Israel’s Prime Minister’s Office says that in the coming days conditions will be created for the Iranian people to “grasp your destiny,” adding that when “the time is right, and that time is fast approaching,” the torch will be passed to them to “seize the moment.”
So today the Royal Navy managed, after 6 days of truly extraordinary work, to put a vessel to sea. The reality is that almost all of the proposed increase in public spending on defence being planned by the government will achieve very little more than giving us the defence forces that we allegedly had, at least on paper, plus, if we are lucky, enough ammunition to fight a war of more than 2 weeks duration.
The extent to which our defence forces have been allowed to fall into desuetude whilst almost unlimited sums are spent on the likes of Ajax is a national disgrace, not just for this government (although they are not excused) but for all of our governments of the last 20 odd years since Gulf War 2 was finished. So much money wasted on a system with more admirals than ships, more generals than tanks and more Air Commanders than deployable aircraft.
This is turning into a complete clusterf--k isn't it?
Bombing and the killing of most of the leadership hasn't caused capitulation. US and Israel don't seem to be on the same page re war aims. Straits closed meaning economic chaos. No rally around the flag in US. Quite the opposite. A senile President. A psychopath in the State Department. Israeli focus shifting to Lebanon. Nuclear materials still at large under Regime control.
Logical next step is invasion. Isn't it? Or declare a victory which no-one is willing to buy.
Channel 4 have found an Iranian spokesperson who is a University professor. A wise old man who sits in a chair and opines. He reminds me of my late Grandfather! He's even got his accent! A very impressive man. Quite a contrast to the juveniles who are speaking for the US at the moment. I think he could become a bit of a cult figure. He's like the old man in the old man and the sea.
I think it was the beard. If Pete Hegseth had a beard he'd look older and wiser too - until he opened his mouth. But, yes, Hegseth with a beard and not saying anything, that would be a huge improvement on the US war comms front.
Hegseth comes across as very excited by the carnage. Like a kindergarten kid receiving his first GI Joe doll.
Yes, it's an 'Epic Fury' computer game as per the stuff they're putting out. So far missing the bit where the girls school was obliterated with maximum intensity but I suppose it will be in the next release. I wonder what the music will be for that. Very stirring no doubt.
Earlier today, writers in both the Guardian and- wait for it- the Telegraph referred to the current adventure as "Operation Epic Failure".
Tonight's summary. The US Energy Sec pretended convoys were going through the Straits of Hormuz, but it turns out the place is riddled with mines. The US Navy doesn't like mines and doesn't want anything to do them, so removed the remaining, admittedly long in the tooth, minesweepers from the region in January, while "planning' (in the loose sense of that word) the attacks.
So today the Royal Navy managed, after 6 days of truly extraordinary work, to put a vessel to sea. The reality is that almost all of the proposed increase in public spending on defence being planned by the government will achieve very little more than giving us the defence forces that we allegedly had, at least on paper, plus, if we are lucky, enough ammunition to fight a war of more than 2 weeks duration.
The extent to which our defence forces have been allowed to fall into desuetude whilst almost unlimited sums are spent on the likes of Ajax is a national disgrace, not just for this government (although they are not excused) but for all of our governments of the last 20 odd years since Gulf War 2 was finished. So much money wasted on a system with more admirals than ships, more generals than tanks and more Air Commanders than deployable aircraft.
Sadly not the case. The planned increase in spend on the nuclear deterrent (necessary to renew it) means that spending on the conventional forces will fall. The state of Britain's conventional forces can be expected to deteriorate further, despite the best efforts of the poor sods at the sharp end.
Britain has reached the stage where ragged holes have now suddenly appeared in what was a threadbare garment and Labour aren't even proposing to start the repair job.
But why?
Britain still spends - relatively and globally - a fuck of a lot of money on defence. We are I think the fifth or biggest military spender in the world?
Where is it going? How can they spunk all this money up the wall, to the extent we can only get one ship out to defend sovereign bases, after a fortnight's delay, when some guy nips down to Smiths for half a ton of blu-tak?
It don't make sense
It's because Britain is trying to do more than it is willing to spend.
So there are two aircraft carriers which soaks up huge amounts of money and manpower. There are foreign bases all over the place, which ties up capability and manpower in defending them. There is the commitment to NATO's enhanced forward presence, which means deploying most of Britain's operational army capability to Estonia. There is the commitment to JEF, which uses up more capability.
And then there's procurement, where everything has to be designed bespoke for Britain at enormous cost and sometimes questionable efficacy.
interesting - genuinely - thankyou
It seems to me we need a rethink of our defence spend from first principles, in the light of all recent events, especially Ukraine, Iran etc
Non-negotiable: independent nuclear deterrent. We could usefully link with maybe Germany or Japan on creating missiles to carry our warheads so that we don't have to rely on the USA
Special forces
Military intelligence
All forms of autonomous drones, they are the future.....
But beyond that, we need to question everything. Do piloted jets have a future? Likewise tanks with drivers? Aircraft carriers? Maybe admit they were a terrible error? Or adapt them for robot jets
Robotics is about to render much present military thinking absurd, the way tanks rendered cavalry and trenches redundant, or the way machine guns and barbed wire overtook Napoleonic war
There's all of that, but then I think there's just a fundamental truth that for an island trading nation, no longer able to rely on leadership from the US, 2.x% of GDP is not enough to defend British interests.
Somewhere the money needs to be found to increase that to 4%.
We need to spend much more on Defence.
There is no getting around it.
And that means more spending cuts or tax rises.
There needs to be spending cuts AND tax rises.
Everyone needs to lose out with no exceptions.
Good luck with that on the front of a manifesto.
In some ways its easier to implement if everyone loses out as it reduces the resentment from those who lose out but see others not doing so.
We're all in this together was a good slogan from Cameron and Osborne - the problem was that it was only a slogan and many were given exceptions from the cuts and pay freezes.
Law show on R4 discussing the changes to trial by jury. Someone (Chris Kinch KC?) pointing out that under the proposed system it will be the Judge heading off to review the evidence and contemplate their verdict, rather than it being the Jury, while the Judge gets on with the next case. Interesting discussion
This is turning into a complete clusterf--k isn't it?
Bombing and the killing of most of the leadership hasn't caused capitulation. US and Israel don't seem to be on the same page re war aims. Straits closed meaning economic chaos. No rally around the flag in US. Quite the opposite. A senile President. A psychopath in the State Department. Israeli focus shifting to Lebanon. Nuclear materials still at large under Regime control.
Logical next step is invasion. Isn't it? Or declare a victory which no-one is willing to buy.
Still. Epstein, eh?
Rubio? Or do you mean Hegseth?
Apologies. Hegseth of course. Rubio is just a kiss ass with no backbone.
Law show on R4 discussing the changes to trial by jury. Someone (Chris Kinch KC?) pointing out that under the proposed system it will be the Judge heading off to review the evidence and contemplate their verdict, rather than it being the Jury, while the Judge gets on with the next case. Interesting discussion
So today the Royal Navy managed, after 6 days of truly extraordinary work, to put a vessel to sea. The reality is that almost all of the proposed increase in public spending on defence being planned by the government will achieve very little more than giving us the defence forces that we allegedly had, at least on paper, plus, if we are lucky, enough ammunition to fight a war of more than 2 weeks duration.
The extent to which our defence forces have been allowed to fall into desuetude whilst almost unlimited sums are spent on the likes of Ajax is a national disgrace, not just for this government (although they are not excused) but for all of our governments of the last 20 odd years since Gulf War 2 was finished. So much money wasted on a system with more admirals than ships, more generals than tanks and more Air Commanders than deployable aircraft.
Sadly not the case. The planned increase in spend on the nuclear deterrent (necessary to renew it) means that spending on the conventional forces will fall. The state of Britain's conventional forces can be expected to deteriorate further, despite the best efforts of the poor sods at the sharp end.
Britain has reached the stage where ragged holes have now suddenly appeared in what was a threadbare garment and Labour aren't even proposing to start the repair job.
But why?
Britain still spends - relatively and globally - a fuck of a lot of money on defence. We are I think the fifth or biggest military spender in the world?
Where is it going? How can they spunk all this money up the wall, to the extent we can only get one ship out to defend sovereign bases, after a fortnight's delay, when some guy nips down to Smiths for half a ton of blu-tak?
It don't make sense
It's because Britain is trying to do more than it is willing to spend.
So there are two aircraft carriers which soaks up huge amounts of money and manpower. There are foreign bases all over the place, which ties up capability and manpower in defending them. There is the commitment to NATO's enhanced forward presence, which means deploying most of Britain's operational army capability to Estonia. There is the commitment to JEF, which uses up more capability.
And then there's procurement, where everything has to be designed bespoke for Britain at enormous cost and sometimes questionable efficacy.
interesting - genuinely - thankyou
It seems to me we need a rethink of our defence spend from first principles, in the light of all recent events, especially Ukraine, Iran etc
Non-negotiable: independent nuclear deterrent. We could usefully link with maybe Germany or Japan on creating missiles to carry our warheads so that we don't have to rely on the USA
Special forces
Military intelligence
All forms of autonomous drones, they are the future.....
But beyond that, we need to question everything. Do piloted jets have a future? Likewise tanks with drivers? Aircraft carriers? Maybe admit they were a terrible error? Or adapt them for robot jets
Robotics is about to render much present military thinking absurd, the way tanks rendered cavalry and trenches redundant, or the way machine guns and barbed wire overtook Napoleonic war
There's all of that, but then I think there's just a fundamental truth that for an island trading nation, no longer able to rely on leadership from the US, 2.x% of GDP is not enough to defend British interests.
Somewhere the money needs to be found to increase that to 4%.
We need to spend much more on Defence.
There is no getting around it.
And that means more spending cuts or tax rises.
Given the money that also needs to be found to spend on the Justice system, on critical national infrastructure (e.g. energy and transport), and doubtless other things, and the already precarious state of Britain's national finances, it has to be spending cuts and tax rises.
And given the spending cuts already made by the Coalition, welfare spending on pensioners has to be in the mix.
So today the Royal Navy managed, after 6 days of truly extraordinary work, to put a vessel to sea. The reality is that almost all of the proposed increase in public spending on defence being planned by the government will achieve very little more than giving us the defence forces that we allegedly had, at least on paper, plus, if we are lucky, enough ammunition to fight a war of more than 2 weeks duration.
The extent to which our defence forces have been allowed to fall into desuetude whilst almost unlimited sums are spent on the likes of Ajax is a national disgrace, not just for this government (although they are not excused) but for all of our governments of the last 20 odd years since Gulf War 2 was finished. So much money wasted on a system with more admirals than ships, more generals than tanks and more Air Commanders than deployable aircraft.
Sadly not the case. The planned increase in spend on the nuclear deterrent (necessary to renew it) means that spending on the conventional forces will fall. The state of Britain's conventional forces can be expected to deteriorate further, despite the best efforts of the poor sods at the sharp end.
Britain has reached the stage where ragged holes have now suddenly appeared in what was a threadbare garment and Labour aren't even proposing to start the repair job.
But why?
Britain still spends - relatively and globally - a fuck of a lot of money on defence. We are I think the fifth or biggest military spender in the world?
Where is it going? How can they spunk all this money up the wall, to the extent we can only get one ship out to defend sovereign bases, after a fortnight's delay, when some guy nips down to Smiths for half a ton of blu-tak?
It don't make sense
It's because Britain is trying to do more than it is willing to spend.
So there are two aircraft carriers which soaks up huge amounts of money and manpower. There are foreign bases all over the place, which ties up capability and manpower in defending them. There is the commitment to NATO's enhanced forward presence, which means deploying most of Britain's operational army capability to Estonia. There is the commitment to JEF, which uses up more capability.
