuff than Italy who have tanks with 1 forward and 10 reverse gears (old joke but it drives home just how pathetic we are!)
Yes you can provided they are compensated. Too many people complaining about taxes not going anywhere not one wants to serve for a few years.
“It is Keynsian economics and it WORKS because it has done multiple times in multiple countries over hundreds of years.”
Keynsian only came into being, Post WW2!
Inflation eventually caught up with it, when the economy met up with supply constraints.
Any extra demand, will end up as inflation!
Oh please, Keynes explained what was happening, it had happened a number of times before! Its like saying the sun only came into being when someone worked out how it worked!
As to your assertion about inflation again you demonstrate a lack of knowledge. Inflation occurs when demand exceeds supply and producers think they can put up the price. When the price hits enough of a level other producers (or in our case these days imports) come in to increase supply. There are two ways to reduce inflation – attempt to cut demand or increase supply. Since the 60s we have attempted to cut demand, over the last 30 or so years this has been done by increasing interest rates. This causes several issues. First if I am a company thinking of investing to increase supply the borrowing costs have gone up and I cant afford to, this means no supply side fix is possible. Second interest rates take money out of the pocket of a small section of the population – normally poor or middle class workers – people who spend most of their money on housing and food and transfers it to the pockets of the rich (ministers, civil servants and friends) who then can spend it on buying up property, commodities or huge boats, this actually raises costs on the poor and middle even more in terms of housing, fuel and food and adds to the inflation. Worse than this the raised costs of interest on companies sends a good number into receivership raising unemployment and the costs associated with that. High interest rates ALSO raise the value of the currency making exports harder and imports cheaper pushing even more to the wall, thus we end up with raised unemployment, raised costs and a recession. If you look this is the pattern over the last 40 years or so. My advice is stop reading the mail and the express whose owners are getting rich off the property and commodities and start looking at what actually happens. Sunak could have squashed inflation by investing in offshore and fracked oil and gas, and reversing the subsidies on turning farms to solar panels
erm I think you’ll find money supply is also key in driving inflation. You can have tight demand but without money supply goods can’t be purchased. Hence why covid was so bad for inflation no supply a 100s billions of extra money pumped in. So you can cut inflation buy constraining the supply of money also ie less borrowing.
Currency will only go up if you’re interest rates out pace other countries, so its not a binary that exchange rates will change drastically when interest rates rise.
Politicially and as someone who doesn’t have red/blue tinted specs, both Labour and Tories supported constained supply and massive increase in money supply. Labour actually called for more money to be pumped in and longer lockdowns = more inflation.
My advice would be to read up on congnative bias, tell some one to ignore any information source lacks balance.
Billions printed indeed did push up available demand while we killed output and this supply, big mistake, but what government needs to do is build factories either directly or with cheap money and a steady demand such as making all public spending, police, council, military, health etc etc etc British. We can even ramp it up from just final assembly to from raw materials because we need industry for wealth creation and defence. If it wasn’t for cabinet makers there would have been no mosquito, without car factories there would have been no tanks, guns, spitfires, army lorries etc
Totally agree with you
I think Count Binface has a lot of good ideas on defence. He is about as likely as Reform to have any input on defence policy.
Christ cock, have the other two ever done? I served in the Royal Navy under both, one took me to the Falklands, the other to the Gulf.
Its a start, a small start, a move in the right direction, anyone who votes anyone else is just a prat this election especially. Neither conservative (last what 12 years in power) have done ANYTHING for our defence except cut it and the labour bunch are not doing anything either. We are AT WAR, time to realize it!
O.K. I’m a prat then but I’m not stupid enough to vote reform so that we can have the most left wing government the country has ever had. Are you? 🤔
If you dont vote reform then we will have Labour in power, there is no way on Gods clean earth that the conservatives will win a decent number of seats never mind a majority and frankly looking back at 12 years of them they certainly dont deserve one. If you want to stop Labour (which seems your goal) then voting for Reform IS the way to go, the ONLY way to go. Name a single thing, one single thing, that the Conservatives have done well in the last 12 years that would be an excuse to give them another go. The economy is trashed, you cant book a hotel as they are all filled with illegal immigrants, you cant get a dental appointment as they are all taken by illegal immigrants, you cant afford an infected sandwich because ll your tax is being spent on diversity managers and pride flags, your car is fined for going on the roads your tax paid for, your wages fell and your tax and prices flew through the roof from war profiteering. Hell even Brexit – what is actually happening, imports are unchecked, exports are blocked and every new EU rule is written into our laws without a by your leave or thought… nothing positive from a direct instruction from the British people, and leaving was apparently the Conservative ‘achievement’
I didn’t say the Tories were brilliant but unless you want, and I repeat, the most left wing govermnent we have ever seen don’t vote Reform. Labour are Corbynite wolves dressed up as Starmer lambs.
