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Alls not well in the UK....

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  • Alls not well in the UK....

    The Sunday Times - Britain



    May 29, 2005

    MoD blamed as forces face £18bn cutback
    Michael Smith and Peter Almond



    "THE armed forces are facing £18 billion of cuts or delays to “essential” ships, aircraft, armoured vehicles and equipment over the next decade because the Ministry of Defence (MoD) has overspent its budget.
    This weekend Lord Boyce, the former chief of the defence staff, joined opposition parties in condemning the government as “irresponsible” for failing to fund the programmes.



    Many were promoted by the government as high-technology systems that would more than compensate for the scrapping of equipment and units that it announced last year.

    New figures have shown that the MoD is forecasting a procurement budget of £66 billion for the next 10 years compared with projected spending of £84 billion.

    The Treasury has refused to provide any more money, leaving the forces no choice but to accept stringent cuts or delays to many of their most cherished programmes.

    Last July Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, announced that 20,000 personnel would be cut from the forces along with 14 Royal Navy ships, the RAF’s fleet of Jaguar bombers, four infantry battalions and 80 Challenger 2 tanks.

    Whitehall sources have now disclosed that a new round of cuts is looming with spending on 15 key projects, which were expected to cost a total of at least £40 billion over the next decade, having to be cut to £22 billion.

    The plans for future equipment likely to be affected include the navy’s two new aircraft carriers and the air force’s Joint Strike Fighters (JSF), both of which are considered by military top brass to be essential to the armed forces’ doctrine of expeditionary warfare — sending troops to trouble spots around the world.

    The carriers are expected to be reduced in size and their current delivery dates of 2012 will be pushed back, while the number of JSFs could be cut from the planned figure of 150 aircraft to as few as 100.

    The army will have to delay plans for a new generation of light tanks and armoured personnel carriers designed to make it more mobile and reduce the time it takes to deploy large numbers of troops.

    John Reid, the defence secretary, is said to be furious at the extent of the financial problems left behind by Hoon, who should have signed off this year’s equipment plan in the spring but held it over until after the election.

    Hoon, now leader of the Commons, repeatedly claimed the forces were enjoying their longest sustained period of increased defence spending, while at the same time imposing big cuts to capabilities.

    Boyce, who had to announce the highly controversial decision to scrap the navy’s 24 Harriers in 2002, said the decision to axe a total of six frigates and destroyers and then renege on the new system was “totally dishonest”."

    end

    Where it will end for the Royal Navy I dont know. But look for the threat of these possible cuts to the force structure: Another five surface combatants cut for a 20 ship level and the submarine force cut to six. And for only one CVS to be operational at a time vice two. The logistic force cuts moved up. Plus 5000 sailors cut.

    I hope not but I dont see any other choice.

    Its a weird coincidence that this would bring them close to the French MN major unit force levels.

    Another strange coincidence is the latest major NATO exercise where the UK only sent one ship and the French five. As the French become more involved the UK seems to be slowly,painfully withdrawing.

  • #2
    Or I guess in France for that matter:

    MSNBC News Services
    Updated: 9:10 p.m. ET May 29, 2005PARIS - French voters rejected the European Union’s first constitution Sunday, a stinging repudiation of President Jacques Chirac’s leadership and the ambitious, decades-long effort to further unite the continent.

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    Chirac, who urged voters to approve the charter, announced the result in a brief, televised address. He said the process of ratifying the treaty would continue in other EU countries.

    “It is your sovereign decision, and I take note,” Chirac said. “Make no mistake, France’s decision inevitably creates a difficult context for the defense of our interests in Europe.”

    With 92 percent of votes counted, the treaty was rejected by 56.14 percent of voters, the Interior Ministry said. It was supported by 43.86 percent.

    Treaty opponents chanting “We won!” gathered at Paris’ Place de la Bastille, a symbol of rebellion where angry crowds in 1789 stormed the Bastille prison and sparked the French Revolution. Cars blared their horns and “no” campaigners thrust their arms into the air.