And then there's procurement, where everything has to be designed bespoke for Britain at enormous cost and sometimes questionable efficacy.
interesting - genuinely - thankyou
It seems to me we need a rethink of our defence spend from first principles, in the light of all recent events, especially Ukraine, Iran etc
Non-negotiable: independent nuclear deterrent. We could usefully link with maybe Germany or Japan on creating missiles to carry our warheads so that we don't have to rely on the USA
Special forces
Military intelligence
All forms of autonomous drones, they are the future.....
But beyond that, we need to question everything. Do piloted jets have a future? Likewise tanks with drivers? Aircraft carriers? Maybe admit they were a terrible error? Or adapt them for robot jets
Robotics is about to render much present military thinking absurd, the way tanks rendered cavalry and trenches redundant, or the way machine guns and barbed wire overtook Napoleonic war
There's all of that, but then I think there's just a fundamental truth that for an island trading nation, no longer able to rely on leadership from the US, 2.x% of GDP is not enough to defend British interests.
Somewhere the money needs to be found to increase that to 4%.
We need to spend much more on Defence.
There is no getting around it.
And that means more spending cuts or tax rises.
There needs to be spending cuts AND tax rises.
Everyone needs to lose out with no exceptions.
Good luck with that on the front of a manifesto.
In some ways its easier to implement if everyone loses out as it reduces the resentment from those who lose out but see others not doing so.
We're all in this together was a good slogan from Cameron and Osborne - the problem was that it was only a slogan and many were given exceptions from the cuts and pay freezes.
Alexei Sayle, once said: 'Austerity is the idea that the global financial crash of 2008 was caused by there being too many libraries in Wolverhampton.'
Now that would have been a more appropriate slogan from Cameron and Osborne.
“It was almost as if, for the US president, lifting tariffs to their highest level since the 1930s was not enough to wreck the world economy, so more was needed” @dsmitheconomics
Let me tell them. The end result of all this is the creation of an aggressive "white" identity in the UK. If you are white, you will vote for the "White People's Party", so you are not crushed, nor your kids, by official "anti-white-racism". Thus Britain will become a new South Africa
I am genuinely confused as to why so many erstwhile intelligent people fail to see that playing identity politics drives, err, identity politics.
So moves to reduce the over-representation of white males on company boards (where they're doing an epic job judging from UK productivity) will result in a revolt of white males to maintain their current privileged position?
Ex-lads mag journos with brains rotted by coke don't half lose the plot when they're over the hill and devoid of #metoo opportunities....
So today the Royal Navy managed, after 6 days of truly extraordinary work, to put a vessel to sea. The reality is that almost all of the proposed increase in public spending on defence being planned by the government will achieve very little more than giving us the defence forces that we allegedly had, at least on paper, plus, if we are lucky, enough ammunition to fight a war of more than 2 weeks duration.
The extent to which our defence forces have been allowed to fall into desuetude whilst almost unlimited sums are spent on the likes of Ajax is a national disgrace, not just for this government (although they are not excused) but for all of our governments of the last 20 odd years since Gulf War 2 was finished. So much money wasted on a system with more admirals than ships, more generals than tanks and more Air Commanders than deployable aircraft.
Sadly not the case. The planned increase in spend on the nuclear deterrent (necessary to renew it) means that spending on the conventional forces will fall. The state of Britain's conventional forces can be expected to deteriorate further, despite the best efforts of the poor sods at the sharp end.
Britain has reached the stage where ragged holes have now suddenly appeared in what was a threadbare garment and Labour aren't even proposing to start the repair job.
But why?
Britain still spends - relatively and globally - a fuck of a lot of money on defence. We are I think the fifth or biggest military spender in the world?
Where is it going? How can they spunk all this money up the wall, to the extent we can only get one ship out to defend sovereign bases, after a fortnight's delay, when some guy nips down to Smiths for half a ton of blu-tak?
It don't make sense
It's because Britain is trying to do more than it is willing to spend.
So there are two aircraft carriers which soaks up huge amounts of money and manpower. There are foreign bases all over the place, which ties up capability and manpower in defending them. There is the commitment to NATO's enhanced forward presence, which means deploying most of Britain's operational army capability to Estonia. There is the commitment to JEF, which uses up more capability.
And then there's procurement, where everything has to be designed bespoke for Britain at enormous cost and sometimes questionable efficacy.
interesting - genuinely - thankyou
It seems to me we need a rethink of our defence spend from first principles, in the light of all recent events, especially Ukraine, Iran etc
Non-negotiable: independent nuclear deterrent. We could usefully link with maybe Germany or Japan on creating missiles to carry our warheads so that we don't have to rely on the USA
Special forces
Military intelligence
All forms of autonomous drones, they are the future.....
But beyond that, we need to question everything. Do piloted jets have a future? Likewise tanks with drivers? Aircraft carriers? Maybe admit they were a terrible error? Or adapt them for robot jets
Robotics is about to render much present military thinking absurd, the way tanks rendered cavalry and trenches redundant, or the way machine guns and barbed wire overtook Napoleonic war
There's all of that, but then I think there's just a fundamental truth that for an island trading nation, no longer able to rely on leadership from the US, 2.x% of GDP is not enough to defend British interests.
Somewhere the money needs to be found to increase that to 4%.
We need to spend much more on Defence.
There is no getting around it.
And that means more spending cuts or tax rises.
There needs to be spending cuts AND tax rises.
Everyone needs to lose out with no exceptions.
I suspect the average voter will not be willing to pay for cuts to public services and their pensions and tax rises to pay for increased arms to Ukraine and increased bombs on regimes in the Middle East they couldn't give a toss about relatively speaking.
Unless Putin's army is literally in France the average voter is not going to be willing to fork out for a vast increase in defence spending
So today the Royal Navy managed, after 6 days of truly extraordinary work, to put a vessel to sea. The reality is that almost all of the proposed increase in public spending on defence being planned by the government will achieve very little more than giving us the defence forces that we allegedly had, at least on paper, plus, if we are lucky, enough ammunition to fight a war of more than 2 weeks duration.
The extent to which our defence forces have been allowed to fall into desuetude whilst almost unlimited sums are spent on the likes of Ajax is a national disgrace, not just for this government (although they are not excused) but for all of our governments of the last 20 odd years since Gulf War 2 was finished. So much money wasted on a system with more admirals than ships, more generals than tanks and more Air Commanders than deployable aircraft.
Sadly not the case. The planned increase in spend on the nuclear deterrent (necessary to renew it) means that spending on the conventional forces will fall. The state of Britain's conventional forces can be expected to deteriorate further, despite the best efforts of the poor sods at the sharp end.
Britain has reached the stage where ragged holes have now suddenly appeared in what was a threadbare garment and Labour aren't even proposing to start the repair job.
But why?
Britain still spends - relatively and globally - a fuck of a lot of money on defence. We are I think the fifth or biggest military spender in the world?
Where is it going? How can they spunk all this money up the wall, to the extent we can only get one ship out to defend sovereign bases, after a fortnight's delay, when some guy nips down to Smiths for half a ton of blu-tak?
It don't make sense
It's because Britain is trying to do more than it is willing to spend.
So there are two aircraft carriers which soaks up huge amounts of money and manpower. There are foreign bases all over the place, which ties up capability and manpower in defending them. There is the commitment to NATO's enhanced forward presence, which means deploying most of Britain's operational army capability to Estonia. There is the commitment to JEF, which uses up more capability.
And then there's procurement, where everything has to be designed bespoke for Britain at enormous cost and sometimes questionable efficacy.
interesting - genuinely - thankyou
It seems to me we need a rethink of our defence spend from first principles, in the light of all recent events, especially Ukraine, Iran etc
Non-negotiable: independent nuclear deterrent. We could usefully link with maybe Germany or Japan on creating missiles to carry our warheads so that we don't have to rely on the USA
Special forces
Military intelligence
All forms of autonomous drones, they are the future.....
But beyond that, we need to question everything. Do piloted jets have a future? Likewise tanks with drivers? Aircraft carriers? Maybe admit they were a terrible error? Or adapt them for robot jets
Robotics is about to render much present military thinking absurd, the way tanks rendered cavalry and trenches redundant, or the way machine guns and barbed wire overtook Napoleonic war
There's all of that, but then I think there's just a fundamental truth that for an island trading nation, no longer able to rely on leadership from the US, 2.x% of GDP is not enough to defend British interests.
Somewhere the money needs to be found to increase that to 4%.
Well, people will be spending less on travel through Dubai.
This is turning into a complete clusterf--k isn't it?
Bombing and the killing of most of the leadership hasn't caused capitulation. US and Israel don't seem to be on the same page re war aims. Straits closed meaning economic chaos. No rally around the flag in US. Quite the opposite. A senile President. A psychopath in the State Department. Israeli focus shifting to Lebanon. Nuclear materials still at large under Regime control.
Logical next step is invasion. Isn't it? Or declare a victory which no-one is willing to buy.
Still. Epstein, eh?
Rubio? Or do you mean Hegseth?
Apologies. Hegseth of course. Rubio is just a kiss ass with no backbone.
Agree on Rubio. Not sure Hegseth is bright enough to be a psychopath - my take is he’s a drunken f*ckwit who thinks that war’s like playing a computer game
So today the Royal Navy managed, after 6 days of truly extraordinary work, to put a vessel to sea. The reality is that almost all of the proposed increase in public spending on defence being planned by the government will achieve very little more than giving us the defence forces that we allegedly had, at least on paper, plus, if we are lucky, enough ammunition to fight a war of more than 2 weeks duration.
The extent to which our defence forces have been allowed to fall into desuetude whilst almost unlimited sums are spent on the likes of Ajax is a national disgrace, not just for this government (although they are not excused) but for all of our governments of the last 20 odd years since Gulf War 2 was finished. So much money wasted on a system with more admirals than ships, more generals than tanks and more Air Commanders than deployable aircraft.
Sadly not the case. The planned increase in spend on the nuclear deterrent (necessary to renew it) means that spending on the conventional forces will fall. The state of Britain's conventional forces can be expected to deteriorate further, despite the best efforts of the poor sods at the sharp end.
Britain has reached the stage where ragged holes have now suddenly appeared in what was a threadbare garment and Labour aren't even proposing to start the repair job.
But why?
Britain still spends - relatively and globally - a fuck of a lot of money on defence. We are I think the fifth or biggest military spender in the world?
Where is it going? How can they spunk all this money up the wall, to the extent we can only get one ship out to defend sovereign bases, after a fortnight's delay, when some guy nips down to Smiths for half a ton of blu-tak?
It don't make sense
It's because Britain is trying to do more than it is willing to spend.
So there are two aircraft carriers which soaks up huge amounts of money and manpower. There are foreign bases all over the place, which ties up capability and manpower in defending them. There is the commitment to NATO's enhanced forward presence, which means deploying most of Britain's operational army capability to Estonia. There is the commitment to JEF, which uses up more capability.
And then there's procurement, where everything has to be designed bespoke for Britain at enormous cost and sometimes questionable efficacy.
interesting - genuinely - thankyou
It seems to me we need a rethink of our defence spend from first principles, in the light of all recent events, especially Ukraine, Iran etc
Non-negotiable: independent nuclear deterrent. We could usefully link with maybe Germany or Japan on creating missiles to carry our warheads so that we don't have to rely on the USA
Special forces
Military intelligence
All forms of autonomous drones, they are the future.....
But beyond that, we need to question everything. Do piloted jets have a future? Likewise tanks with drivers? Aircraft carriers? Maybe admit they were a terrible error? Or adapt them for robot jets
Robotics is about to render much present military thinking absurd, the way tanks rendered cavalry and trenches redundant, or the way machine guns and barbed wire overtook Napoleonic war
There's all of that, but then I think there's just a fundamental truth that for an island trading nation, no longer able to rely on leadership from the US, 2.x% of GDP is not enough to defend British interests.
Somewhere the money needs to be found to increase that to 4%.
We need to spend much more on Defence.
There is no getting around it.
And that means more spending cuts or tax rises.
There needs to be spending cuts AND tax rises.
Everyone needs to lose out with no exceptions.