You don’t have to vote Tory. There are others.
The conservatives stand not just no chance but less than no chance, a spent and useless bunch of morons led by the most ineffective waste of space ever to set foot in the house of commons bar none. If you don’t want labour (and I agree that I don’t trust them) then reform are the only party with a hope in hell of getting anything like near the labour party. And frankly the conservatives have achieved what? And that is why they don’t deserve a single vote. That they aren’t labour is absolutely no reason to vote for the losers
So vote Reform if you want and see what you get. I just don’t want to see it myself
Yes. But before you voted for conservative consider what they have done for you in what 12 or more years, they are even putting EU laws into our books regardless! Look at what we got under labour, assassination of people blowing a whistle on Blair’s lies to go to warzone brown selling our gold at cut price, the collapse of many many companies including river, erf, foden, ship building, mining, look what they promise already, scrap our oil and gas industry so we have to import more russian oil, gas etc. ffks neither of these parties will do other than more damage. Importing electric cars from china, cars made in factories powered by coal while we apparently use batteries to avoid co2 while they build 1, 2 ot 3 coal power stations a week! Russia who we are told is broke is taking delivery of 50 war ships this year, that’s twice as many as the royal navy has of NEW warships in just one year
For heavens sake Dave vote Reform. I only say that it is predicted by every political columnist I have read that Reform will get no seats anywhere and will give Starmer a landside victory. Maybe you’re happy with a one party state .I’m not.
All the columns written in Tory supporting press like the daily express? Assuming the votes are counted properly it’s actually not difficult to win in some places despite the gerrymandering. Take a fictitious version of the UK, 10 constituencies of 100voters each. In the last section there were 2 parties, party A got 51 votes in each constituency, all seats are theirs. This election the new party comes in, this party gains only 33 votes in each constituency, now this brand new party has no seats but it is actually only 10 votes from winning all the seats. All people in the UK need to do is look at history, look at 60 years of conservative and labour alternating.
At the start we had massive industries high employment, decent workers conditions, progress being made, growth, families in homes.of their own on the salary of a single bread winner…. Today almost no industry,no defences, no growth, people up to their necks in debt, salaries falling, taxes rising… It’s a disaster
I wish I hadn’t said anything now. Dave, if it makes you happy please vote Reform.
Thank you, I will but if we want to rebuild our defences, rebuild our country, get away from poverty, control, being ignored then it takes a few people to read and think anf to put their daily express down. I know a woman who thinks Putin is right because all she watches and reads is Putin’s bullshit, those reading the sun, express, mail, telegraph and times are just having the rich Tory supporting owners information shoved down their throat, the bbcs question time doesn’t have the second place party reform probably because if reform gets in the licence junket will end, those who do not read and do not study history and apply a scientific mindset will be like the french ducks force fed until dead
This has become a pointless conversation. You don’t know from Adam and you’ve obviously not understood a word I’ve said. Maybe you might consider your own bias to answer the ranting tone of your posts
Well if you wont read and try and understand yes it is pointless. Look at history, look at what has actually happened. When I was at college we spent 7% of GDP on defence, the roads had a surface on them, you got treatment at the doctor or hospital, the police had police cars and staff, even the village police station was manned all day and night, schools had books and the tax burden was lower in total. Today you need an offroad car for our supposed roads, we spend 2 percent on defence INCLUDING the pensions, the barracks at Didcot, Waterbeach and almost every single air base in East Anglia is shut, the army is what 60,000 including the cooks and generals, the navy isnt as big as the task force we sent to the Falklands, the airforce shares its planes with the Navy and neither has enough, schools dont junction and I cant get an appointment with a GP, the hospitals are unable to treat cancer patients before they die and you cant get an NHS dentist (unless you are an illegal immigrant) all this and the tax burden has increased massively because no one is working in a productive job any more. This is what YOUR economics HAVE done and if you wont look back and understand then you will be one of the 2 people voting conservative when Sunak manages to lose his seat.
