RFA Argus meets up with HMS Medway in Caribbean

The nuclear deterrent is not a naval asset, or even defense asset, but a national one. It should never have been assigned to the MoD.

You’d hope that nuclear weapons falls under the auspices of the Armed Forces therefore the MOD though. Its certainly crewed and supported through the MOD so at least partially funded but I get your point. Its a bit like the old Royal Yacht in that regard.

For clarity, I’ve no problem with the MOD contributing (manpower etc) but aye, there should be at least some funding coming from outwith the MOD budget.

Realistically we don’t have a permanent 5 place, we are just currently in the top 5 of US friendly countries. With the US focus moving to Asia, our importance to them is in turn dropping, and overtime so will our place. Because of this, for our own strategic interests, we need to be more focused on our European Allies than the US

As it stands, i can see in the long term the US will lose interest in us and we will be too far apart from Europe and so end up in no-mans land of unimportance.

I was meaning top 5 as in Permanent Five on the Security Council.

If you mean the UN security council, our place was defined after WW2 and we could completely demilitarizes and would maintain it, no one has ever lost there spot other than France after it walked away from the UN.

France still has a permanent seat on the UN Security Council. France did NOT walk away from the UN. What it did, under de Gaulle, was to leave NATO’s military organisation, and by doing this it lost a number of positions in the unified NATO military hierarchy.

The delivery system(the submarines), is assigned to, and maintained by the MoD, and crewed by RN personnel.
Are you saying the deterrent needs to be run by a separate national agency with is own staff?
Which could happen I think, if that demand is made too stridently.

I agree

“as most of our nukes are stored and maintained in the US,”

Hi Steve

Don’t think that is correct. The missiles are periodically rotated through Kings Bay with the general USN pool. The “nukes” – the actual MIRV warheads, as far as I’m aware, are not. Coulport and Burghfield have these.

While nuclear materials have often been moved between the UK and US by air from Brize, these are varied components, not “the bomb”

“We would have to create the facilities to maintain the ones we had, assuming we have the know how”

We do maintain our “warheads” and we do have the know how.The parts are built and maintained at Aldermaston, and the warheads at Burghfield. We designed them, with assistance from LANL and Oak Ridge. Of course there is assistance from the US in many areas of this exchange, that’s only natural.

If you were merely referencing the missile carrier, Trident, then ignore this post!

Cheers.

No question the UK did historically cause a mess with India and we have a responsibility to help fix that. Saying that, 60 odd years have passed and probably the corruption etc in the country is now more to blame. Like was said, our own history was also full of corruption in the industrial revolution era, so hard to judge.

I wasn’t even thinking of the corruption, probably naive of me. Just saying that India’s (and China, Brazil etc) are doing what we did so not a lot of moral high ground in tutting about them doing it now instead of a few hundred years ago ‘like wot we dun’.

Yeah was agreeing with you.

Although i don’t really think the corruption in the UK has reduced, it has just moved and gone more in the shadows (lots of the mega rich doing business in the UK because they know they can get away with a lot more here) and mainly ignored as the overall living standard of the country has risen.

Have some balance Steve. We weren’t colonial France. We built massive amounts of infrastructure in India. Railways, schools, universities, modern army, navy, modern agriculture and Delhi was the third place in the world after New York and London to have the telegraph (first modern telecommunications). We also got rid of the thugee cult and the burning of wives if their husbands died. India has a hell of a lot of things to be grateful for the British for in the past. The partition of India debacle was because Ghandi and Jinnah couldn’t compromise; not because of the British. So please some balance would is needed when talking about British India. We invested as much in India as was taken out as it was the Jewel in the Empire and we treated it as such. Yes certain things did happen which didn’t cover us in glory but it is a two sided coin and you need look dispassionately at both sides of that coin or story.

Whilst semi true, the investments were purely self interest investments, they were all focused on getting the resources out of the country to sell. Very little of it helped the local people beyond what was needed. There were many positives of the empire, but I fear the negatives massively outweigh them.

But that is judging the past with the eye of today, which is unfair as we weren’t a lot better domestically, and as indicated if we hadn’t done it, there were plenty of other colonial powers that would have replaced us.