I suspect the average voter will not be willing to pay for cuts to public services and their pensions and tax rises to pay for increased arms to Ukraine and increased bombs on regimes in the Middle East they couldn't give a toss about relatively speaking.
Unless Putin's army is literally in France the average voter is not going to be willing to fork out for a vast increase in defence spending
The average voter wants low taxes, lavish public services, and golden elephants, but tough tits. Leadership, if it means anything at all, means telling people hard truths.
So today the Royal Navy managed, after 6 days of truly extraordinary work, to put a vessel to sea. The reality is that almost all of the proposed increase in public spending on defence being planned by the government will achieve very little more than giving us the defence forces that we allegedly had, at least on paper, plus, if we are lucky, enough ammunition to fight a war of more than 2 weeks duration.
The extent to which our defence forces have been allowed to fall into desuetude whilst almost unlimited sums are spent on the likes of Ajax is a national disgrace, not just for this government (although they are not excused) but for all of our governments of the last 20 odd years since Gulf War 2 was finished. So much money wasted on a system with more admirals than ships, more generals than tanks and more Air Commanders than deployable aircraft.
Sadly not the case. The planned increase in spend on the nuclear deterrent (necessary to renew it) means that spending on the conventional forces will fall. The state of Britain's conventional forces can be expected to deteriorate further, despite the best efforts of the poor sods at the sharp end.
Britain has reached the stage where ragged holes have now suddenly appeared in what was a threadbare garment and Labour aren't even proposing to start the repair job.
But why?
Britain still spends - relatively and globally - a fuck of a lot of money on defence. We are I think the fifth or biggest military spender in the world?
Where is it going? How can they spunk all this money up the wall, to the extent we can only get one ship out to defend sovereign bases, after a fortnight's delay, when some guy nips down to Smiths for half a ton of blu-tak?
It don't make sense
It's because Britain is trying to do more than it is willing to spend.
So there are two aircraft carriers which soaks up huge amounts of money and manpower. There are foreign bases all over the place, which ties up capability and manpower in defending them. There is the commitment to NATO's enhanced forward presence, which means deploying most of Britain's operational army capability to Estonia. There is the commitment to JEF, which uses up more capability.
And then there's procurement, where everything has to be designed bespoke for Britain at enormous cost and sometimes questionable efficacy.
interesting - genuinely - thankyou
It seems to me we need a rethink of our defence spend from first principles, in the light of all recent events, especially Ukraine, Iran etc
Non-negotiable: independent nuclear deterrent. We could usefully link with maybe Germany or Japan on creating missiles to carry our warheads so that we don't have to rely on the USA
Special forces
Military intelligence
All forms of autonomous drones, they are the future.....
But beyond that, we need to question everything. Do piloted jets have a future? Likewise tanks with drivers? Aircraft carriers? Maybe admit they were a terrible error? Or adapt them for robot jets
Robotics is about to render much present military thinking absurd, the way tanks rendered cavalry and trenches redundant, or the way machine guns and barbed wire overtook Napoleonic war
There's all of that, but then I think there's just a fundamental truth that for an island trading nation, no longer able to rely on leadership from the US, 2.x% of GDP is not enough to defend British interests.
Somewhere the money needs to be found to increase that to 4%.
We need to spend much more on Defence.
There is no getting around it.
And that means more spending cuts or tax rises.
There needs to be spending cuts AND tax rises.
Everyone needs to lose out with no exceptions.
I suspect the average voter will not be willing to pay for cuts to public services and their pensions and tax rises to pay for increased arms to Ukraine and increased bombs on regimes in the Middle East they couldn't give a toss about relatively speaking.
Unless Putin's army is literally in France the average voter is not going to be willing to fork out for a vast increase in defence spending
On one hand, practical politics says that you are right. It's why the average MAGAhat is isolationist, and it's what Rupert Lowe has been getting at. And "fiscal prudence that doesn't hurt me in any way" has been a winning manifesto for ages.
On the other, it's why we're sinking giggling into the sea. Only without much giggling these days.
So today the Royal Navy managed, after 6 days of truly extraordinary work, to put a vessel to sea. The reality is that almost all of the proposed increase in public spending on defence being planned by the government will achieve very little more than giving us the defence forces that we allegedly had, at least on paper, plus, if we are lucky, enough ammunition to fight a war of more than 2 weeks duration.
The extent to which our defence forces have been allowed to fall into desuetude whilst almost unlimited sums are spent on the likes of Ajax is a national disgrace, not just for this government (although they are not excused) but for all of our governments of the last 20 odd years since Gulf War 2 was finished. So much money wasted on a system with more admirals than ships, more generals than tanks and more Air Commanders than deployable aircraft.
Sadly not the case. The planned increase in spend on the nuclear deterrent (necessary to renew it) means that spending on the conventional forces will fall. The state of Britain's conventional forces can be expected to deteriorate further, despite the best efforts of the poor sods at the sharp end.
Britain has reached the stage where ragged holes have now suddenly appeared in what was a threadbare garment and Labour aren't even proposing to start the repair job.
But why?
Britain still spends - relatively and globally - a fuck of a lot of money on defence. We are I think the fifth or biggest military spender in the world?
Where is it going? How can they spunk all this money up the wall, to the extent we can only get one ship out to defend sovereign bases, after a fortnight's delay, when some guy nips down to Smiths for half a ton of blu-tak?
It don't make sense
It's because Britain is trying to do more than it is willing to spend.
So there are two aircraft carriers which soaks up huge amounts of money and manpower. There are foreign bases all over the place, which ties up capability and manpower in defending them. There is the commitment to NATO's enhanced forward presence, which means deploying most of Britain's operational army capability to Estonia. There is the commitment to JEF, which uses up more capability.
And then there's procurement, where everything has to be designed bespoke for Britain at enormous cost and sometimes questionable efficacy.
interesting - genuinely - thankyou
It seems to me we need a rethink of our defence spend from first principles, in the light of all recent events, especially Ukraine, Iran etc
Non-negotiable: independent nuclear deterrent. We could usefully link with maybe Germany or Japan on creating missiles to carry our warheads so that we don't have to rely on the USA
Special forces
Military intelligence
All forms of autonomous drones, they are the future.....
But beyond that, we need to question everything. Do piloted jets have a future? Likewise tanks with drivers? Aircraft carriers? Maybe admit they were a terrible error? Or adapt them for robot jets
Robotics is about to render much present military thinking absurd, the way tanks rendered cavalry and trenches redundant, or the way machine guns and barbed wire overtook Napoleonic war
There's all of that, but then I think there's just a fundamental truth that for an island trading nation, no longer able to rely on leadership from the US, 2.x% of GDP is not enough to defend British interests.
Somewhere the money needs to be found to increase that to 4%.
We need to spend much more on Defence.
There is no getting around it.
And that means more spending cuts or tax rises.
There needs to be spending cuts AND tax rises.
Everyone needs to lose out with no exceptions.
I suspect the average voter will not be willing to pay for cuts to public services and their pensions and tax rises to pay for increased arms to Ukraine and increased bombs on regimes in the Middle East they couldn't give a toss about relatively speaking.
Unless Putin's army is literally in France the average voter is not going to be willing to fork out for a vast increase in defence spending
In those narrow terms maybe not, but the governments first duty is to protect it's people and we are woefully prepared
It is a problem of 30 years in the making, when we in common with Europe, assumed the US would take the costliest burden and now, not just us, but most every country in the west will have to prioritise defence spending which I expect will show in the polls
So today the Royal Navy managed, after 6 days of truly extraordinary work, to put a vessel to sea. The reality is that almost all of the proposed increase in public spending on defence being planned by the government will achieve very little more than giving us the defence forces that we allegedly had, at least on paper, plus, if we are lucky, enough ammunition to fight a war of more than 2 weeks duration.
The extent to which our defence forces have been allowed to fall into desuetude whilst almost unlimited sums are spent on the likes of Ajax is a national disgrace, not just for this government (although they are not excused) but for all of our governments of the last 20 odd years since Gulf War 2 was finished. So much money wasted on a system with more admirals than ships, more generals than tanks and more Air Commanders than deployable aircraft.
Sadly not the case. The planned increase in spend on the nuclear deterrent (necessary to renew it) means that spending on the conventional forces will fall. The state of Britain's conventional forces can be expected to deteriorate further, despite the best efforts of the poor sods at the sharp end.
Britain has reached the stage where ragged holes have now suddenly appeared in what was a threadbare garment and Labour aren't even proposing to start the repair job.
But why?
Britain still spends - relatively and globally - a fuck of a lot of money on defence. We are I think the fifth or biggest military spender in the world?
Where is it going? How can they spunk all this money up the wall, to the extent we can only get one ship out to defend sovereign bases, after a fortnight's delay, when some guy nips down to Smiths for half a ton of blu-tak?
It don't make sense
It's because Britain is trying to do more than it is willing to spend.
So there are two aircraft carriers which soaks up huge amounts of money and manpower. There are foreign bases all over the place, which ties up capability and manpower in defending them. There is the commitment to NATO's enhanced forward presence, which means deploying most of Britain's operational army capability to Estonia. There is the commitment to JEF, which uses up more capability.
And then there's procurement, where everything has to be designed bespoke for Britain at enormous cost and sometimes questionable efficacy.
interesting - genuinely - thankyou
It seems to me we need a rethink of our defence spend from first principles, in the light of all recent events, especially Ukraine, Iran etc
Non-negotiable: independent nuclear deterrent. We could usefully link with maybe Germany or Japan on creating missiles to carry our warheads so that we don't have to rely on the USA
Special forces
Military intelligence
All forms of autonomous drones, they are the future.....
But beyond that, we need to question everything. Do piloted jets have a future? Likewise tanks with drivers? Aircraft carriers? Maybe admit they were a terrible error? Or adapt them for robot jets
Robotics is about to render much present military thinking absurd, the way tanks rendered cavalry and trenches redundant, or the way machine guns and barbed wire overtook Napoleonic war
There's all of that, but then I think there's just a fundamental truth that for an island trading nation, no longer able to rely on leadership from the US, 2.x% of GDP is not enough to defend British interests.
Somewhere the money needs to be found to increase that to 4%.
We need to spend much more on Defence.
There is no getting around it.
And that means more spending cuts or tax rises.
There needs to be spending cuts AND tax rises.
Everyone needs to lose out with no exceptions.
I suspect the average voter will not be willing to pay for cuts to public services and their pensions and tax rises to pay for increased arms to Ukraine and increased bombs on regimes in the Middle East they couldn't give a toss about relatively speaking.
Unless Putin's army is literally in France the average voter is not going to be willing to fork out for a vast increase in defence spending
"The U.S. Navy has refused near-daily requests from the shipping industry for military escorts through the Strait of Hormuz since the start of the war on Iran, saying the risk of attacks is too high for now."
So today the Royal Navy managed, after 6 days of truly extraordinary work, to put a vessel to sea. The reality is that almost all of the proposed increase in public spending on defence being planned by the government will achieve very little more than giving us the defence forces that we allegedly had, at least on paper, plus, if we are lucky, enough ammunition to fight a war of more than 2 weeks duration.
The extent to which our defence forces have been allowed to fall into desuetude whilst almost unlimited sums are spent on the likes of Ajax is a national disgrace, not just for this government (although they are not excused) but for all of our governments of the last 20 odd years since Gulf War 2 was finished. So much money wasted on a system with more admirals than ships, more generals than tanks and more Air Commanders than deployable aircraft.
Sadly not the case. The planned increase in spend on the nuclear deterrent (necessary to renew it) means that spending on the conventional forces will fall. The state of Britain's conventional forces can be expected to deteriorate further, despite the best efforts of the poor sods at the sharp end.
Britain has reached the stage where ragged holes have now suddenly appeared in what was a threadbare garment and Labour aren't even proposing to start the repair job.
But why?
Britain still spends - relatively and globally - a fuck of a lot of money on defence. We are I think the fifth or biggest military spender in the world?