I read useful coherent information ,not biased rants. We’re done. No more.
Maybe you think you do, but the daily mail or express are not coherent information, not only that but they are deliberately misleading. Yes I am biased, I want my country to be defended including by me, want it put first by our own politicians and dont want it screwed up by stupid grandstanding and senile judges wrecking our industries on the altar of global warming (sorry, now climate change) while the chinese are strip mining for lithium, building 2 coal power stations a week and invading the Philippines with our money, Worse is I dont want to read people saying that the economic methods of the last 30 years work when clearly they dont and the method that does work doesnt because the Mail says its that way. The tax take is higher, we cant drive on roads, we cant use the NHS, we have no defences, I mean russia is supposed to be poorer and is taking delivery of two royal navies this year to add to its own huge navy. To think labour or conservative have done any good here in what 50 or so years is barking mad
So which EU laws do you not want on our books?
What is the Conservative Party? A bunch of factions that have fought between themselves to deny what the country voted for in 2016 and subsequent elections!Now what are we left with and how long before Starmer is got rid of by the unions etc?
No guarantee the unions will get rid of him, but if people do the sensible thing and vote for the one party in this election that doesn’t have a history of failing people we might even avoid starmer
Reform won’t win any seats in Parliament. Simple as that. It’s a wasted vote.
Well if they don’t then this is proof that voting is rigged and not counted. My mum used to say that conservatives always win where she lives so voting for anyone else we a waste. So what do you do, vote for the party you want to win or vote for the one the papers say will so you don’t waste your vote? Pathetic, my mum had the excuse of poor education ending at 14, what’s your excuse? Reform can and will win seats and are the only current party that hasn’t screwed the voters over in the last 60 years and the only party that stands a chance of beating labour (who are at least as pathetic as the conservatives with exactly as dismal a record)
I think you need to study how our parliamentary system works, Dave.
I have, maybe time others did as well. We have a broken election system with zero transparency and a civil service that runs the country regardless of the ministers who are in and out of new briefs they don’t understand on arrival and never get to grips with before moving on. Dont forget, fun y though it was, yes minister was actually written on inputs from civil servants and ministers of the time
Even if we had an elected Civil Service system like state governments in the U.S, populists will still claim the system is biased against them!
An elected civil service would be a disaster, people with no knowledge (not even the apparently obligatory arts degree from oxbridge) running things wouldnt work. However if you look at the civil service, what it has recommended and what it has done over the last 50 years we should certainly consider it is acting against the UK and for at least one foreign power. Our defences at an all time low and falling even as russia and iran are at war with their neighbors and china is rapidly upping things in its neighborhood, we are in world war 3 even if no one admits it. We dont have india, pakistan, africa, the middle east (save Israel) or south america on our side, we are outgunned, out manned and still pouring billions of pounds a week into our enemies pockets, russia is still europes second biggest gas supplier! We have politicians clamouring to stop development of coal oil or gas in this country so we can import it from russia or saudi (russias middle east friend) and to bring in batteries from china to make us green (despite the batteries being made using strip mined materials and coal power). These idiots are also standing by, in fact with stupid energy prices encouraging the import of goods and components from china making sure our industries are no longer around to help in war and the chinese have even more money.
Conservative type parties win, because older voters, vote for them!
Because other political parties have to live within economic reality!
More conspiratorial hogwash again!
I am an older voter, I have lived through the ‘economic reality’ of Thatcher and the rest of the muppets, Destroying jobs is NOT good economics, sending profits from essentials like water abroad is NOT good economics, buying foreign is NOT good economics. Reform is an actual conservative type party, the conservative party no longer is. Billions spent on ‘diversity managers’, dressing police cars in rainbow flags and of course giving immigrants money, 4 star hotels and dental care the locals cant get. Never mind the billions wasted on other non jobs throughout government, millions of managers and accountants i hospitals that dont cure a single person ever.
Come on, starmer is as centrist as you can get and the Labour Party has been selecting the hell out of centralist for its new MPs…if it gets what it says it will in the polls you would have 300 blue Labour MPs and a handful of old lefties.
