RFA Mounts Bay conducts flying training

SB You will kick yourself for this. But I said RN design and I think she may have spent the 1st part of her life carry parts that may have ended up in something in Sainsbury’s car Park.
Who ever designed her should get a Knighthood !
As for F in Flexible I refer to the light Fleets, when it comes to value for money, flexibility and utility I struggle to think of any design (even the US Essex) that comes close.

By Dreadnought gap are you referring to it being ordered later than we really should have ?

Fine, and so true. I do bother though, as this site is a tory party bashing site at the best of times, where I like to apportion blame, clearly, to who did what.

And BOTH parties are guilty.

I believe it is important people realise that. I get criticised for this, so, just so people know, I don’t give a hoot!

I didn’t take it any other way.

I see both parties as being incompetent when it comes to government.

I know you didn’t mate. I’m of the same view. I was a Tory. Not now.

Yup, same here.

Hi Daniele, I think I’d vote for Attila the Hun if he was still around? 😉

Thought he was supporting Putin now?

Probably, he was a bit right wing. I’m just at a loss as to who to vote for because I consider not voting to be a bit of a dereliction of duty. The Cons are just that. Labour are in my opinion to wishy washy and the rest are nowhere.
Just my thoughts.
Cheers

Know what you mean. The Tories are in self destruct mode, and yet I agree with that faction within the party that sees back to basics, the breakdown of the traditional family and a making multi-culturalism into a god as our core problems. You have to have faith in yourself and your history. But that they have been taken over by group a fanatical faith in the free market and to hell with defence, energy security and affordable housing is tragic. On the other hand I’m not convinced Starmer is mentally sound what with his crazy acceptance of fashionable woke and gender theories – anything for an easy life. It’s a problem.

Used to think the same. But now – late in life – just make use of online access to local MP & observe our more remote representatives being grilled during committee meetings – still awaiting Grant (Defence) making an appearance rather than subs in that capacity, though.
Plenty of access to ‘direct governance’ via online – a modern positive in my view. Avoids the Braying Donkey bit in the Commons. And there’s still tactical voting in extremis to keep out the way left/right faction when appropriate. Parties haven’t caught up with 21st century, it appears – hence all the spin, maybe? – easily trashed.
Now, about the unelected Lords…….

If he gives defence the consideration it deserves! Yes!!

I will save my labour bashing for if they get into power and make a cock up of things. In fact I reserve the right to bash who ever wins an election.

👍

Both parties are to blame for sure, but the Conservatives have been in power for most of the last 60 years and responsible for almost all the cuts, having being in power the longest. They are also the current government in power during the point of maximum risk in decades following Russia attack on Ukraine and have done nothing. They might not be the only ones to blame but they do deserve the kicking they get.

The worst decision was browns decision to move trident into the core budget without fully funding the move.

Edit: doing some light research and not sure the core budget story is completely the full story. Based on what I read it was still used to calculate the nato target, so not sure we would be any different now if it wasn’t moved.

I think moving Trident to the core budget was Osbourne!

Your right, I thought it was labour but it wasn’t.

Either way not actually sure it made any difference reading how it worked before. Hard to know without going into an alterative reality.

Agree on the Conservatives, I’m not defending them. There is uncertainty on the Trident into core business, whether it is actually a thing or not.
But if it’s true, it’s the biggest issue facing defence. And it was under Osborne and SDSR2010, not the previous Brown government.

Going to have to disagree with you on this one. One of the worst defence decisions in the last 60 years was the withdrawal from East of Suez under Labour.

It was because of that decision that the cuts when the Cold War ended were so bad.

If your going that far back you may as well look at Churchill being a drunken mess after ww2 and giving up the empire to the US demands and Poland to Russia.

All party’s have the same virus

I think Fort George being scrapped tops Largs Bay for worst Tory Naval defence cut.

agreed, and it really shows now!

LOL. So many to choose from. I’m drawn to Rodney’s pick of the subs, but at the last minute I veer towards the ballsed-up batch 1 of the T26s. The combination of cutting T45s to accelerate the T26, followed by so much delay that the cut was wasted and five interim OPVs needed to be ordered to cover the build gap, then the monumentally slow build that added maybe £300m per ship, the loss of a frigate factory and the phenominal cost of T23 life extension. And that’s doesn’t include the military effects of the current frigate gap, soon to be followed by an ASW gap to come. All from just not stumping up for 13 T26s promptly. We’d have saved billions.