Where is it going? How can they spunk all this money up the wall, to the extent we can only get one ship out to defend sovereign bases, after a fortnight's delay, when some guy nips down to Smiths for half a ton of blu-tak?
It don't make sense
It's because Britain is trying to do more than it is willing to spend.
So there are two aircraft carriers which soaks up huge amounts of money and manpower. There are foreign bases all over the place, which ties up capability and manpower in defending them. There is the commitment to NATO's enhanced forward presence, which means deploying most of Britain's operational army capability to Estonia. There is the commitment to JEF, which uses up more capability.
And then there's procurement, where everything has to be designed bespoke for Britain at enormous cost and sometimes questionable efficacy.
interesting - genuinely - thankyou
It seems to me we need a rethink of our defence spend from first principles, in the light of all recent events, especially Ukraine, Iran etc
Non-negotiable: independent nuclear deterrent. We could usefully link with maybe Germany or Japan on creating missiles to carry our warheads so that we don't have to rely on the USA
Special forces
Military intelligence
All forms of autonomous drones, they are the future.....
But beyond that, we need to question everything. Do piloted jets have a future? Likewise tanks with drivers? Aircraft carriers? Maybe admit they were a terrible error? Or adapt them for robot jets
Robotics is about to render much present military thinking absurd, the way tanks rendered cavalry and trenches redundant, or the way machine guns and barbed wire overtook Napoleonic war
There's all of that, but then I think there's just a fundamental truth that for an island trading nation, no longer able to rely on leadership from the US, 2.x% of GDP is not enough to defend British interests.
Somewhere the money needs to be found to increase that to 4%.
We need to spend much more on Defence.
There is no getting around it.
And that means more spending cuts or tax rises.
There needs to be spending cuts AND tax rises.
Everyone needs to lose out with no exceptions.
Good luck with that on the front of a manifesto.
In some ways its easier to implement if everyone loses out as it reduces the resentment from those who lose out but see others not doing so.
We're all in this together was a good slogan from Cameron and Osborne - the problem was that it was only a slogan and many were given exceptions from the cuts and pay freezes.
Alexei Sayle, once said: 'Austerity is the idea that the global financial crash of 2008 was caused by there being too many libraries in Wolverhampton.'
Now that would have been a more appropriate slogan from Cameron and Osborne.
Similarly Gordon Brown's 'end to boom and bust' was supposed to mean that we could all get rich selling houses to each other.
"The U.S. Navy has refused near-daily requests from the shipping industry for military escorts through the Strait of Hormuz since the start of the war on Iran, saying the risk of attacks is too high for now."
So today the Royal Navy managed, after 6 days of truly extraordinary work, to put a vessel to sea. The reality is that almost all of the proposed increase in public spending on defence being planned by the government will achieve very little more than giving us the defence forces that we allegedly had, at least on paper, plus, if we are lucky, enough ammunition to fight a war of more than 2 weeks duration.
The extent to which our defence forces have been allowed to fall into desuetude whilst almost unlimited sums are spent on the likes of Ajax is a national disgrace, not just for this government (although they are not excused) but for all of our governments of the last 20 odd years since Gulf War 2 was finished. So much money wasted on a system with more admirals than ships, more generals than tanks and more Air Commanders than deployable aircraft.
Sadly not the case. The planned increase in spend on the nuclear deterrent (necessary to renew it) means that spending on the conventional forces will fall. The state of Britain's conventional forces can be expected to deteriorate further, despite the best efforts of the poor sods at the sharp end.
Britain has reached the stage where ragged holes have now suddenly appeared in what was a threadbare garment and Labour aren't even proposing to start the repair job.
But why?
Britain still spends - relatively and globally - a fuck of a lot of money on defence. We are I think the fifth or biggest military spender in the world?
Where is it going? How can they spunk all this money up the wall, to the extent we can only get one ship out to defend sovereign bases, after a fortnight's delay, when some guy nips down to Smiths for half a ton of blu-tak?
It don't make sense
It's because Britain is trying to do more than it is willing to spend.
So there are two aircraft carriers which soaks up huge amounts of money and manpower. There are foreign bases all over the place, which ties up capability and manpower in defending them. There is the commitment to NATO's enhanced forward presence, which means deploying most of Britain's operational army capability to Estonia. There is the commitment to JEF, which uses up more capability.
And then there's procurement, where everything has to be designed bespoke for Britain at enormous cost and sometimes questionable efficacy.
interesting - genuinely - thankyou
It seems to me we need a rethink of our defence spend from first principles, in the light of all recent events, especially Ukraine, Iran etc
Non-negotiable: independent nuclear deterrent. We could usefully link with maybe Germany or Japan on creating missiles to carry our warheads so that we don't have to rely on the USA
Special forces
Military intelligence
All forms of autonomous drones, they are the future.....
But beyond that, we need to question everything. Do piloted jets have a future? Likewise tanks with drivers? Aircraft carriers? Maybe admit they were a terrible error? Or adapt them for robot jets
Robotics is about to render much present military thinking absurd, the way tanks rendered cavalry and trenches redundant, or the way machine guns and barbed wire overtook Napoleonic war
There's all of that, but then I think there's just a fundamental truth that for an island trading nation, no longer able to rely on leadership from the US, 2.x% of GDP is not enough to defend British interests.
Somewhere the money needs to be found to increase that to 4%.
We need to spend much more on Defence.
There is no getting around it.
And that means more spending cuts or tax rises.
There needs to be spending cuts AND tax rises.
Everyone needs to lose out with no exceptions.
Good luck with that on the front of a manifesto.
In some ways its easier to implement if everyone loses out as it reduces the resentment from those who lose out but see others not doing so.
We're all in this together was a good slogan from Cameron and Osborne - the problem was that it was only a slogan and many were given exceptions from the cuts and pay freezes.
Alexei Sayle, once said: 'Austerity is the idea that the global financial crash of 2008 was caused by there being too many libraries in Wolverhampton.'
Now that would have been a more appropriate slogan from Cameron and Osborne.
So today the Royal Navy managed, after 6 days of truly extraordinary work, to put a vessel to sea. The reality is that almost all of the proposed increase in public spending on defence being planned by the government will achieve very little more than giving us the defence forces that we allegedly had, at least on paper, plus, if we are lucky, enough ammunition to fight a war of more than 2 weeks duration.
The extent to which our defence forces have been allowed to fall into desuetude whilst almost unlimited sums are spent on the likes of Ajax is a national disgrace, not just for this government (although they are not excused) but for all of our governments of the last 20 odd years since Gulf War 2 was finished. So much money wasted on a system with more admirals than ships, more generals than tanks and more Air Commanders than deployable aircraft.
Sadly not the case. The planned increase in spend on the nuclear deterrent (necessary to renew it) means that spending on the conventional forces will fall. The state of Britain's conventional forces can be expected to deteriorate further, despite the best efforts of the poor sods at the sharp end.
Britain has reached the stage where ragged holes have now suddenly appeared in what was a threadbare garment and Labour aren't even proposing to start the repair job.
But why?
Britain still spends - relatively and globally - a fuck of a lot of money on defence. We are I think the fifth or biggest military spender in the world?
Where is it going? How can they spunk all this money up the wall, to the extent we can only get one ship out to defend sovereign bases, after a fortnight's delay, when some guy nips down to Smiths for half a ton of blu-tak?
It don't make sense
It's because Britain is trying to do more than it is willing to spend.
So there are two aircraft carriers which soaks up huge amounts of money and manpower. There are foreign bases all over the place, which ties up capability and manpower in defending them. There is the commitment to NATO's enhanced forward presence, which means deploying most of Britain's operational army capability to Estonia. There is the commitment to JEF, which uses up more capability.
And then there's procurement, where everything has to be designed bespoke for Britain at enormous cost and sometimes questionable efficacy.
interesting - genuinely - thankyou
It seems to me we need a rethink of our defence spend from first principles, in the light of all recent events, especially Ukraine, Iran etc
Non-negotiable: independent nuclear deterrent. We could usefully link with maybe Germany or Japan on creating missiles to carry our warheads so that we don't have to rely on the USA
Special forces
Military intelligence
All forms of autonomous drones, they are the future.....
But beyond that, we need to question everything. Do piloted jets have a future? Likewise tanks with drivers? Aircraft carriers? Maybe admit they were a terrible error? Or adapt them for robot jets
Robotics is about to render much present military thinking absurd, the way tanks rendered cavalry and trenches redundant, or the way machine guns and barbed wire overtook Napoleonic war
There's all of that, but then I think there's just a fundamental truth that for an island trading nation, no longer able to rely on leadership from the US, 2.x% of GDP is not enough to defend British interests.
Somewhere the money needs to be found to increase that to 4%.
We need to spend much more on Defence.
There is no getting around it.
And that means more spending cuts or tax rises.
There needs to be spending cuts AND tax rises.
Everyone needs to lose out with no exceptions.
Good luck with that on the front of a manifesto.
In some ways its easier to implement if everyone loses out as it reduces the resentment from those who lose out but see others not doing so.
We're all in this together was a good slogan from Cameron and Osborne - the problem was that it was only a slogan and many were given exceptions from the cuts and pay freezes.
Alexei Sayle, once said: 'Austerity is the idea that the global financial crash of 2008 was caused by there being too many libraries in Wolverhampton.'
Now that would have been a more appropriate slogan from Cameron and Osborne.
Similarly Gordon Brown's 'end to boom and bust' was supposed to mean that we could all get rich selling houses to each other.
And we are still doing that today and Gordon Brown hasn't been Chancellor since 2007.
So today the Royal Navy managed, after 6 days of truly extraordinary work, to put a vessel to sea. The reality is that almost all of the proposed increase in public spending on defence being planned by the government will achieve very little more than giving us the defence forces that we allegedly had, at least on paper, plus, if we are lucky, enough ammunition to fight a war of more than 2 weeks duration.
The extent to which our defence forces have been allowed to fall into desuetude whilst almost unlimited sums are spent on the likes of Ajax is a national disgrace, not just for this government (although they are not excused) but for all of our governments of the last 20 odd years since Gulf War 2 was finished. So much money wasted on a system with more admirals than ships, more generals than tanks and more Air Commanders than deployable aircraft.
Sadly not the case. The planned increase in spend on the nuclear deterrent (necessary to renew it) means that spending on the conventional forces will fall. The state of Britain's conventional forces can be expected to deteriorate further, despite the best efforts of the poor sods at the sharp end.
Britain has reached the stage where ragged holes have now suddenly appeared in what was a threadbare garment and Labour aren't even proposing to start the repair job.
But why?
Britain still spends - relatively and globally - a fuck of a lot of money on defence. We are I think the fifth or biggest military spender in the world?
Where is it going? How can they spunk all this money up the wall, to the extent we can only get one ship out to defend sovereign bases, after a fortnight's delay, when some guy nips down to Smiths for half a ton of blu-tak?
It don't make sense
It's because Britain is trying to do more than it is willing to spend.
So there are two aircraft carriers which soaks up huge amounts of money and manpower. There are foreign bases all over the place, which ties up capability and manpower in defending them. There is the commitment to NATO's enhanced forward presence, which means deploying most of Britain's operational army capability to Estonia. There is the commitment to JEF, which uses up more capability.
And then there's procurement, where everything has to be designed bespoke for Britain at enormous cost and sometimes questionable efficacy.
interesting - genuinely - thankyou
It seems to me we need a rethink of our defence spend from first principles, in the light of all recent events, especially Ukraine, Iran etc
Non-negotiable: independent nuclear deterrent. We could usefully link with maybe Germany or Japan on creating missiles to carry our warheads so that we don't have to rely on the USA
Special forces
Military intelligence
All forms of autonomous drones, they are the future.....
But beyond that, we need to question everything. Do piloted jets have a future? Likewise tanks with drivers? Aircraft carriers? Maybe admit they were a terrible error? Or adapt them for robot jets
Robotics is about to render much present military thinking absurd, the way tanks rendered cavalry and trenches redundant, or the way machine guns and barbed wire overtook Napoleonic war
There's all of that, but then I think there's just a fundamental truth that for an island trading nation, no longer able to rely on leadership from the US, 2.x% of GDP is not enough to defend British interests.