O.K. So why did most of the shadow cabinet support and vote for Corbyn? Why are dozens of Labour members of momentum? Because there blue Labour. I don’t think so
Geoff, Labour MPs do not vote for the Labour leader the party does. So no MP ever voted for Corbin as part of the parliamentary party…Simply put Corbyn needed 15% of MEPs or MPs to nominate him to allow him to be put on the party membership ballot..then it was out of the MPs hands…stupidly a lot of that 15% actually lent Corbin their nomination to widen the ballet, which was just going to be full of centrists.
Of the 35 MPs that gave Corbyn his nomination only 2 are on the front benches…and I think around half are no longer Labour candidates…so no out of a likely 300-400 Labour MPs around 15 would have directly nominated Corbin and of the front benches only 2…the big problem with those 35 idiots ( many of whom did not even support Corbin) putting him on the ballot, coincided with a far left infiltration of the Labour Party membership ..at the point Corbin was put on the ballot paper the Labour membership moved from 300,000 to 550,000 those 250,000 were essentially all far left infiltrators..
You also have to remember that the parliamentary Labour Party actually made a vote of no confidence in Corbyn in 2016 ( 172 Labour MPs voted no confidence vs 40 with confidence) but Corbyn refused to resign and there is no mechanism for the Labour parliamentary party ( the MPs ) to remove the leader of the Labour Party ( unlike the Conservative Party MPs who can and often do remove their party leader)
simply put that will not happen again as all those infiltrators have now left the Labour Party as it’s back to a membership of 300,000 and there are rules in place to prevent that from re-occurring, such as it now requires 20% of the MPs as well as 5% or constituency parties to put a person on the leadership ballot..and it’s now more expensive and there are time limits on member voting to remove that risk of far left subversion..
basically Corbyn only ever really had a handful of MPs supporting him and most of those have no gone…the rest could not stand him..and Keir starmer never ever voted for Corbyn
O.K.
👍
the view of where central is depends on peoples own political bias and views tbh.
Like who ? The library Dems would probably want to disband the armed forces
O.K but my point was perfectly factual. There are other perties other than reform.
👍Exactly!
Thanks.🙂
Most left wing? oh please what nonsense
O.K. Name me a Labour government that has been more left wing than this one.
There isnt a current labour Govt, but all of them, how is the current party “more left wing”, sounds like the usual panicking Tory headlines and conspiracy nonsense about Corbyn
O.K. Name me a more left wing Labour party about to enter government than this one A simple answer will do.
That response makes no sense, how is this labour party more left wing than any other?
O.K. Iwill try to make it simple because you’re beginning to sound like Starmer. My original point was that if elected this will be the most left wing Labour government we have ever had, so the question is…Name me a previous Labour government that had ideas as left wing as this one?
And how will it be the most left wing? so8unds like Tory hysteria to me, especially the nonsense about Corbyn coming back
REFORM=Voodoo economics!
+ it’s new leader is putler’s favourite Englander!
No. If you actually look at history then Keynesian economics has worked every single time it has worked from current Russia and china, Nazi Germany right back to the USA and UK getting out of the wall street crash to the start of the industrial revolution. We started the industrial revolution because we needed to invest in the royal navy and through so doing, even at great borrowing, we created massive demand for everything from nails, food, canvas, rigging, wool, everything creating thousands of direct job then thousands more supporting them mining coal, iron, spinning cotton, growing food. This creates a shortage of workers! This led to wage rises and automation. In the 1920s we lent business money to build new engine sheds on the railways to build new factories and more, again jobs and a boom. It’s not fantasy, it just requires you to spend money in YOUR economy omy as against labour and conservative who spend it stealing tax and fines from you to spend on foreign cars, foreign planes, foreign ships, foreign carpets foreign army uniforms etc rfx etc all of which helps OTHER economies, removes money and demand from ours.
Keynesian economics only works up to the point of what given economic resources will allow expansion. The great Keynesian experiment of the 1960′,was brought to a halt by the oil crisis of 1973, which resulted in a 3 day week and power cuts, and the Trade Union demands of a greater share of the economic pie, which by early 1970’s the demands led to raising inflation, reaching 25% by 1975.