Steve investments were self-interest? When are they not? Semi-true? Which elements of what I stated aren’t actually fact? The Muslim empire or Mughal empire that ruled India in the 16th and 17th century was absolutely brutal. The Muslim conquest of India between the 12th and 16th century is ranked as the largest genocide and forced conversion in human history. The Hindu kush is named the Hindu Kush because it means Hindu slaughter for instance. Some 80,000,000 people died in the Muslim conquest of India right up until the East India company took control. The East India company ruled well restoring justice and rule of law up until 1857 (Indian Mutiny) and then the British Raj took control over the administration of India. Some balance Steve is needed in what you say. With some bad goes good and to say that is was all bad and that the Victorian’s didn’t believe in improving the lot of mankind and spreading civilisation is historically inaccurate.

I am struggling to see how an excellent civil service, railway network, eliminating widow burning, the English language, replacing the oppressive Muslim Moghul empire, a justice system based on English Law, cricket, entitlement to an Empire free pass immigration visa to the Motherland and providing an overarching Christian culture to keep the peace between the Muslim and Hindu headbangers constitute a negative legacy.

Paul unfortunately there is an overriding revisionism these days to blame the British empire for everything….and more insidious is the blame attached to privelaged middle aged white males. Study one fact about the worst performing pupils in UK schools….white working class males (fact from the DoE and ONS)…this is overwhelming because of a lack of investment and white working class males are bottom of the heap…The grammar school system dismantled, patrotism a dirty world…But the prevailing views are that this is because white working class men and women are racist chavs incapable of higher thought that voted for evil things like Brexit….compared to the socially campaigning middle class who are passionate citizens of the world and Europeans first and foremost…Perhaps a new version of eugenics advocated by liberals in the early twentieth century….Everything we hold dear to our hearts is being burnt on the alter of political correctness gone mad…This decimation and atomisation of the cohesiveness of the UK bodes an ill wind for the future of the UK….

Err…..how exactly did Britain make a ‘mess’ of India? By giving it technology, good goverance, protection….I’m somewhat at a loss here….

You fail to mention any of the good that we did in India.

Dave I gave a summary of the good things above that Steve failed to mention.

I am not saying there isn’t good done but lets face it a lot of bad was also done and that can not be ignored, as a lot of the stuff was pretty horrific even by the standards of the time.

Julian it is just a political reality just like the class system in the UK there cast system in India casts a terrible shadow. I would agree Indian people are hardworking and have incredible abilities which are now being recognised. I think the UK should be forging a great alliance between the commonwealth and the Anglo-sphere in general. This will act as a counterweight with China. Famously Dean Acheson Said “Great Britain has lost an empire and has not yet found a role”. I think the role was already there but we got distracted by joining the EEC and EU. The role was the cement linking the Anglo-sphere and the commonwealth. I would hope that we utilise teh energy and vitality of the commonwealth diaspora in Britain to help us forge this link. If the overseas aid budget were directed into such an endeavour to forge close economic, political and military ties then people would complain much less about it. If the overseas aid budget would reap more than it sows in dividends then people would buy into it. However, it needs fundamental reform to enabke that to happen.

That’s disappointing…you should have reported him. Mind you, having spent a good number of years abroad, I usually tried to avoid expats. Amongst the good-ones there was always a liberal splash of Walter Mittie’s….sad little gits that wouldn’t have made post boy back in good old blighty.

They always seem to meet these aid workers right after scandals or natural disasters, it was never last week, or last month, or a random Tuesday last year

I had a guy on here last week who as if by magic heard first hand witness testimonies in Haiti itself from victims of corrupt aid workers after the Red Cross scandal

And then the classic aid worker drinking champagne stuffing £50’s into g strings in full view of someone who just so happens wants the aid budget reduced, ready to tell all about it when discussing the aid budget on a random website, I’ve heard the “bragging rich aid worker” so many times over the years on the internet it’s beyond tedious