Somewhere the money needs to be found to increase that to 4%.
We need to spend much more on Defence.
There is no getting around it.
And that means more spending cuts or tax rises.
There needs to be spending cuts AND tax rises.
Everyone needs to lose out with no exceptions.
I suspect the average voter will not be willing to pay for cuts to public services and their pensions and tax rises to pay for increased arms to Ukraine and increased bombs on regimes in the Middle East they couldn't give a toss about relatively speaking.
Unless Putin's army is literally in France the average voter is not going to be willing to fork out for a vast increase in defence spending
And we are still doing that today and Gordon Brown hasn't been Chancellor since 2007.
Why not ?
Brown keeps resurfacing, looking more like the undead every time.
Given that half the people I worked with at the time lost their jobs I'll keep a flicker of resentment glowing against the self-styled saviour of the world.
And we are still doing that today and Gordon Brown hasn't been Chancellor since 2007.
Why not ?
Brown keeps resurfacing, looking more like the undead every time.
Given that half the people I worked with at the time lost their jobs I'll keep a flicker of resentment glowing against the self-styled saviour of the world.
My sentence was very cumbersome. I was trying to say that economic activity is still predicated on house price inflation.
Let me tell them. The end result of all this is the creation of an aggressive "white" identity in the UK. If you are white, you will vote for the "White People's Party", so you are not crushed, nor your kids, by official "anti-white-racism". Thus Britain will become a new South Africa
I am genuinely confused as to why so many erstwhile intelligent people fail to see that playing identity politics drives, err, identity politics.
There is a whole industry in identity politics. And a whole industry in anti-identity politics. And another industry in anti-anti-identity politics. And…
If you stopped all that, the rates of unemployment among angry protestors, commentators, lawyers etc would be fearful. You’d drop GDP by a couple of percent.
So today the Royal Navy managed, after 6 days of truly extraordinary work, to put a vessel to sea. The reality is that almost all of the proposed increase in public spending on defence being planned by the government will achieve very little more than giving us the defence forces that we allegedly had, at least on paper, plus, if we are lucky, enough ammunition to fight a war of more than 2 weeks duration.
The extent to which our defence forces have been allowed to fall into desuetude whilst almost unlimited sums are spent on the likes of Ajax is a national disgrace, not just for this government (although they are not excused) but for all of our governments of the last 20 odd years since Gulf War 2 was finished. So much money wasted on a system with more admirals than ships, more generals than tanks and more Air Commanders than deployable aircraft.
We are Belgium with nukes.
So where's all the nice chocolate?
“… What's Belgium famous for? Chocolates and child abuse, and they only invented the chocolates to get to the kids.”
So today the Royal Navy managed, after 6 days of truly extraordinary work, to put a vessel to sea. The reality is that almost all of the proposed increase in public spending on defence being planned by the government will achieve very little more than giving us the defence forces that we allegedly had, at least on paper, plus, if we are lucky, enough ammunition to fight a war of more than 2 weeks duration.
The extent to which our defence forces have been allowed to fall into desuetude whilst almost unlimited sums are spent on the likes of Ajax is a national disgrace, not just for this government (although they are not excused) but for all of our governments of the last 20 odd years since Gulf War 2 was finished. So much money wasted on a system with more admirals than ships, more generals than tanks and more Air Commanders than deployable aircraft.
Sadly not the case. The planned increase in spend on the nuclear deterrent (necessary to renew it) means that spending on the conventional forces will fall. The state of Britain's conventional forces can be expected to deteriorate further, despite the best efforts of the poor sods at the sharp end.
Britain has reached the stage where ragged holes have now suddenly appeared in what was a threadbare garment and Labour aren't even proposing to start the repair job.
But why?
Britain still spends - relatively and globally - a fuck of a lot of money on defence. We are I think the fifth or biggest military spender in the world?
Where is it going? How can they spunk all this money up the wall, to the extent we can only get one ship out to defend sovereign bases, after a fortnight's delay, when some guy nips down to Smiths for half a ton of blu-tak?
It don't make sense
It's because Britain is trying to do more than it is willing to spend.
So there are two aircraft carriers which soaks up huge amounts of money and manpower. There are foreign bases all over the place, which ties up capability and manpower in defending them. There is the commitment to NATO's enhanced forward presence, which means deploying most of Britain's operational army capability to Estonia. There is the commitment to JEF, which uses up more capability.
And then there's procurement, where everything has to be designed bespoke for Britain at enormous cost and sometimes questionable efficacy.
interesting - genuinely - thankyou
It seems to me we need a rethink of our defence spend from first principles, in the light of all recent events, especially Ukraine, Iran etc
Non-negotiable: independent nuclear deterrent. We could usefully link with maybe Germany or Japan on creating missiles to carry our warheads so that we don't have to rely on the USA
Special forces
Military intelligence
All forms of autonomous drones, they are the future.....
But beyond that, we need to question everything. Do piloted jets have a future? Likewise tanks with drivers? Aircraft carriers? Maybe admit they were a terrible error? Or adapt them for robot jets
Robotics is about to render much present military thinking absurd, the way tanks rendered cavalry and trenches redundant, or the way machine guns and barbed wire overtook Napoleonic war
There's all of that, but then I think there's just a fundamental truth that for an island trading nation, no longer able to rely on leadership from the US, 2.x% of GDP is not enough to defend British interests.
Somewhere the money needs to be found to increase that to 4%.
We need to spend much more on Defence.
There is no getting around it.
And that means more spending cuts or tax rises.
There needs to be spending cuts AND tax rises.
Everyone needs to lose out with no exceptions.
I suspect the average voter will not be willing to pay for cuts to public services and their pensions and tax rises to pay for increased arms to Ukraine and increased bombs on regimes in the Middle East they couldn't give a toss about relatively speaking.
Unless Putin's army is literally in France the average voter is not going to be willing to fork out for a vast increase in defence spending
So today the Royal Navy managed, after 6 days of truly extraordinary work, to put a vessel to sea. The reality is that almost all of the proposed increase in public spending on defence being planned by the government will achieve very little more than giving us the defence forces that we allegedly had, at least on paper, plus, if we are lucky, enough ammunition to fight a war of more than 2 weeks duration.
The extent to which our defence forces have been allowed to fall into desuetude whilst almost unlimited sums are spent on the likes of Ajax is a national disgrace, not just for this government (although they are not excused) but for all of our governments of the last 20 odd years since Gulf War 2 was finished. So much money wasted on a system with more admirals than ships, more generals than tanks and more Air Commanders than deployable aircraft.
Sadly not the case. The planned increase in spend on the nuclear deterrent (necessary to renew it) means that spending on the conventional forces will fall. The state of Britain's conventional forces can be expected to deteriorate further, despite the best efforts of the poor sods at the sharp end.
Britain has reached the stage where ragged holes have now suddenly appeared in what was a threadbare garment and Labour aren't even proposing to start the repair job.
But why?
Britain still spends - relatively and globally - a fuck of a lot of money on defence. We are I think the fifth or biggest military spender in the world?
Where is it going? How can they spunk all this money up the wall, to the extent we can only get one ship out to defend sovereign bases, after a fortnight's delay, when some guy nips down to Smiths for half a ton of blu-tak?
It don't make sense
It's because Britain is trying to do more than it is willing to spend.
So there are two aircraft carriers which soaks up huge amounts of money and manpower. There are foreign bases all over the place, which ties up capability and manpower in defending them. There is the commitment to NATO's enhanced forward presence, which means deploying most of Britain's operational army capability to Estonia. There is the commitment to JEF, which uses up more capability.
And then there's procurement, where everything has to be designed bespoke for Britain at enormous cost and sometimes questionable efficacy.
interesting - genuinely - thankyou
It seems to me we need a rethink of our defence spend from first principles, in the light of all recent events, especially Ukraine, Iran etc
Non-negotiable: independent nuclear deterrent. We could usefully link with maybe Germany or Japan on creating missiles to carry our warheads so that we don't have to rely on the USA
Special forces
Military intelligence
All forms of autonomous drones, they are the future.....
But beyond that, we need to question everything. Do piloted jets have a future? Likewise tanks with drivers? Aircraft carriers? Maybe admit they were a terrible error? Or adapt them for robot jets
Robotics is about to render much present military thinking absurd, the way tanks rendered cavalry and trenches redundant, or the way machine guns and barbed wire overtook Napoleonic war
There's all of that, but then I think there's just a fundamental truth that for an island trading nation, no longer able to rely on leadership from the US, 2.x% of GDP is not enough to defend British interests.
Somewhere the money needs to be found to increase that to 4%.
We need to spend much more on Defence.
There is no getting around it.
And that means more spending cuts or tax rises.
There needs to be spending cuts AND tax rises.
Everyone needs to lose out with no exceptions.
I suspect the average voter will not be willing to pay for cuts to public services and their pensions and tax rises to pay for increased arms to Ukraine and increased bombs on regimes in the Middle East they couldn't give a toss about relatively speaking.
Unless Putin's army is literally in France the average voter is not going to be willing to fork out for a vast increase in defence spending
So today the Royal Navy managed, after 6 days of truly extraordinary work, to put a vessel to sea. The reality is that almost all of the proposed increase in public spending on defence being planned by the government will achieve very little more than giving us the defence forces that we allegedly had, at least on paper, plus, if we are lucky, enough ammunition to fight a war of more than 2 weeks duration.
The extent to which our defence forces have been allowed to fall into desuetude whilst almost unlimited sums are spent on the likes of Ajax is a national disgrace, not just for this government (although they are not excused) but for all of our governments of the last 20 odd years since Gulf War 2 was finished. So much money wasted on a system with more admirals than ships, more generals than tanks and more Air Commanders than deployable aircraft.
Sadly not the case. The planned increase in spend on the nuclear deterrent (necessary to renew it) means that spending on the conventional forces will fall. The state of Britain's conventional forces can be expected to deteriorate further, despite the best efforts of the poor sods at the sharp end.
Britain has reached the stage where ragged holes have now suddenly appeared in what was a threadbare garment and Labour aren't even proposing to start the repair job.
But why?
Britain still spends - relatively and globally - a fuck of a lot of money on defence. We are I think the fifth or biggest military spender in the world?
Where is it going? How can they spunk all this money up the wall, to the extent we can only get one ship out to defend sovereign bases, after a fortnight's delay, when some guy nips down to Smiths for half a ton of blu-tak?
It don't make sense
It's because Britain is trying to do more than it is willing to spend.
So there are two aircraft carriers which soaks up huge amounts of money and manpower. There are foreign bases all over the place, which ties up capability and manpower in defending them. There is the commitment to NATO's enhanced forward presence, which means deploying most of Britain's operational army capability to Estonia. There is the commitment to JEF, which uses up more capability.
And then there's procurement, where everything has to be designed bespoke for Britain at enormous cost and sometimes questionable efficacy.
interesting - genuinely - thankyou
It seems to me we need a rethink of our defence spend from first principles, in the light of all recent events, especially Ukraine, Iran etc
Non-negotiable: independent nuclear deterrent. We could usefully link with maybe Germany or Japan on creating missiles to carry our warheads so that we don't have to rely on the USA
Special forces
Military intelligence
All forms of autonomous drones, they are the future.....
But beyond that, we need to question everything. Do piloted jets have a future? Likewise tanks with drivers? Aircraft carriers? Maybe admit they were a terrible error? Or adapt them for robot jets
Robotics is about to render much present military thinking absurd, the way tanks rendered cavalry and trenches redundant, or the way machine guns and barbed wire overtook Napoleonic war
There's all of that, but then I think there's just a fundamental truth that for an island trading nation, no longer able to rely on leadership from the US, 2.x% of GDP is not enough to defend British interests.
Somewhere the money needs to be found to increase that to 4%.