The subs fiasco is still running its way out. My greatest fear is what the hell do we do if we have to refuel another Vanguard ! Covering that extra 7 year unscheduled refit with just 3 boats may yet kick us in the (insert own word).

something that is biting us back

Basically anything after 2008 was idiotic.. that was the point anyone with an ounce of understanding knew the peace dividend. Was over…before then I sort of forgive as you could not really sea that china and Russia had set their sights on conflict with the west.

My issue is not so much party but context…and the Labour Party cuts tended to be in a context that was more benign. So for me I put the weight of the blame on the conservatives party simply because of timing and the fact they have been in power at the point the geopolitical and geostrategic risks changed…but they kept on the peace dividend track..

sit back Daniele and supportive and let me bore you with my geopolitical risk and context rant..

for me I would divide the modern ( post Cold War ) world into a number of risk based segments..now I’m ignoring the war on terror as I consider that slightly different to the existential risk of peer state on state or power block on power block warfare.

1992-2000…essentially this is full on peace dividend end of history time…the west thought it had won and both china and Russia seemed to be coming on side…the only remaining geopolitical risks seemed to be…iran and North Korea which were limited…these are the draw down years and all cuts apart from some core capabilities were essentially acceptable within the risks..and infact we needed to move from a 5.5% GDP to a full low risk peace time GDP of 2.5%..and this was what happened. Call this a totally benign risk in which we had far to late a military for the risk at that time.

2001-2008..this was a time when we really needed to admit that the end of history was not happening…and a reasonable defence posture was needed..in this time Putin came to power as president with some Cold War shenanigans, declaring war on Chechen separatists and 9/11 happened as did the war on terror…essentially maintaining 2.5% gdp on defence spending was important put it dropped down to 2.3-2.4% so a bit shit but not a catastrophe mistake. This is a low risk time in which our military capacity was just about balanced against risk. The three type 23s were decommissioned in this risk zone..so although a waste not profoundly stupid against the risk profile.

2008-2010 this is the period in which out military spending and investment and the risk goes out of kilter a bit and early signs are ignored ….this period saw Russia invade another sovereign nation for no reason other than its near aboard policy and china adopting the 9 dashed line in the South China Sea in 2009….with Russia then interfering in European nations and China investing Xi as its leader in 2013 ( a true believer in the destiny of China and the CCP)…the 2008 defence plan was to focused on anti terror and Afghanistan and Iraq and did not identified the rising threats of china and Russia…but it was still early and defence spending was at 2.5% so was tabbing with risk..even if some decisions were not the best.

2010-2013..I consider this to be the first time that HMG unforgivably ignored what was happening…we had just seen Russia invade a nation in 2008 and China basically say it owned the whole of the South China Sea….the geopolitical picture was coming unstable and unstuck…we needed at this point to show resolve and deterrent…as we started to see the possibility of a multi polar world…what we got was the 2010 defence review..the most damaging and poorly informed in modern times…tied into a let’s be friends with china and Russian policy…this is when the risk vs armed forces investment hits amber for me..defence spending should have gone up in 2010 to around 3% to match the risks..instead it dropped to 2.2%..

2014 to 2022..these are the years we should have done something…Russian initiated a war in Europe..China begin its mad desk to rearm and started blatantly preparing to invade Taiwan as well as both Russia and china starting major political warfare operations against the west..at this point all indications are that we are heading to a major war within a decade. The risk goes to red…at this point we should have been returning to a Cold War deterrent spending or 4-5% of GDP..instead the govern drops it to the lowest it had ever been before in the modern age 2.1%…this was as far as I’m considering possibly one of the single biggest strategic mistakes made by this nation (and other western nations) and may have just cemented us into a road to war…to have cashed into the peace dividend in 2010 was profoundly stupid..to have then done the same again in 2014-2022 was unforgivable…( and I suspect history will not forget…I hope not but i suspect).

2022-onward…Russian has undertaken a full scale invasion of destruction against a European democracy while threading the Uk and other western nations with nuclear strikes..china has made a clear statement it will be going to war and will be reunited with Taiwan and will go to war with anyone who try’s to prevent that…its even given a timescale and is now spending around 17% of its GDP on offence….we are still spending 2.2-2.3% with no crash preparations for war as a final deterrence…when the risk says we should be matching our hight of Cold War spending at 6%….

so I agree both are bad..the problem is the Conservative Party have been bad at the point we started hitting indicators for war…the Labour Party made cuts in a benign environment…so one I think made decisions I did not agree with but the other I consider criminally incompetent at best.