That last paragraph says a huge amount about your mental reasoning SoleSurvivor…..Many of these things are not anecdoctal – taking people out of the equation – they are fact that the charity world has well documented issues with abuse of power and entitlement. This is similar to all other walks of life but certain things make this a hell of a lot worse. The fact is until the stone was turned over and all these nasty things started crawling from underneath the charity sector was one of the sacred cows. Look at the kids company scandal. The head of this organisation was considered a Saint until someone brave enough to shine a light on corruption. Up unil that point this charity was beyond reproach. What we have to understand is that abuse of power in the charity sector is worse than in other walks of life as people are trusting charities to deliver to vulnerable people…people, some very poor, are also donating to charities in the mistaken belief they do good work. Also charity work enables the rich and powerful to avoid tax or off-set tax. If everyone paid the taxes due then we could feed the world multiple times over and government would almost be eliminated. It would also reduce the number of wars and the length of times that wars are fought over. For example, take live aid and band aid….Bob Geldof’s main claims to fame (apart from some lame music). A BBC investigation concluded the majority of this aid was syphoned off by local African war lords who then sold the food aid at elevated prices. In addition Eritrea, Ethiopia and Somalia exported more than enough food to feed their people even in the fame period. They exported just to pay the debt that they we in to the US and Europe. Both the US and Europe closed their doors to free trade and then got Africa on the hook for the IMF loans for defence purchases and infrastructure. What they should have done is opened up their markets instead and let these countries trade. Aid is just a way of keeping these countries in debt and poor. It soothes the guilt of white saviours even they are causing this misery by not opening up markets because of things like the EU CAP programme and external tarriffs.

Not sure what I would have reported him for apart from being obnoxious.

“If you want to deliver aid do it yourself, its the only way you guarantee it gets where its needed.”

Thankfully most people don’t see it that way

Most people would rather text donate a few quid, or drop a nugget into a bucket in the shopping centre, than travel by plane, train and automobile to South Sudan, sourcing a polio vaccination kit, and injecting it into a little black kid in a village

I’m not sure that it is a coincidence, but since Kier took over all my local Labour Party emails have been redirected to the junk folder. A conspiracy no doubt!!!

Not part of momentum are we Herodotus…perish the thought…

No, I’m not! Next question Bamber Gascoigne!

Wouldn’t surprise me, I think the shift to importance of voters not members, like they did under Blair is pretty obvious now

You can see this in Starmers reluctance to go hard on the government now, he won’t win power without a pretty large number of 2019 Tory voters

Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear, I meant at the government level thus cutting out the middle man. The OP was about those involved getting high salaries from NGOs, I can only share my experience others have to choose if they believe it. But perhaps a quick google yourself could be a little enlightening, Sir Nicholas Young perhaps earning 185k per year in 2013. OK he’s the big boss but then take more middle tier perhaps 60-70k, they living overseas so then get rent/accommodation paid, private schooling, private health care for the family, travel allowance, perhaps per a diam or expenses, 1 or more flights home or to a place of their choosing and to top it off tax breaks. Those perks would easily push some one on a basic 60-70k year to 100k. I’m not suggesting people stop giving to charity just be aware of where your money goes, if your happy with that then its your choice. Personally I feel sad that people are not aware that in some cases a fraction of what they give does not reach those who really needs.

Expat this is precisely what I do…I only give to local charities where I know that most of the funds end up delivering in the UK. I like the words of Herodutus that if we object to overseas aid we should just “shut it”. That’s democracy in action there….The 0.7% figure is made up non-sense based upon zero economic arguments now set into stone against the will of the public. What I say is that we should have a referendum on this issue and see what the general public vote…give them options from an increase, to a decrease or to eliminate overseas aid. I’ll shut my mouth as Herodutus says if the general public vote to increase or keep it the same.

You’re talking government level fair enough

Well we do deliver some of the aid ourselves, through British NGO’s using British aid workers but I don’t think there would be much money saved if we stoped giving money to NGO’s, and it’s not really as simple as saying we can do it ourselves to deliver and administer millions of vaccinations, in fact that would probably cost a lot more, and it’s an annual thing this, in Africa, Asia, Middle East and South America, how would we do that? With the army? the British army does not have the resources or manpower to do this sort of work, and most importantly its not their job

But on the subject of NGO’s I know people are on mega bucks

I said this on a thread last night on an article from a few weeks ago that I find the argument that it’s somehow “not right” that NGO’s employ well paid staff is bizarre

I’m fascinated by it, people are happy to spend fortunes at Amazon all year, a company with the richest man in the world, very well paid staff at the levels below him etc, lining the pockets of the super rich that don’t even pay tax, as well as the entire chain that your money goes to, but then expect a charity that deals in millions of pounds of donations, has to organise logistics, employment, advertising, staff training, finance, HR, distribution, legal, permits, security, suppliers, office space, websites, social media, insurance, data protection, basically most of the stuff that Amazon does to magically appear out of fairy dust staffed entirely by unpaid volunteers