What most people forget is that true Keynesian economics work both ways and a Keynesian will use government spending to stimulate a lagging economy as well as reduce taxation..but then also reduce government spending and increase taxation during economic overheat.
The true Keynesian is basically focused on removing the amplitude of the business cycle ( boom bust cycle and hi- low inflation) by the use of counter cycle fiscal policies.
The true weakness of Keynesian economics is actually the greed and short sightedness of people:
1) conservative businesses oriented parties, actual encourage the boom part of a cylce by reducing taxation.as this is where Your capitalist will earn profit..with the inevitable bust cycle being the part they can then use the capital generated from boom cycle profits to buy assets ready for the next….stable economics does not make billionaires, boom bust does. The outcome of this is that during the boom cycle tax revenue is not generated, ready for increased spending in the bust cycle and as overall tax revenue collapses in the bust cycle service’s collapse.
2) left wing politicians are greedy in a different way..they always want more for the state..which means the increased tax take from the boom is invested in state spending during the boom…which also eventuates the boom and when you get the bust you have no spare cash and can or reduce tax or even have to raise it.
Which means both sides essentially ends up doing exactly the same as the right wing party encourages the boom with reduced tax, the the left wing by increased government spending. During the bust cycle the right wing..reduce government’s spending which deepens the bust..and the left wing will increase tax which deepens the bust..
the True Keynesian will flatten the boom by increasing tax over what is needed..but not indulge in excess government spending ( infact stop all infrastructure spend during that period) but will instead put the increased tax take into a wealth fund or pay off national debt..then when the bust cycle hits they will leaver the wealth fund and freedom to borrow due to paying down the debt to increase government spending on wealth creation programs ( infrastructure build).
But it still flawed becuase it assumes there’s no outside influences. Example most UK billionaire have’t made their fortunes from the UK market, so they can continue to make money even when the market where they live is bust. That also goes for global businesses. And the growth of more countries to developed status means that there options where to live so hiking taxes aren’t as effective as they were last century. I beleive 9500 millionaires left the Uk last years alone.
So Keynesian economics would only really work if the entire world has one government or you completely isolate yourself from the global economy to remove external influcences, that would be pretty dreconian as it would included revoking passports so people couldn’t leave.
The top 10% of the UK own about half of it, the bottom HALF of the population own less than 10% of the UK, so a request for a bit more of the pie would make some sense, I am not a communist after equality but I think such a skew is a little excessive in reality, its not much different to the dark ages of serfs (essentially slaves).
The 60s did what you might look at as rather well, not surprising the Keynes ‘theory’ was only a write up of what had worked very well in the past. The oil crises did indeed limit things, a warning there for us, relying on imports is never a good idea when they can be stopped. Today we have no coal powered stations left (unlike the Germans), insufficient nuclear and most are run on russian gas (hence the huge uptick in prices as he invaded and the even crazier point that we are funding his war while pretending to help the Ukrainians). Inflation does NOT come from redistributing a pie, it comes from the rich 10% refusing to give up their riches to help the rest from pure greed and seeing an opportunity to take more, the opportunity was presented again with the russian war and the people hiking prices are basically war profiteers. Why, for instance, was it necessary for my mobile phone supplier (sorry, ex supplier) to hike the price for the service by 25% when the costs to them of wages didnt go up (they didnt pay their staff more) and the electricity hadnt gone up more than 5%.
Sounds like you want people to vote reform to split the vote because you’re perspective does align with reforms policies imo.
I am closer to reform than the others but I don’t want a split vote, I want people to realise the conservatives have been horrendously destructive and labours let everyone in, buy oil and gas from Russia instead of getting it ourselves and force the plebs from the roads is going to be at least and possibly more destructive, we should split the vote, we should realise the mess needs cleaning and the parties that made the mess aren’t going to clean it
I do agree that tge Tories and Labour don’t know how to fix anything they are wedded to outdated political systems.
“…not surprising the Keynes ‘theory’ was only a write up of what had worked very well in the past…”
Not True! In previous depressions of the 19th century, to the 1930s’, governments made a depression worse by cutting expenditure to balance the budget, including cutting sailors’ pay!
And more untruths of the cause inflation!
It is simply too much money chasing too few goods, including a higher cost of production, thorough demand for raw materials.