We need to spend much more on Defence.
There is no getting around it.
And that means more spending cuts or tax rises.
There needs to be spending cuts AND tax rises.
Everyone needs to lose out with no exceptions.
I suspect the average voter will not be willing to pay for cuts to public services and their pensions and tax rises to pay for increased arms to Ukraine and increased bombs on regimes in the Middle East they couldn't give a toss about relatively speaking.
Unless Putin's army is literally in France the average voter is not going to be willing to fork out for a vast increase in defence spending
And we are still doing that today and Gordon Brown hasn't been Chancellor since 2007.
Why not ?
Brown keeps resurfacing, looking more like the undead every time.
Given that half the people I worked with at the time lost their jobs I'll keep a flicker of resentment glowing against the self-styled saviour of the world.
Were they in banking selling derivatives of derivatives of derivatives based on someone's domestic mortgage repayments and getting bonuses for doing so? If so they should have realized it was all a ponzi scheme, if not they have my sympathy.
Still not Brown's fault that it all fell like the house of cards it turned out to be though, even if the UK had regulated to prevent the banks doing it in UK jurisdiction, they'd still have done it in the US and elsewhere bringing all the same economies down.
So today the Royal Navy managed, after 6 days of truly extraordinary work, to put a vessel to sea. The reality is that almost all of the proposed increase in public spending on defence being planned by the government will achieve very little more than giving us the defence forces that we allegedly had, at least on paper, plus, if we are lucky, enough ammunition to fight a war of more than 2 weeks duration.
The extent to which our defence forces have been allowed to fall into desuetude whilst almost unlimited sums are spent on the likes of Ajax is a national disgrace, not just for this government (although they are not excused) but for all of our governments of the last 20 odd years since Gulf War 2 was finished. So much money wasted on a system with more admirals than ships, more generals than tanks and more Air Commanders than deployable aircraft.
Sadly not the case. The planned increase in spend on the nuclear deterrent (necessary to renew it) means that spending on the conventional forces will fall. The state of Britain's conventional forces can be expected to deteriorate further, despite the best efforts of the poor sods at the sharp end.
Britain has reached the stage where ragged holes have now suddenly appeared in what was a threadbare garment and Labour aren't even proposing to start the repair job.
But why?
Britain still spends - relatively and globally - a fuck of a lot of money on defence. We are I think the fifth or biggest military spender in the world?
Where is it going? How can they spunk all this money up the wall, to the extent we can only get one ship out to defend sovereign bases, after a fortnight's delay, when some guy nips down to Smiths for half a ton of blu-tak?
It don't make sense
It's because Britain is trying to do more than it is willing to spend.
So there are two aircraft carriers which soaks up huge amounts of money and manpower. There are foreign bases all over the place, which ties up capability and manpower in defending them. There is the commitment to NATO's enhanced forward presence, which means deploying most of Britain's operational army capability to Estonia. There is the commitment to JEF, which uses up more capability.
And then there's procurement, where everything has to be designed bespoke for Britain at enormous cost and sometimes questionable efficacy.
interesting - genuinely - thankyou
It seems to me we need a rethink of our defence spend from first principles, in the light of all recent events, especially Ukraine, Iran etc
Non-negotiable: independent nuclear deterrent. We could usefully link with maybe Germany or Japan on creating missiles to carry our warheads so that we don't have to rely on the USA
Special forces
Military intelligence
All forms of autonomous drones, they are the future.....
But beyond that, we need to question everything. Do piloted jets have a future? Likewise tanks with drivers? Aircraft carriers? Maybe admit they were a terrible error? Or adapt them for robot jets
Robotics is about to render much present military thinking absurd, the way tanks rendered cavalry and trenches redundant, or the way machine guns and barbed wire overtook Napoleonic war
There's all of that, but then I think there's just a fundamental truth that for an island trading nation, no longer able to rely on leadership from the US, 2.x% of GDP is not enough to defend British interests.
Somewhere the money needs to be found to increase that to 4%.
We need to spend much more on Defence.
There is no getting around it.
And that means more spending cuts or tax rises.
There needs to be spending cuts AND tax rises.
Everyone needs to lose out with no exceptions.
I suspect the average voter will not be willing to pay for cuts to public services and their pensions and tax rises to pay for increased arms to Ukraine and increased bombs on regimes in the Middle East they couldn't give a toss about relatively speaking.
Unless Putin's army is literally in France the average voter is not going to be willing to fork out for a vast increase in defence spending
The GOP media posting clips of Talarico as attacks on him. And he keeps replying, yes, I approve this message.
JAMES TALARICO: “Christ is the immigrant deported without due process. Christ is the senior deprived of their Social Security benefits. Christ is the protestor kidnapped in an unmarked vehicle by plain clothes officers.”.. https://x.com/NRSC/status/2031442594983498169
So today the Royal Navy managed, after 6 days of truly extraordinary work, to put a vessel to sea. The reality is that almost all of the proposed increase in public spending on defence being planned by the government will achieve very little more than giving us the defence forces that we allegedly had, at least on paper, plus, if we are lucky, enough ammunition to fight a war of more than 2 weeks duration.
The extent to which our defence forces have been allowed to fall into desuetude whilst almost unlimited sums are spent on the likes of Ajax is a national disgrace, not just for this government (although they are not excused) but for all of our governments of the last 20 odd years since Gulf War 2 was finished. So much money wasted on a system with more admirals than ships, more generals than tanks and more Air Commanders than deployable aircraft.
The GOP media posting clips of Talarico as attacks on him. And he keeps replying, yes, I approve this message.
JAMES TALARICO: “Christ is the immigrant deported without due process. Christ is the senior deprived of their Social Security benefits. Christ is the protestor kidnapped in an unmarked vehicle by plain clothes officers.”.. https://x.com/NRSC/status/2031442594983498169
It will be fascinating to see how it plays out.
I don't think being reminded of peak woke is great for the Democrats.
White skin gives me and every white American immunity from the virus. But we spread it wherever we go—through our words, our actions, and our systems. We don’t have to be showing symptoms—like a white hood or a Confederate flag—to be contagious.
And we are still doing that today and Gordon Brown hasn't been Chancellor since 2007.
Why not ?
Brown keeps resurfacing, looking more like the undead every time.
Given that half the people I worked with at the time lost their jobs I'll keep a flicker of resentment glowing against the self-styled saviour of the world.
Were they in banking selling derivatives of derivatives of derivatives based on someone's domestic mortgage repayments and getting bonuses for doing so? If so they should have realized it was all a ponzi scheme, if not they have my sympathy.
Still not Brown's fault that it all fell like the house of cards it turned out to be though, even if the UK had regulated to prevent the banks doing it in UK jurisdiction, they'd still have done it in the US and elsewhere bringing all the same economies down.
They were in a Yorkshire manufacturing business.
And so didn't get any money sprayed in their direction as some London and Edinburgh based sectors did.
I almost wrote 'bailout' but we never needed a bailout, some help might have been nice as we battled through while still paying taxes all the time.
And we are still doing that today and Gordon Brown hasn't been Chancellor since 2007.
Why not ?
Brown keeps resurfacing, looking more like the undead every time.
Given that half the people I worked with at the time lost their jobs I'll keep a flicker of resentment glowing against the self-styled saviour of the world.
My sentence was very cumbersome. I was trying to say that economic activity is still predicated on house price inflation.
I think the sweet spot is house prices rising in nominal terms but falling in real terms.
Leading to housing becoming more affordable but without the negative effects of negative equity.
Such a sweet spot is easier to meet with inflation, and pay rises, at 5% than when they are at 2%.
So today the Royal Navy managed, after 6 days of truly extraordinary work, to put a vessel to sea. The reality is that almost all of the proposed increase in public spending on defence being planned by the government will achieve very little more than giving us the defence forces that we allegedly had, at least on paper, plus, if we are lucky, enough ammunition to fight a war of more than 2 weeks duration.
The extent to which our defence forces have been allowed to fall into desuetude whilst almost unlimited sums are spent on the likes of Ajax is a national disgrace, not just for this government (although they are not excused) but for all of our governments of the last 20 odd years since Gulf War 2 was finished. So much money wasted on a system with more admirals than ships, more generals than tanks and more Air Commanders than deployable aircraft.
Sadly not the case. The planned increase in spend on the nuclear deterrent (necessary to renew it) means that spending on the conventional forces will fall. The state of Britain's conventional forces can be expected to deteriorate further, despite the best efforts of the poor sods at the sharp end.
Britain has reached the stage where ragged holes have now suddenly appeared in what was a threadbare garment and Labour aren't even proposing to start the repair job.
But why?
Britain still spends - relatively and globally - a fuck of a lot of money on defence. We are I think the fifth or biggest military spender in the world?
Where is it going? How can they spunk all this money up the wall, to the extent we can only get one ship out to defend sovereign bases, after a fortnight's delay, when some guy nips down to Smiths for half a ton of blu-tak?
It don't make sense
It's because Britain is trying to do more than it is willing to spend.
So there are two aircraft carriers which soaks up huge amounts of money and manpower. There are foreign bases all over the place, which ties up capability and manpower in defending them. There is the commitment to NATO's enhanced forward presence, which means deploying most of Britain's operational army capability to Estonia. There is the commitment to JEF, which uses up more capability.
And then there's procurement, where everything has to be designed bespoke for Britain at enormous cost and sometimes questionable efficacy.
interesting - genuinely - thankyou
It seems to me we need a rethink of our defence spend from first principles, in the light of all recent events, especially Ukraine, Iran etc
Non-negotiable: independent nuclear deterrent. We could usefully link with maybe Germany or Japan on creating missiles to carry our warheads so that we don't have to rely on the USA
Special forces
Military intelligence
All forms of autonomous drones, they are the future.....
But beyond that, we need to question everything. Do piloted jets have a future? Likewise tanks with drivers? Aircraft carriers? Maybe admit they were a terrible error? Or adapt them for robot jets
Robotics is about to render much present military thinking absurd, the way tanks rendered cavalry and trenches redundant, or the way machine guns and barbed wire overtook Napoleonic war
There's all of that, but then I think there's just a fundamental truth that for an island trading nation, no longer able to rely on leadership from the US, 2.x% of GDP is not enough to defend British interests.
Somewhere the money needs to be found to increase that to 4%.
We need to spend much more on Defence.
There is no getting around it.
And that means more spending cuts or tax rises.
There needs to be spending cuts AND tax rises.
Everyone needs to lose out with no exceptions.
I suspect the average voter will not be willing to pay for cuts to public services and their pensions and tax rises to pay for increased arms to Ukraine and increased bombs on regimes in the Middle East they couldn't give a toss about relatively speaking.
Unless Putin's army is literally in France the average voter is not going to be willing to fork out for a vast increase in defence spending
The GOP media posting clips of Talarico as attacks on him. And he keeps replying, yes, I approve this message.
JAMES TALARICO: “Christ is the immigrant deported without due process. Christ is the senior deprived of their Social Security benefits. Christ is the protestor kidnapped in an unmarked vehicle by plain clothes officers.”.. https://x.com/NRSC/status/2031442594983498169
A IRGC Basij member filmed himself leaving his post, saying he believes the Islamic regime is over.
Standing inside what he says is a Basij barracks that used to be a school, he explains that everyone there has already left.
“Everyone is gone or leaving. I’m going home too,” he says. “It seems like the regime is finished and we should surrender. I just hope the people don’t take revenge on us.”
The GOP media posting clips of Talarico as attacks on him. And he keeps replying, yes, I approve this message.
JAMES TALARICO: “Christ is the immigrant deported without due process. Christ is the senior deprived of their Social Security benefits. Christ is the protestor kidnapped in an unmarked vehicle by plain clothes officers.”.. https://x.com/NRSC/status/2031442594983498169
So today the Royal Navy managed, after 6 days of truly extraordinary work, to put a vessel to sea. The reality is that almost all of the proposed increase in public spending on defence being planned by the government will achieve very little more than giving us the defence forces that we allegedly had, at least on paper, plus, if we are lucky, enough ammunition to fight a war of more than 2 weeks duration.
