The Recession Thingy

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paw3001
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Re: The Recession Thingy

Post by paw3001 »

I know! :prost:
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Mortis
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Re: The Recession Thingy

Post by Mortis »

highway61 wrote:I think I would rather have the best health and education systems
That'd cost a damn sight more than Trident!
Lipsy wrote:We were VERY special when we had the Empire, definitely not a shameful part of our history.
It was in parts, but strange how the bits that were British (y'know, India, South Africa, etc.) seem to be doing a lot better for themselves than the bits that were French, Spanish, Belgian, etc. Not excusing the slavery, the exploitation and so on, but there is an argument that some aspects of Empire were good.

Anyway, back to Trident - what a bloody waste of money. We are sacking people, using anyone left in work to subsidise a stupid, failing banking sector (so they can pay themselves bonuses for being so great) and anything that's left over (or even some more fictional money) will be spent on a pie-in-the sky dream of more "super-duperer" ridiculous weapons that we'll never use? Great. And we get to come off our high horses, 'cos while America and Russia cut their nuclear arsenal, we build new stuff.

My favourite criticism of the pro-Trident brigade is "would you want to have to rely on American Nukes?".
As if there will be a point in the next twenty-thirty years when we would ever contemplate using Nuclear Weapons without the permission of the USA anyway!

We do spend an awful lot on defence, and not really in the right way. We are the only country (other than USA) to be building "Super Carriers", a project that will cost at least £5 Billion by the time it's finished. Why? Well, let's ask the First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Alan West: "I have talked with the Chief of Naval Operations in America. He is very keen for us to get these."
Oh. Okay then.

And as a nation we spend the third most on defence in the whole world - just behind USA and China. Yep, 2.5% of GDP (Germany, in sixth, is 1.3%, China 1.5%, for reference) and that's before allowing for the at least 10% overspend last year. Oh dear!

I know from friends and colleagues that we need to spend decent money on defence, especially when one considers our commitments, but is Trident really the way to do it?
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Re: The Recession Thingy

Post by highway61 »

agree with pretty much all of that
The conflicts arising right now and into the future are not the big set piece battles of the past, they are vicious,messy and small scale but spread over huge areas, involving whole regions not just individual countries. Intelligence gathering, well equipped foot soldiers and special forces are what is required here, where the greatest threat is not the mega-tonnage of the lastest missile, but rather the IED tucked away in the Coke can or the seemingly random tyre.
We could scrap all of our long range ballistic nuclear weapons, all our aircraft carriers and most of our navy in fact and the UK would not be a single iota less secure.....it's a hell of a price we are paying for our delusions of grandeur...
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Re: The Recession Thingy

Post by rygel16th »

I agree with both of the above. Any influence we have abroad is based on diplomacy not force, so we don't need ICBMs which every enemy knows we'll never use anyway.

Mortis makes a good point about the positive aspects of the Empire; ex-British Empire countries are more likely to be democracies than those of any other empire.

As an old lefty the thing that often riles me about empire guilt is the assumption that everyone in Britain benefitted from it, so should take a share of the responsibility for it. In actual fact my ancestors were just about as exploited as any other subject of the empire; I'd go further and say that this exploitation only started to change after the second world war, and it's got a long way to go before there's anything like equity.
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Re: The Recession Thingy

Post by highway61 »

@ Rygel, a not-so-old leftie salutes you! (41 isn't old is it???)