Reform can promise anythign they want becuase they know they wont have to follow through on it
30,000 is only part of the pledge. I listened to Farage’s speech and he said ‘the equivalent uplift in the RAF and Navy’ with a policy of spending up to 3% on defence. The 5% government spending cut in other areas essentially pays for it.
Farrage also says it’s not a manifesto as he has no chance of implementing it. 😀
He’s calling it a contract for PR purposes; nothing to do with whether he can implement it or not.
It’s a start, what is actually needed is about 20% of GDP for the next 10 years to make up for the destruction of the last 40
We might be able to sustain 20% for a couple of years if we were in a state of total war but realistically we’re not going to be anywhere near that figure. 3% is okay, 4% is good.
We cut to 7percent while I was at college. There is no reason we shouldn’t hit 20 while we sort out the lack of kit, maybe even higher, sand drop to 10 later when we are updating rather than equipping. We can apparently afford diversity managers paid as much as a deputy y head in every school, a fleet of them in every hospital, heaps of them in every government department for a start. We can apparently afford many other things like spending trillions on banks and giving them to our mates for nothing (of course not to the tax payers who paid for them) and heaps of substandard rubbish from Chinese hotel rooms and Turkish barber shops pretending to be PPE…. Of course we can afford it, even more so if we buy British and create jobs as a result
I agree, there is a lot of waste. But all that you’ve listed will be at best a couple of % of GDP. Where is the other 15% or so going to come from? If spending was 20% we need big cuts in high spending areas like pensions, education and healthcare.
Indeed and we are going to need to chop the mod (not the forces but the paper shufflers), dept of social security (easy, just pay a flat benefit to all legally here), tax (easy, single flat purchase tax), health really has far too many managers and accountants not actually working on healing anyone, civil service all over, number of mps and their pay lots we can chop
The future of British defence with the arrival of labour IS zero.
Next defence review Will be the final disaster for the armed forces.
Regardless of labour or conservative so we NEED reform to get in
Don’t you get it? REFORM=VOODOO economics!
Twice as bad as the Truss budget, Corporate tax slashed to 20%! They can afford to pay 25% rate is reasonable! 20% rate for small businesses only, agreed.
You need to study history more. Taking money from business is not helping when other countries don’t. Charging them more for energy, for capital, and then denying them demand is what kills our businesses. Germany doesn’t, they buy hundreds of thousands of German police cars, German buses and German tanks crating demand. France does similar but with french products. Our army drives German lorries, fires foreign bullets from foreign guns wear Chinese uniforms are protected by the RAF in American jets and a navy refueled by Korean tankers. Truss was ousted by russian supporting civil servants spreading lies just as Johnson was, and looks at history for the other examples of civil servants shoving knives in the backs of UK people.
I say it’s You that needs to study history more!
Do you not remember Red Robbo, from the early 1980’s, who destroyed British Layland? Thats why we do not have a mass car manufacturer any more! The rest of the British car industry became completely uncompetitive by early 1990’s!
Industrial relations with Unions was very bad at the time!
The rest you write is completely conspiratorial hogwash!
As I said earlier, the Leader of Reform, is putin’s favourite Englander!
The bullets used by the British army are made by BAE in there plant at Radway Green Crewe
So adding to the defence forces adds demand and jobs there, good. At one time there was at least discussion about having the ammunition made in South Africa.
You’re barking mad but I like it! The more numpties that vote for Reform the worse the toerag Tories will do, it’s win-win for Labour and the sane members of society 👍🏾😀
We need reform in they are the only ones who aren’t on course to screw the country. Labours great plans include open our borders to anyone that wants, close our oil, coal, gas industries do we have to import more ultimately from Russia, price the plebs off the roads. Thats just the shit they admit to. Labour are a disaster as bad as the conservatives
I think that was in relation to BAE shell plant. the old plant in Birtley was very run down and riddled with asbestos. there was talk of contract going else were but the MOD placed an new order and BAE built a new plant which is now being upgraded again
Glad, sad though that they didn’t extend the same effort to buying British fighter jets, British support vessels, British army lorries, British tanks and so on, if they had we would have more refurbished factories, more employed and exports
Most UK institutions have been so badly managed that we should almost start again. But how exactly do you rebuild a house when you have to live in it? The NHS is the 7th biggest employer on Earth yet waiting lists are long and it’s regarded as “understaffed”. How, exactly? Similarly there are vast numbers of working age people not working, (many on long-term sick) not paying tax and being supported by those working. My own step daughter works for a charity contracted by government to try and get people into work, a job that shouldn’t really exist. You can all supply your own examples no doubt.