The extent to which our defence forces have been allowed to fall into desuetude whilst almost unlimited sums are spent on the likes of Ajax is a national disgrace, not just for this government (although they are not excused) but for all of our governments of the last 20 odd years since Gulf War 2 was finished. So much money wasted on a system with more admirals than ships, more generals than tanks and more Air Commanders than deployable aircraft.
Sadly not the case. The planned increase in spend on the nuclear deterrent (necessary to renew it) means that spending on the conventional forces will fall. The state of Britain's conventional forces can be expected to deteriorate further, despite the best efforts of the poor sods at the sharp end.
Britain has reached the stage where ragged holes have now suddenly appeared in what was a threadbare garment and Labour aren't even proposing to start the repair job.
But why?
Britain still spends - relatively and globally - a fuck of a lot of money on defence. We are I think the fifth or biggest military spender in the world?
Where is it going? How can they spunk all this money up the wall, to the extent we can only get one ship out to defend sovereign bases, after a fortnight's delay, when some guy nips down to Smiths for half a ton of blu-tak?
It don't make sense
It's because Britain is trying to do more than it is willing to spend.
So there are two aircraft carriers which soaks up huge amounts of money and manpower. There are foreign bases all over the place, which ties up capability and manpower in defending them. There is the commitment to NATO's enhanced forward presence, which means deploying most of Britain's operational army capability to Estonia. There is the commitment to JEF, which uses up more capability.
And then there's procurement, where everything has to be designed bespoke for Britain at enormous cost and sometimes questionable efficacy.
interesting - genuinely - thankyou
It seems to me we need a rethink of our defence spend from first principles, in the light of all recent events, especially Ukraine, Iran etc
Non-negotiable: independent nuclear deterrent. We could usefully link with maybe Germany or Japan on creating missiles to carry our warheads so that we don't have to rely on the USA
Special forces
Military intelligence
All forms of autonomous drones, they are the future.....
But beyond that, we need to question everything. Do piloted jets have a future? Likewise tanks with drivers? Aircraft carriers? Maybe admit they were a terrible error? Or adapt them for robot jets
Robotics is about to render much present military thinking absurd, the way tanks rendered cavalry and trenches redundant, or the way machine guns and barbed wire overtook Napoleonic war
There's all of that, but then I think there's just a fundamental truth that for an island trading nation, no longer able to rely on leadership from the US, 2.x% of GDP is not enough to defend British interests.
Somewhere the money needs to be found to increase that to 4%.
We need to spend much more on Defence.
There is no getting around it.
And that means more spending cuts or tax rises.
There needs to be spending cuts AND tax rises.
Everyone needs to lose out with no exceptions.
I suspect the average voter will not be willing to pay for cuts to public services and their pensions and tax rises to pay for increased arms to Ukraine and increased bombs on regimes in the Middle East they couldn't give a toss about relatively speaking.
Unless Putin's army is literally in France the average voter is not going to be willing to fork out for a vast increase in defence spending
The average voter wants low taxes, lavish public services, and golden elephants, but tough tits. Leadership, if it means anything at all, means telling people hard truths.
Rather unfortunately the only leader who immediately springs to mind who can genuinely change the mind of their followers rather than the other way around is Trump.
US INTELLIGENCE SOURCES SAY IRAN IS STARTING TO PLACE MINES IN THE STRAIT OF HORMUZ, A KEY SHIPPING PATH, ACCORDING TO CBS NEWS.
Oh my God! Who could have possibly foreseen this?
I think this one is actually unexpected, because it’s an economically suicidal act by Iran on itself. It’s kind of the nuclear option.
In fact Iran is perhaps demonstrating the closest a non nuclear power can get to firing nukes. It goes beyond Russia’s gas blackmail in 2022.
Ultimately its easier for the other Gulf countries to export their oil than it is for Iran.
Now perhaps the Iranian hardliners don't care but how much the people, in particular the non-Persian minorities, are willing to suffer is not known.
That is a strange way of looking at it. Iran's blockade makes little or no difference to whether or not Iran can export oil as that is dictated by external forces - primarily the Americans and Israelis. They really have nothing to lose in terms of oil exports from shutting the Straits. So this action affects the other Gulf states far more than Iran when you take into account where they already find themselves.
But it would be nice if all the nastier types just quietly left their posts. Certainly turning up for work must be a bit nerve wracking at the moment (along with anyone not nasty who happens to be nearby).
And we are still doing that today and Gordon Brown hasn't been Chancellor since 2007.
Why not ?
Brown keeps resurfacing, looking more like the undead every time.
Given that half the people I worked with at the time lost their jobs I'll keep a flicker of resentment glowing against the self-styled saviour of the world.
Were they in banking selling derivatives of derivatives of derivatives based on someone's domestic mortgage repayments and getting bonuses for doing so? If so they should have realized it was all a ponzi scheme, if not they have my sympathy.
Still not Brown's fault that it all fell like the house of cards it turned out to be though, even if the UK had regulated to prevent the banks doing it in UK jurisdiction, they'd still have done it in the US and elsewhere bringing all the same economies down.
They were in a Yorkshire manufacturing business.
And so didn't get any money sprayed in their direction as some London and Edinburgh based sectors did.
I almost wrote 'bailout' but we never needed a bailout, some help might have been nice as we battled through while still paying taxes all the time.
I suspect that the unacknowledged reality is that the banks were bailed out several times over, not only the bondholders but the insurance companies that had underwritten the bonds and so on. Even the mortgagee at the base of the inverted pyramid probably paid all their repayments on time.
The GOP media posting clips of Talarico as attacks on him. And he keeps replying, yes, I approve this message.
JAMES TALARICO: “Christ is the immigrant deported without due process. Christ is the senior deprived of their Social Security benefits. Christ is the protestor kidnapped in an unmarked vehicle by plain clothes officers.”.. https://x.com/NRSC/status/2031442594983498169
It will be fascinating to see how it plays out.
Can Texas handle a genuine Christian?
Would they recognise one?
Love some of the comments below: how dare - how absolutely dare! - the Democrats use religion for political advantage.
A IRGC Basij member filmed himself leaving his post, saying he believes the Islamic regime is over.
Standing inside what he says is a Basij barracks that used to be a school, he explains that everyone there has already left.
“Everyone is gone or leaving. I’m going home too,” he says. “It seems like the regime is finished and we should surrender. I just hope the people don’t take revenge on us.”
A big win for Kemi.
Unless of course you are posting Trump propaganda.
That'd be a bit of a bummer for the White House, but the decapitation strategy and general bombardment would permit a victory declaration I am sure.
EW: Israel has concluded in #Iran war • Regime change not an option • Protests didn’t mobilize • Kurdish option is no more Result: Escalation of strikes as Trump looks for “elegant exit” and wait for next round https://nitter.poast.org/Joyce_Karam/status/2031376356978659461#m
The GOP media posting clips of Talarico as attacks on him. And he keeps replying, yes, I approve this message.
JAMES TALARICO: “Christ is the immigrant deported without due process. Christ is the senior deprived of their Social Security benefits. Christ is the protestor kidnapped in an unmarked vehicle by plain clothes officers.”.. https://x.com/NRSC/status/2031442594983498169
It will be fascinating to see how it plays out.
Can Texas handle a genuine Christian?
Would they recognise one?
Love some of the comments below: how dare - how absolutely dare! - the Democrats use religion for political advantage.
Only one way to spread the message of the Lord. Not sure I remember that in the gospels, but then I am a godless atheist.
Iran is playing the only card it has now . A war of attrition to cause as much global economic pain as possible in the hope that Trump calls a halt to the war .
The regime doesn’t give a damn about its own civilians and the economic pain and hardship they’ll be subjected to.
The regime has already said that anyone protesting will be seen as aiding the enemy . As long as the army and IRGC are looked after then the regime remains .
The GOP media posting clips of Talarico as attacks on him. And he keeps replying, yes, I approve this message.
JAMES TALARICO: “Christ is the immigrant deported without due process. Christ is the senior deprived of their Social Security benefits. Christ is the protestor kidnapped in an unmarked vehicle by plain clothes officers.”.. https://x.com/NRSC/status/2031442594983498169
It will be fascinating to see how it plays out.
Can Texas handle a genuine Christian?
Would they recognise one?
Love some of the comments below: how dare - how absolutely dare! - the Democrats use religion for political advantage.
Only one way to spread the message of the Lord. Not sure I remember that in the gospels, but then I am a godless atheist.
I thought it was Herod?
Even Bill Clinton would swerve that and she's definitely his type.
Iran is playing the only card it has now . A war of attrition to cause as much global economic pain as possible in the hope that Trump calls a halt to the war .
The regime doesn’t give a damn about its own civilians and the economic pain and hardship they’ll be subjected to.
The regime has already said that anyone protesting will be seen as aiding the enemy . As long as the army and IRGC are looked after then the regime remains .
Channel 4 have found an Iranian spokesperson who is a University professor. A wise old man who sits in a chair and opines. He reminds me of my late Grandfather! He's even got his accent! A very impressive man. Quite a contrast to the juveniles who are speaking for the US at the moment. I think he could become a bit of a cult figure. He's like the old man in the old man and the sea.
Have you read Hemingway's book, Roger ? I don't recall much pontificating (or Islamic equivalent) from armchairs.
I worked with a Polish illustrator in Mexico who did the best version I've seen of it. Beautiful story though and there's something about this Iranian which is spiritual in the same way Hemingway's old man is. He didn't let anything phase him
So today the Royal Navy managed, after 6 days of truly extraordinary work, to put a vessel to sea. The reality is that almost all of the proposed increase in public spending on defence being planned by the government will achieve very little more than giving us the defence forces that we allegedly had, at least on paper, plus, if we are lucky, enough ammunition to fight a war of more than 2 weeks duration.
The extent to which our defence forces have been allowed to fall into desuetude whilst almost unlimited sums are spent on the likes of Ajax is a national disgrace, not just for this government (although they are not excused) but for all of our governments of the last 20 odd years since Gulf War 2 was finished. So much money wasted on a system with more admirals than ships, more generals than tanks and more Air Commanders than deployable aircraft.
Sadly not the case. The planned increase in spend on the nuclear deterrent (necessary to renew it) means that spending on the conventional forces will fall. The state of Britain's conventional forces can be expected to deteriorate further, despite the best efforts of the poor sods at the sharp end.
Britain has reached the stage where ragged holes have now suddenly appeared in what was a threadbare garment and Labour aren't even proposing to start the repair job.
But why?
Britain still spends - relatively and globally - a fuck of a lot of money on defence. We are I think the fifth or biggest military spender in the world?
Where is it going? How can they spunk all this money up the wall, to the extent we can only get one ship out to defend sovereign bases, after a fortnight's delay, when some guy nips down to Smiths for half a ton of blu-tak?
It don't make sense
It's because Britain is trying to do more than it is willing to spend.
So there are two aircraft carriers which soaks up huge amounts of money and manpower. There are foreign bases all over the place, which ties up capability and manpower in defending them. There is the commitment to NATO's enhanced forward presence, which means deploying most of Britain's operational army capability to Estonia. There is the commitment to JEF, which uses up more capability.
And then there's procurement, where everything has to be designed bespoke for Britain at enormous cost and sometimes questionable efficacy.
interesting - genuinely - thankyou
It seems to me we need a rethink of our defence spend from first principles, in the light of all recent events, especially Ukraine, Iran etc
Non-negotiable: independent nuclear deterrent. We could usefully link with maybe Germany or Japan on creating missiles to carry our warheads so that we don't have to rely on the USA
Special forces
Military intelligence
All forms of autonomous drones, they are the future.....