You are ignoring context for 2010. Tories came into power and had to make cuts somewhere.

Not sure context is enough justification for cuts anyway.

Labour 97-2010 were terrible with defence. The Navy and RAF were cut in half. The only reason the army didn’t suffer a similar fate is because of Afghanistan and Iraq, but their AFV fleet was messed up.

Agree. This is what I keep on about here, but Jonathans post is, as always, spot on.

I don’t disagree Louis cuts had to be made…but it’s governments job to review the risk and decide when and what could and should be cut or expanded…and they new the geopolitical situation in 2010..they knew the developing risks and the still cut..and decided to go for a win our enemies over policy….I can see why, I did not agree but I could see why…by 2014-2016 any sane assessment of the risk was that we were heading to a potential major war and the only way to prevent this was massive investment in deterrence….when looking at risk you must alway manage what you will pay in mitigation vs your ability to take the outcome if that risk is realised…if it’s a catastrophic outcome you cannot take you simply have to accept that you will “pay” and suffer the balancing consequences of other risk ( like a bit of an economic hit or tax rise) and a world war is not an outcome we could allow to occur..therefore I do not forgive the conservative governments from 2014 onwards…as I said 2010-2013 for me was an amber risk and therefore I think the decision was wrong around cutting defence spending but I can just see a balance….from 2014 onward it’s been profoundly foolish….cuts before 2010 were silly and poorly thought out..cuts before 2014 were starting to ignore some of the issues…after 2014 any action other than significant regeneration and a planned development of defence budget close to Cold War levels ( depending on how the risks further developed) was criminally incompetence or wilful negligence….the context of the catastrophic risk is always everything…limited risk can always be accepted ( such as a slight reduction in growth etc) if you manage the catastrophic risk…we can bargain our way out of that truth, but if that catastrophe risk gets realised and we end up in a world war no one will forgive or forget the conservative government.

finally after 2022, this government should have immediately undertaken a crash rearmament…the reality is war of some kind is now almost inevitable….with either Russia, china or potentially both…infact the worst potential realistic case is now the west fighting a war with china, Russia, Iran and North Korea all at the same time….the only way to prevent that is to undertake the largest programme of deterrence we can conceive of plan and fund.

What changes had happened in the world by the time Labour got to power?

When they options for change and front line first identified the right number of escorts, fast jet squadrons, submarines etc. that we needed. The world didn’t get any less dangerous after front line first and from that point on just got more and more dangerous.

If a minimum number of escorts, subs and fast jet squadrons was identified, and the world didn’t get any safer, how are the cuts justifiable?

And although the army was reduced to 82k in 2010, by 2014 it no longer had to maintain 10k troops in Afghanistan so became way more effective despite the cuts.

Louis the geopolitical risk post 2010 was profoundly different pre 2010.that is a simple fact of history….I don’t disagree the management of defence by Labour in the 2000s was poor..but that is it…that was a political choice against the risks of the time….the 2.1% defence budget set by the conservative governments across the 2010s when everyone could see we had returned to a multi polar Cold War world was profundity unacceptable and criminal….sadly that’s because none of our political classes would accept the peace dividend was over…infact they still don’t seem to have got it..,as I’m not seeing either party pledging a 4-5% defence budget.

let me be clear…I know if a Labour government had come into power in the 2010s they would have followed the same policy of the Conservative Party..I’m not so silly to think the Labour Party would have moved to a 4% defence budget in 2014….But in the end I alway place the blame on those who have the power and actually make the decisions….

Ignore 2010 for a second, what changed between Options for change and Frontline first, and Labour coming into power in 97?

The answer is nothing. The geopolitical situation was the same and only got more dangerous from then on.

Frontline first identified the minimum number of everything needed. Labour then cut the RAF and RN in half. How is that justifiable?

The army might’ve survived in terms of numbers, in equipment it didn’t. What did Labour actually order for the army that wasn’t a UOR?

They let down industry at the same time causing the closure of Leeds, Swan Hunter and forcing VT and BAE to merge.

A 4-5% budget is not going to happen. We cannot afford to spend £120b on the armed forces.

I will ask you one question..could we anymore afford a defence budget of 5% in 1970- 1990..no we could not..sometime you simply have to spend what the need dictates…and if the world becomes so deadly that we need to spend 5% GDP to defend ourselves then that is what we will end up spending.

again I will say fundamentally you have to look at decisions based around risk and we did not face any existential risks from 1997 until some time into the first/second decade of the 21c.