After 70 years of anti-English racism from the UK Government rippling through our institutions that is going to be a difficult goal to achieve. At least within a single term of government. Patriotism isn’t off-and-onable (TY Creature Comforts) like a light switch.
Agreed, I read reports (no idea of course of accuracy) that straight white males are being rejected for the armed forces in an attempt to create ‘balance’
Morning all, can we all agree to do one think, not tell people how to vote. As for politics that I would think should be on a diffrent platform.
Yes we all would like to see a defence spend of about 3% GDP. Yes we would all like to see an Army of 100,000 to 120,000 a RN of 30 combat ships e.g DDGs/FFGs and 12 SSNs and an RAF of 150-200 fast jet fighters plus a proper UK GBAD network. We all would like to see as much of the work as possible done in the UK from making the basic steel to the final product. We can all agree that we would like to see the products being cost effective and equal if not better than what or allies and potential enemies produce and sold all over the world.
Will we get that well that is what many of us on this and other defence related sites fight for and hope for. As for the future PM, I am concerned no matter who wins, the reason is simple the state of our national finances, our education, NHS, welfare bill, road and rail infrastructure, utilites infrastructure such as power generation, manufacture/industry base and defence. To me it looks like we need to do a complete overhaul of every aspect of the nation.
As for defence one of the quickest ways that any future government could help the defence expenditure is to take the cost of the SSBNs back into the Treasury and remove pensions from the defence budget into the Treasury. The next thing that could be done is that some of the things that have been outsourced e.g recruitment, military training to be brought back into the three services. For exsample when I went to military college most of my instructors were from the Royal Army Education Corp with us young boy soilders getting 2-2.5 year Apprenticeships.
By doing the above and keeping the defence budget the same it could give about a 20-30% increase in the defence budget.
Then we could also start to get creative, for example the Royal Signals could build government/ NHS/Police etc communication networks, REME could maintain Government/Police/Fire etc vehicles, RAF pilots could fly government charter flights of a government airline, fishermen could operate offshore patrol vessels or possibly tugs. To be honest with the Batch 1 OPVs I would combine them with the Border Force Cutters, pull the SAR helicopters back under government control and put them all under the Coast Guard banner. Possibly giving the revamed Coast Guard the C130Js that the RAF got rid of would have been a good use for them. Thereby increasing man power in times of war but creating revenue in times of peace.
Another example that could be done is with the RFA, Government has the need sometimes for important cargos to be shipped around to do that we pay a private company to do the shipping. However what would happen if we did that a diffrent way, build three or four tankers, three or four dry goods and possibly two smallish passanger ships (500 berths). These ships would be government owned operate on normal methods for civilian uses unless needed for Government or allied government work. I can see a need for such vessels in a few years when nuclear power units for the Aussie SSNs need to be transported to Aus.
Yes there are proably flaws in my thinking but as they are ideas they could be worked out. We can all give reasons why something cannot be done, what we need is for people to start thinking on ways something can be done.
Russia is taking 50 new ships this year, a navy of 30 is not enough. Their army loses 100k on individual attacks and their air force has lost more planes than the RAF has, 3 percent is way too low, we need to restock and retrain urgently so need to be up around 20 or so percent and investing in factories right now. War will be on our shores this year
Hi Dave, in many ways I agree, defence spending would possibly need to go to 5% GDP for ten years to rebuild then reduce to 4%. This is the cost of decades of under investment. The current world situation does remind me of the 1930s all over again. Peace in our time, look where that got us.
I am a firm believer in the “if you want peace you must prepare for war” thinking.
As much as I would like to see that it will not happen.