But beyond that, we need to question everything. Do piloted jets have a future? Likewise tanks with drivers? Aircraft carriers? Maybe admit they were a terrible error? Or adapt them for robot jets
Robotics is about to render much present military thinking absurd, the way tanks rendered cavalry and trenches redundant, or the way machine guns and barbed wire overtook Napoleonic war
There's all of that, but then I think there's just a fundamental truth that for an island trading nation, no longer able to rely on leadership from the US, 2.x% of GDP is not enough to defend British interests.
Somewhere the money needs to be found to increase that to 4%.
We need to spend much more on Defence.
There is no getting around it.
And that means more spending cuts or tax rises.
There needs to be spending cuts AND tax rises.
Everyone needs to lose out with no exceptions.
I suspect the average voter will not be willing to pay for cuts to public services and their pensions and tax rises to pay for increased arms to Ukraine and increased bombs on regimes in the Middle East they couldn't give a toss about relatively speaking.
Unless Putin's army is literally in France the average voter is not going to be willing to fork out for a vast increase in defence spending
The growing reality will be that you might not be able to defend
Some things will be indefensible against
Ships aren’t obsolete. Aircraft are very different to small drones. Infantry isn’t obsolete.
They might be in 20 years
The Ukraine War has proven how vulnerable aircraft and ships are in bases.
This is a lesson we have to keep re-learning, unfortunately. Ships and aircraft have always been vulnerable in base - see Taranto, Pearl Harbor, the Kronstadt raid, operation Bodenplatte, etc.
Keeping them safe means spending money on those bases. We leave aircraft on the ramp or put them in flimsy hangars because it's cheaper than building concrete bunkers for them.
The Georgia special election results for MTGs seat are coming in .
The Dem Harris and Fuller from the GOP go through to the run off .
The GOP candidate would be heavily favoured then but the real interest is really in Whitfield county which has one of the highest shares of Latino voters in the state.
Alarm bells will be ringing for the GOP as the Dem is hugely over performing there compared to 2024 .
So today the Royal Navy managed, after 6 days of truly extraordinary work, to put a vessel to sea. The reality is that almost all of the proposed increase in public spending on defence being planned by the government will achieve very little more than giving us the defence forces that we allegedly had, at least on paper, plus, if we are lucky, enough ammunition to fight a war of more than 2 weeks duration.
The extent to which our defence forces have been allowed to fall into desuetude whilst almost unlimited sums are spent on the likes of Ajax is a national disgrace, not just for this government (although they are not excused) but for all of our governments of the last 20 odd years since Gulf War 2 was finished. So much money wasted on a system with more admirals than ships, more generals than tanks and more Air Commanders than deployable aircraft.
Sadly not the case. The planned increase in spend on the nuclear deterrent (necessary to renew it) means that spending on the conventional forces will fall. The state of Britain's conventional forces can be expected to deteriorate further, despite the best efforts of the poor sods at the sharp end.
Britain has reached the stage where ragged holes have now suddenly appeared in what was a threadbare garment and Labour aren't even proposing to start the repair job.
But why?
Britain still spends - relatively and globally - a fuck of a lot of money on defence. We are I think the fifth or biggest military spender in the world?
Where is it going? How can they spunk all this money up the wall, to the extent we can only get one ship out to defend sovereign bases, after a fortnight's delay, when some guy nips down to Smiths for half a ton of blu-tak?
It don't make sense
It's because Britain is trying to do more than it is willing to spend.
So there are two aircraft carriers which soaks up huge amounts of money and manpower. There are foreign bases all over the place, which ties up capability and manpower in defending them. There is the commitment to NATO's enhanced forward presence, which means deploying most of Britain's operational army capability to Estonia. There is the commitment to JEF, which uses up more capability.
And then there's procurement, where everything has to be designed bespoke for Britain at enormous cost and sometimes questionable efficacy.
interesting - genuinely - thankyou
It seems to me we need a rethink of our defence spend from first principles, in the light of all recent events, especially Ukraine, Iran etc
Non-negotiable: independent nuclear deterrent. We could usefully link with maybe Germany or Japan on creating missiles to carry our warheads so that we don't have to rely on the USA
Special forces
Military intelligence
All forms of autonomous drones, they are the future.....
But beyond that, we need to question everything. Do piloted jets have a future? Likewise tanks with drivers? Aircraft carriers? Maybe admit they were a terrible error? Or adapt them for robot jets
Robotics is about to render much present military thinking absurd, the way tanks rendered cavalry and trenches redundant, or the way machine guns and barbed wire overtook Napoleonic war
There's all of that, but then I think there's just a fundamental truth that for an island trading nation, no longer able to rely on leadership from the US, 2.x% of GDP is not enough to defend British interests.
Somewhere the money needs to be found to increase that to 4%.
We need to spend much more on Defence.
There is no getting around it.
And that means more spending cuts or tax rises.
There needs to be spending cuts AND tax rises.
Everyone needs to lose out with no exceptions.
I suspect the average voter will not be willing to pay for cuts to public services and their pensions and tax rises to pay for increased arms to Ukraine and increased bombs on regimes in the Middle East they couldn't give a toss about relatively speaking.
Unless Putin's army is literally in France the average voter is not going to be willing to fork out for a vast increase in defence spending
The average voter wants low taxes, lavish public services, and golden elephants, but tough tits. Leadership, if it means anything at all, means telling people hard truths.
Speaking as a representative of the average voter, in principle I'm OK with increasing taxes to fund an increase in defence spending.
In practice, I'm against, purely because I think any increase will just get spunked up the wall. We endlessly demonstrate that MOD procurement is woeful, and I strongly suspect that's the case for virtually everything they set out to procure - fiascos like Ajax are almost certainly just the tip of the iceburg, we're probably also buying special MOD spec paperclips for £20 a box too.
We'd probably end up with a better military by having a serious reform of the procurement processes, and spending 2% of GDP wisely, rather than spending 4% of GDP via the current processes.
Comments
All going swimmingly.
We're all in this together was a good slogan from Cameron and Osborne - the problem was that it was only a slogan and many were given exceptions from the cuts and pay freezes.
Interesting discussion
Rubio is just a kiss ass with no backbone.
And given the spending cuts already made by the Coalition, welfare spending on pensioners has to be in the mix.
Now that would have been a more appropriate slogan from Cameron and Osborne.
@JohnRentoul
·
23m
“It was almost as if, for the US president, lifting tariffs to their highest level since the 1930s was not enough to wreck the world economy, so more was needed” @dsmitheconomics
https://x.com/JohnRentoul/status/2031481361467384042
http://archive.today/2026.03.10-132225/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/03/10/trump-iran-war/
Ex-lads mag journos with brains rotted by coke don't half lose the plot when they're over the hill and devoid of #metoo opportunities....
Unless Putin's army is literally in France the average voter is not going to be willing to fork out for a vast increase in defence spending
"Go it alone Kemi!"
1 -1
On the other, it's why we're sinking giggling into the sea. Only without much giggling these days.
It is a problem of 30 years in the making, when we in common with Europe, assumed the US would take the costliest burden and now, not just us, but most every country in the west will have to prioritise defence spending which I expect will show in the polls
Perhaps they should have a tax on influencers.
What is defence?
Tanks obsolete
Infantry obsolete
Ships sitting ducks
Aeroplanes aka drones
What are we defending against
Cyber
Germs
The growing reality will be that you might not be able to defend
Some things will be indefensible against
https://bsky.app/profile/noahshachtman.bsky.social/post/3mgqeimwijk2v
https://bsky.app/profile/warshipcam.bsky.social/post/3mgoegl5b4qop
https://youtu.be/oSw1ZPqHNEU?si=T1EogRXqfu95poQG
Brown keeps resurfacing, looking more like the undead every time.
Given that half the people I worked with at the time lost their jobs I'll keep a flicker of resentment glowing against the self-styled saviour of the world.
If you stopped all that, the rates of unemployment among angry protestors, commentators, lawyers etc would be fearful. You’d drop GDP by a couple of percent.
https://x.com/WarMonitor3/status/2031494728894595229
Aircraft are very different to small drones.
Infantry isn’t obsolete.
I'm more concerned about things like
Global Banking
Atms
Air Traffic Control
Trains
Road Signalling
Any form of digital infrastructure
The Ukraine War has proven how vulnerable aircraft and ships are in bases.
Still not Brown's fault that it all fell like the house of cards it turned out to be though, even if the UK had regulated to prevent the banks doing it in UK jurisdiction, they'd still have done it in the US and elsewhere bringing all the same economies down.
Which has been known since WWI.
The German FL boats of 1917 etc.
The GOP media posting clips of Talarico as attacks on him. And he keeps replying, yes, I approve this message.
JAMES TALARICO: “Christ is the immigrant deported without due process. Christ is the senior deprived of their Social Security benefits. Christ is the protestor kidnapped in an unmarked vehicle by plain clothes officers.”..
https://x.com/NRSC/status/2031442594983498169
It will be fascinating to see how it plays out.
In fact Iran is perhaps demonstrating the closest a non nuclear power can get to firing nukes. It goes beyond Russia’s gas blackmail in 2022.
https://x.com/jamestalarico/status/1258788884185518082
White skin gives me and every white American immunity from the virus. But we spread it wherever we go—through our words, our actions, and our systems. We don’t have to be showing symptoms—like a white hood or a Confederate flag—to be contagious.
And so didn't get any money sprayed in their direction as some London and Edinburgh based sectors did.
I almost wrote 'bailout' but we never needed a bailout, some help might have been nice as we battled through while still paying taxes all the time.
Leading to housing becoming more affordable but without the negative effects of negative equity.
Such a sweet spot is easier to meet with inflation, and pay rises, at 5% than when they are at 2%.
Now perhaps the Iranian hardliners don't care but how much the people, in particular the non-Persian minorities, are willing to suffer is not known.
A IRGC Basij member filmed himself leaving his post, saying he believes the Islamic regime is over.
Standing inside what he says is a Basij barracks that used to be a school, he explains that everyone there has already left.
“Everyone is gone or leaving. I’m going home too,” he says. “It seems like the regime is finished and we should surrender. I just hope the people don’t take revenge on us.”
But it would be nice if all the nastier types just quietly left their posts. Certainly turning up for work must be a bit nerve wracking at the moment (along with anyone not nasty who happens to be nearby).
Unless of course you are posting Trump propaganda.
EW: Israel has concluded in #Iran war
• Regime change not an option
• Protests didn’t mobilize
• Kurdish option is no more
Result: Escalation of strikes as Trump looks for “elegant exit” and wait for next round
https://nitter.poast.org/Joyce_Karam/status/2031376356978659461#m
Not sure I remember that in the gospels, but then I am a godless atheist.
The regime doesn’t give a damn about its own civilians and the economic pain and hardship they’ll be subjected to.
The regime has already said that anyone protesting will be seen as aiding the enemy . As long as the army and IRGC are looked after then the regime remains .
U.S. dismissed Ukraine deal for anti-Iran drone tech last year
Even Bill Clinton would swerve that and she's definitely his type.
Keeping them safe means spending money on those bases. We leave aircraft on the ramp or put them in flimsy hangars because it's cheaper than building concrete bunkers for them.
The Dem Harris and Fuller from the GOP go through to the run off .
The GOP candidate would be heavily favoured then but the real interest is really in Whitfield county which has one of the highest shares of Latino voters in the state.
Alarm bells will be ringing for the GOP as the Dem is hugely over performing there compared to 2024 .
The New York Times spoke to an engineer in Tehran who said many residents are surprisingly comfortable with the U.S. bombings.
“They’re upset when a night passes without strikes and fear the war could end while the regime is still in power.”
In practice, I'm against, purely because I think any increase will just get spunked up the wall. We endlessly demonstrate that MOD procurement is woeful, and I strongly suspect that's the case for virtually everything they set out to procure - fiascos like Ajax are almost certainly just the tip of the iceburg, we're probably also buying special MOD spec paperclips for £20 a box too.
We'd probably end up with a better military by having a serious reform of the procurement processes, and spending 2% of GDP wisely, rather than spending 4% of GDP via the current processes.