If we look at the major changes in defence spending from 1980 to 91 defence spending was generally around the 5%…from the end of the USSR in 1991 to 1997 and the new Labour government defence spending was on a permanent downward trajectory to 2.7% in 1997 so in six years the conservative government of the time essentially halved the budget….this is was the bulk of the peace dividend….as we know a lot of effects from reduced budgets come later down the line as equipment comes up for replacement…so much of what happened post 1997 was still related to those first six years of peace dividend draw down..from 1997 the Labour Party drew the defence budget down to 2.5% in 1998 and it essentially stayed on or around that figure for the entire administration…as I noted I think there was a change in geopolitical risk from 2008 so I think the Labour Party should have been reacting to that early indication..but a big indicator came in 2010 with huge indicators from 2014 and instead of reacting to that the conservative government at the time drew down defence budget even further to about 2.3% to make matters even worse the incompetence Cameron then dropped it to 2.1%.. this drop to its lowest ever occurred in 2015 when Cameron was voted in for his second term and just after Russia invaded a sovereign European democracy…..

So I think you have a couple of flawed assumptions…

The large hit to the forces from 1997 was not driven by Labour cutting the defence budge..as they essentially held the budge close to what was inherited..it was due to two factors

1) the fact that from 1992 to 1997 the defence budge went from tracking at around 4-5% to 2.5% and a Thats meant there were always going to major cuts after 1997 due to this peace divided draw down…effectively the forces in 1997 had not been drawn down to their peace dividend size and that would not occur for a number of years..as the true effect of a 2.5% budget hit in.

2) HMG was committing itself to the U.S. war on terror that reframed the defence budget for over a decade.

so to be clear I have beef with the major government for making the massive peace dividend cuts or the Labour Party of for reshaping the forces available to the peace dividend budge…I think they both cut to deeply and it should have been maintained at around 3%…but it was a political decision from both parties I accept…

what I think was profoundly wrong was the Cameron governments recutting of a further dividend down to 2.1% at the same time as war in Europe, war in the pacific and a new Cold War all kicked off…and they should have been moving to 3%+ that was not a rational political decision I did not agree with it was gross incompetence or negligence.

I also think the reaction of the later conservatives governments has been woefully inadequate…after 2022 we really know we are heading to a possible world war and war in either Europe or the pacific is likely….but what have they done moved the defence budget to 2.3%….now I’m not saying Labour would have been any better and I’m not seeing Labour say they will bring the budge to 3-4%…but and this is the big one..it was the Conservative Party in power at that time so they get the sole blame..with power comes accountability and responsibility.

As always, a great post. This should be given to the newspapers mate. Seriously.

Pretty much.

To be fair your an ex Soldier weren’t you taught to shoot your immediate threat ?
If you consider Politicians are the worst enemies of U.K. defence then everyone’s just doing the same,
Target may change next year 🤔

I’m an ex Soldier? Wrong bloke mate.
They are the worst enemies of defence, agree there.

“Targets will fall when hit”.
“10 rounds in your own time”
“READY”

Stretched. Main gun, Goalkeeper CIWS, Harpoon, Seawolf, plus the CSSM EW/Sigint fits. Loved them.

Going onboard a B3 was a post-Falklands lesson in the extreme. Felt you barely had room to squeeze between the weapon systems.

Probably should have kept the 3 T23s in 2005 and binned the T22s…silly decision making by the sounds of it.

It was all to do with swerving some short term refit costs.

Of course it was…how much has that whole in year budget nonsense cost in the end….in year accounting is one of the worst barriers to good decision making in government and it’s executive agencies to be honest….

Agreed. There is so little incentive to make savings or to hold out in negotiations…..the other side know your back is aging the timeline wall so they can play musical arguments until you have to fold your hand.

It’s even worse than that…I’ve had budgets that I’ve had to spend in year..but I’ve known that it’s not really possible to get a service that works until the year after…so I have to spend the money on something a bit shite or loss the budge..since my job is to get the best I can for my population I of course go with the shite option as it’s better than nothing..when what I should have done is waited for a bit or tapered the budget in……then there is the “got money this year”…but we cannot tell you of there will be money next year…because that really works…or they tell you, you have a budget for this year of x millions but they tell you in October..and expect you to spend it by December….

I totally agree with your sentiments Frank, a very frightening prospect awaits.