They’re huge multi national companies, think about it, you’re not going to send guys like Neil from the Young Ones to go negotiate with big Pharmaceutical companies on the best price for 10 million vaccinations kits are you, or to be in charge of a bank account that has millions in it, you’re going to employ a competent, qualified and educated person who has had a history in business or government aren’t you, and they cost money, they’re not your fresh faced volunteers going to deliver a few bags of rice from the back of a van for an instagram picture on gap year

When I buy a can of coke i know full well that the whole 70p isn’t going to the guy who put the liquid in that tin, some of it’s going to the billionaire owner, the guys on 100k, 80k 50k in management, the delivery driver, the tv advert, the guy behind the counter, and I’m totally fine by that so why wouldn’t I be fine that some of my pound in a charity bucket goes to the guy holding the bucket in the supermarket, and the guy who’s organised him being there, the people above him, the guys organising where and how they’re getting the aid, and then to guys delivering the said aid, and all the rest that goes with it, I honestly find it bizarre that people expect or want anything different

Love your racist language SoleSurvivior “little black kid”….typical patronising attitude like African people cannot help themselves out of poverty they need some left wing momentum activist to look after them as they are too stupid and too weak to look after themselves…Sounds like you have a bit too much of the white saviour syndrome in you…perhaps you should rename your moniker “WhiteSaviour”. Fortunately there are sensible intelligent people like me that believe in free trade and a hand up not a hand out….

Coming from you, who above is peddling one of the biggest myths of all about the British in India, that without us they would be living in the Stone Age without railways etc, that’s white saviour in a nutshell

It’s weird you being so intelligent and all not knowing that, tell me what book on the British empire have you read where you get that viewpoint? Because I have read several and they all have the same consensus, that Britain never spent a penny in India, the Indian taxpayer payed for every single mile or railway themselves, at 8 times the price of what everyone else around the world were paying for railways, but of course you know that being so intelligent, from the guy who last week said the Soviet Empire collapsed because of a trade embargo ? quite the historian aren’t you

Eighth time I have asked you since last week, how much of the 2019 aid budget went to third world dictators??

Paid*

Hit a raw nerve SoleSurvivor….best to stick around with your momentum mates like Herodotus. Overseas aid will be cut eventually as it doesn’t work. My guess is you work in the aid industry….

I agree Peter, great idea about having a referendum on the issue of foreign aid….how clever of you 🙂

A referendum on the issue would solve it once and for all and we could put all the facts of abuse of power, entitlement and the more effective means of ending poverty like eliminating tax havens, tax evasion and avoidance as well as free trade into the public sphere. Have you ever wondered why Bill Gates likes charities? They offset his tax liabilities (tax deductible) and makes him look like a Saint at the same time (win-win). Also it enables him to cover massive tax avoidance in offshore tax havens and low tax regimes by his company. As I say aid is just a means of avoiding doing hard things like having global agreements on tax, transparency from the rich on what they do with their money (Richard Branson, Bono et al) and having more global free trade, eliminating big trade blocks and protectionism (EU for instance is a big abuser with CAP and China with abuse of WTO rules and IP protection issues, the US with some of its e-commerce companies). These are the real ways of eliminating poverty and stopping wars around the world. Some people are just stuck in the past of back hand dealing, bribing countries to be friends and bribing people to win big infrastructure and defence projects (e.g. France with the RAFALE fighter jet and India, China with raw materials from Africa the list goes on). The aid industry is an evil to the world that needs destroying before it corrupts everything. It is intimately linked to governmental bribing and intimately linked to tax avoidance as well. Those supporters of it either work in the aid agencies, benefit themselves or are in denial about the damage the aid industry does. In my opinion only local charities run by those giving free time with no highly paid CEO are the ones worth donating to. I stopped giving money years ago when I read about the charity sector and the damage is does worldwide. Now I only support local issues.

Dear me, you do have a jaundiced view of the world….have you ever considered that you might be a reactionary! 🙂

Why jaundice? It’s just a different opinion from yours that is all. I state my case and you state your case. Then people way up the evidence and come to a conclusion. I respect your views even when I think you are wrong. It’s called a healthy difference of opinion. Robust debate is what is needed in the UK so that we can determine optimal policies. People are too quick to no platform, say people are crazy etc. This is similar to what happened in the Brexit debate. Both sides had good arguments and people opinion weighed them up and decided that they were better leaving the EU. Other people claimed they were misguided but that says more about those people making those claims than it does those that voted Brexit. Just because we have polar views does not mean we can respect each others view points and try and assert our own views based upon whatever evidence we can point to. That’s called a reasoned debate Herodutus.