I also agree that the RN should have about 50 combat surface ships 30 major ships DDGs/FFGs and 21 minor ships such as corvettes and fast attack missile boats. The corvettes and FAMBs could replace the P2000s and Batch1 OPVs. One corvette with two FAMBs to make small combat units. They could be used in the Red sea, Persian Gulf, Baltic Sea, UK waters and Norwegian fjords. Thus leaving the 30 major combattants for blue water operations. In the early 19802 we had 18 SSNs and 16 SSKs, would we on this site be happy if we could have 12 SSNs or nine SSNs and nine AIP SSKs hell yes. My prefrence would be 12 SSNs and four SSGNs based on the Dreadnought class with 12 tubes each with seven cruise missiles for 84 cruise missiles per sub. The SSGN would be the escort for the carrier/amphibious group. If need be they could have tactical nuclear warheads.
Before people shout Noooo! Several nations Russia and China included have tactical nuclear missiles so why can’t NATO countries.
I sometimes wonder if the RN if given the choice to have the SSBN or the SSGN if they would chose the SSBN. I somehow don’t think so. The one is a weapon of politicians the other is for admirals. The one a Strategic responce the other Tactical.
Is it possible, if we go to 5% yes. Is it realistic, no.
The same for the Army we do need four fighting divisions, one armoured (tracked), two mechinised (Boxer)and a mixed division of the Brigade of Gurkhas, Air Assault Brigade and a Brigade of Rangers. I would add if I could a Sea Assault Brigade (not Royal Marines) and a Commonwealth Brigade. That however is only my thinking. When I look at these numbers and remember when I was in the Army we had four armoured divisions in BAOR. We went bonkers when it was cut to three with the comments like how the hell are we to do the job when they cut a division. Whilst we had four division in Germany the British Army still had about 20 front line Brigades in the UK. These were mostly Infantry Brigades.
As for the RAF when I served we had 12 squadrons of fast combat aircraft in Germany, and about 20 squadrons in the UK. 32 squadron of fast attack, fighter interceptors etc. These numbers does not include Nimrods, Canberras, Buccaneers, Victors, Tristars all in all about 850 fast combat aircraft. This does not include the 40+ fast jet of the FAA.
I think many here would be happy if we had 200 fast combat aircraft for the RAF and 48 for the FAA and very happy with 300 plus 72 for the FAA.
Many people say but the ability of the equipment has improved since the end of the 1980s, and so it has, then again the equipment of the enemy has also improved.
So looking at reality the most we can expect is an increase to 2.5%, however, if the future government would take the cost of the SSBN fleet back into the Treasury and pensions back into the Treasury then these two moves would mean that the defence budget would be about the equivalent of 3-3.5% in todays methods.
We also need to rebuild industry. One thing I remember from my younger days; industry exports pays the day to day bills of a nation, services is the nice to have, but in times of international stress it is the servicies that is the first to be cut.
Just to add to this, I have noticed today that Germany is the second largest spender in NATO after the US in monetery terms approx $10 billion more than the UK and it has not as yet matched the 2% mark. They have on order almost 100 new fast combat aircraft, a huge order for GBAD and god knows what else.
Please note this is only how I am thinking or possibilities it is not a demand or what should happen. Yet, if the future UK government of the UK is serious about defence then these are numbers that could be looked at. I for one would make the priority the RN (30 DDGs/FFGs, 12 SSNs, one LHD, two LPDs, UKGBAD ( 12 battieries of Aster30/BMD SAMP-T and 16 Batteries of Land Ceptor), 36 long range (2000 mile) tactical strike (eight cruise missile) aircraft and a Sea Assault Brigade to support Northern Norway/Sweden. The Sea Assault Brigade is to be attached to the LHD/LPDs.
The Royal Marines would deploy on the MRSS and possible future T32s if built along the lines of the Daman Crossovers or Babcock stretched T31s. If the Royals could have three dedicated MRSS each with 250 Commandos and two T32s per MRSS meaning a total of six T32s each with 120 Commandos then that would mean a Commando strike group of 490 Commandos. Just think of the assault from the sea possibilities of the UK when you then combine the Sea Assault Brigade with their LHD and LPDs, one or two of the Commando Strike Groups and a Carrier Group escorted with a SSGN and a SSN.
For me the armed forces of the UK have a few tasks.
Again this is only my thinking, but with the current world situation we really need to be real. If not we the UK will have conflict with minor nations and or NATO conflict with major nations.
Easy to make promises like this when you have no chance of having to follow it up with action, its amazing people fall for the Reform nonsense