    For some, ‘a great victory’
    “This is a great victory,” said Fabrice Savel, 38, from the working class suburb of Aubervilliers. He was distributing posters that read: “Non to a free-market Europe.”

    EU leaders in Brussels, Belgium, vowed to continue their effort to have the constitution approved.

    All 25 EU members must ratify the text for it to take effect as planned by Nov. 1, 2006. Nine already have done so: Austria, Hungary, Italy, Germany, Greece, Lithuania, Slovakia, Slovenia and Spain.

    The Dutch vote Wednesday, with polls showing opposition to the constitution there running at about 60 percent. On Friday, the constitution’s main architect, former French President Valery Giscard d’Estaing, said countries that reject the treaty will be asked to vote again.

    France’s rejection could set the continent’s plans back by years. The nation was a primary architect of European unity.

    Punishment for Chirac
    Such a heavy defeat in a country that has long been one of the main pillars of the EU reduces the chances of a repeat vote, which French leaders had ruled out anyway before the referendum.

    Many voters wanted to punish Chirac and his conservative government over unemployment that is at a 5-year high of 10.2 percent and other economic problems. Other critics were angry at what they saw as France’s declining role in the Union.

    In fact, French far-right leader Jean-Marie Le Pen and EU skeptic Philippe de Villiers urged Chirac to quit after television projections showed France had rejected the constitution.

    “There is no more constitution,” leading opponent de Villiers said. “It is necessary to reconstruct Europe on other foundations that don’t currently exist.”

    Le Pen calls for resignation
    Chirac “wanted to gamble ... and he has lost,” Le Pen said, alluding to Chirac’s decision not to submit the charter to sure approval by parliament. The EU constitution can be adopted either by a referendum or a nation’s legislature.

    Chirac, 72, said before the referendum that he would not quit after the vote. But Le Pen called on Chirac to “draw the normal consequences.”

    Chirac is expected to dismiss unpopular Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin. Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin leads the race to replace him ahead of Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie and center-right party leader Nicolas Sarkozy.

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    • #3
      You ought to flip through Def. proc. in JDW. Let alone Hansard. Bloody Labour. They were all ****ing CND yank-o-phobes in the '80's. When Brit lefties finally co-opt governance they are the most irresponsibly hawkish gits seemingly ...
      Well, I imagine most know where this rant is about to go.
      Where's the bloody gin? An army marches on its liver, not its ruddy stomach.

      Comment


      • #4
        Originally posted by The Chap
        You ought to flip through Def. proc. in JDW. Let alone Hansard. Bloody Labour. They were all ****ing CND yank-o-phobes in the '80's. When Brit lefties finally co-opt governance they are the most irresponsibly hawkish gits seemingly ...
        Well, I imagine most know where this rant is about to go.
        Keep going old boy, this is getting interesting :)

        Oh, what is your opinion of Geoff Hoon?
        “He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”

        Comment


        • #5
          Originally posted by TopHatter
          Keep going old boy, this is getting interesting :)

          Oh, what is your opinion of Geoff Hoon?
          I'm not strictly enamoured.
          Where's the bloody gin? An army marches on its liver, not its ruddy stomach.

          Comment


          • #6
            Maybe he should be named Geoff Buff-Hoon.
            "Any relations in a social order will endure if there is infused into them some of that spirit of human sympathy, which qualifies life for immortality." ~ George William Russell

            Comment


            • #7
              The UK government needs to stop giving money to other countries.

              Comment


              • #8
                My first response is, why are they doing this. Then I think of, for instance, the Sandy's Report and it seems just ilke more of the same.

                These reports and reviews over the years have always appeared, at least to the naive and distant ( born in Oz, although my mother was English and my Father's Father was Scottish ) observer, to be designed to DEGRADE the UK's military capabilities.

                And yet it still goes on and on......

                Jonathan

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