A referendum will never happen on it, the Tory government are all massively in favour of it, there is only very small political will for maybe a slight reduction, you’re in dreamland

And you’re in bigger dreamland with this fantasy that removing the aid industry will fix massive worldwide geopolitical issues, in fact it’s absolutely ludicrous to suggest it, removing influence and investment from many countries with different political systems with poor populations and fragile economies would lead to more instability and chaos, there is no proof whatsoever to back up your claims, the problems you’re talking about would need worldwide reform of the economic, political and trade system, removing the aid industry would never in a million years stop trade exploitation of poorer nations, absolute fantasy stuff, and the suggestion that we remove the aid industry instead of just going after the tax dodgers made me spit my cornflakes out

You’re an ideologue who has not presented a shred of evidence to any claim you have made, you have consistently ignored points made to you, and your own false claims thoroughly debunked numerous times, you just ignore and move on

You’re on here giving it big licks for a week saying you’re “intelligent” and an “intellect” in another thread as your sole evidence for being right, as oppose to actual evidence, in fact the only piece of evidence you have provided was that if we focus more on trade it will solve a lot of issues, because our trade embargo with the Soviet Union made it fall, i’ll just leave that one there to think about

You said a week ago most of our aid budget goes to third world dictators

This is the tenth time I have asked you directly to back it up, how much of the 2019 aid budget went to third world dictators??

From the NAO about DFID (some choice phrases):

DFID’s central fraud team investigated 93% of the 429 fraud allegations made in 2015-16 and provided advice on the rest. DFID’s fraud caseload quadrupled between 2010-11 and 2015-16 and it received 475 new allegations during the nine months to 31 December 2016.

Between 2003 and 2016, non-governmental organisations accounted for nearly 40% of reported fraud cases. Since 2003, DFID has recovered around two-thirds, by value, of the reported fraud loss.

Telling me that NGOs don’t involve major fraud…made me spit out my cornflakes….

When debating on the internet always remember that the person you’re debating with also has google

From the same report

“Annual gross losses owing to fraud in 2015-16 were around 0.03% (£3.2 million) of DFID’s budget. Between 2003 and 2016, non-governmental organisations accounted for nearly 40% of reported fraud cases. Since 2003, DFID has recovered around two-thirds, by value, of the reported fraud loss.”

“The number of allegations of fraud reported to DFID has increased, as a result of its work to increase awareness of fraud and reporting requirements among its staff and suppliers.”

To put into context, 1% of the NHS budget is lost to fraud every year

What you have provided is not evidence of any money going to third world dictators in 2019

for the eleventh time, how much of the 2019 aid budget went to third world dictators?

I’m curious SoleSurvivor what’s your career?

The key statement SoleSurvivor is the following:

The number of allegations of fraud reported to DFID has increased, as a result of its work to increase awareness of fraud and reporting requirements among its staff and suppliers. This is more difficult to achieve in 55% of its expenditure, which is routed through multilateral bodies, where DFID does not have direct control over all the funds it provides and relies on multilateral bodies’ systems.

In 55% of its expendture it has no control on fraud…Interesting….

The key statement is 0.03%

Fraud in the DFID is a small part, there is no evidence to suggest anything different, just like all government departments

Nobody is saying it does not exist, of course it does, I have always said that, but it has been explained to you many times of where all the money gets spent and how fraud is a small part of it, and you still try to peddle that it all gets wasted

How much of the 2019 aid budget went to third world dictators??

Pakistan is essentially a military dictatorship, Paul Kagame in Rwanda…the list goes on….

The money in Pakistan goes on enterprise and security among other things, it does not go to their leader, this was explained to you last week, that type of aid is the kind we have most accountability on

You said most of the aid budget goes to third world dictators, please reply with exactly how much and what percentage of the 2019 aid budget went to third world dictators??

Your entire viewpoint is based on small proportions which you know nothing about, you know absolutely nothing about the DFid apart from fraud investigations you have googled to try back up what you say, there is plenty of reading out there Peter about how the money is used on loans, enterprise, buying equity

You talk about respecting viewpoints etc in your reply above yet you have failed to acknowledge any point put to you. I accept there’s small fraud in the DFiD budget

So can you now be a man and admit that most of our aid budget does not go to third world dictators like you claimed?

Can you be a man Peter?

The fraud investigated is that which they have found which is usually the most obvious type of fraud. In addition we don’t know about the other 55% sent through international organisations.