David CAmerons strategic defense budget speech.

The prime minister has outlined spending on defence for the next five years. He makes a big point of chemical weapons threat and 10,000 troops poised to take to the streets of uk.
In times of austerity he has a multi billion £ budget.
It is scare tactics or are we really under threat of a chemical weapons attack.
Is it the beginning of introducing martial law. 10,000 troops to enforce it or is it necessary.







www.dailymail.co.uk...

Well I don't think the 10,000 troops split into 2 response forces will be in place until 2025, so who knows what is going to happen in the next 10 years.

It has to be said though that in these Austere times, we can always find money for war.

Austerity is a Conservative ideology, nothing more, nothing less.

Its just fluffing for the 12 bil thats going on the F-35's soon.

2nd

a reply to: chewi

He makes a big point of chemical weapons threat and 10,000 troops poised to take to the streets of uk.

More police state and tear gas for the people, more money for Industry and government.

a reply to: Cobaltic1978
The 2 response units are not included in the 10,000 troops. The troops are there in case of a Paris style attack. If he had not cut our police to the bone then they could cope. It is like the police are being replaced by the army through the back door. Why would he cut the police in these times and expand the forces.
Another big point is the 40 bill for trident replacement. Why? Have isis got a nuclear arsenal and we need it as a deterrent.

It might stop a superpower from attacking us but have no effect on terrorsts!

Trident costs spiral by 6 billion, it's open season for defence manufacturers to get contracts through. I know we don't really need hospitals or social support programs, not when we are fighting an ideology for an undetermined amount of time. We always have money for weapons of war and if you don't like it your unpatriotic and probably a terrorist sympathier. Who loves Isis.. Let's just capitulate and live in lock down for the rest of our lives, you never know what might happen. Safety first kids. I need the government to extend their powers over me
War is peace
Freedom is slavery

a reply to: chewi

Trident will never be used or if it is, it's goodbye world anyway.

Remember when Osborne said that he would have wiped out the deficit by 2015? Well that isn't happening, in fact this lot has borrowed more money than any Labour Government ever has. Yet, Labour are tagged the borrowing party.

It's all a sham, but hey ho, we are probably stuck with them for the next 10 years at the very least. Just wait until Boris leads us into oblivion.

a reply to: Cobaltic1978
Has trident run out? Why replace them, do they have a use by date? Why not stick with the old ones?
Excuse my innocence but I really don't get it.

a reply to: chewi

Hi

Making sense from the constant changes in policy by this government is pointless. I feel these spending plans were sitting waiting for a prime opportunity which will provide public support.

What baffles me is the fact that while they are increasing the budget on terrorism by 30% and putting the country on war footing they have announced a 30% cut in MOD civilian jobs.
This points to a reckless inexperienced government who think 2/3 of a workforce can carry out 4/3 of its previous work load.
One could almost suggest that these cuts in civilian jobs points to the government not being truthful in the need for this increase in security. For if they honestly viewed this as serious as the spending suggests why would they cut such a vital cog in the military system.

Finally I would like to point to the conservatives buzz word that they set out last year. They had and have been using it at every interview, repeating it into the subconscious of the UK public. It now seems that this word "security" was a perfect choice.
Maybe I was being naive thinking this was only referring to the economy.

A perfect storm for massive military spending while the world is destroyed in hunger and poverty.

So yet another promise from the indy referendum blown out of the water. The government & No campaign promised us thirteen Type 26 destroyers to be built on the Clyde ... "the Union protects Scottish defence jobs" ... now the UK Government are ordering only eight Type 26 destroyers plus five "lighter ships" (corvettes ?). Replacing destroyers with corvettes is just yet more short termism. And who's to say they won't cut the numbers still further ? I wouldn't place a bet on the numbers.

There's a loss of a third of the MoD's civilian jobs, many of which were de-centralised to Scotland a few years ago. There's a reason why the MoD needs civilian staff, they're less expensive and concentrating the staff in regional centres is more efficient. The administration of HR related matters for the Army, for example, is conducted in Glasgow at Kentigern House. There they also plan the deployment of troops, promotion boards, health assessments & all the usual background stuff which greases the wheels and makes things easier for the Army. Those tasks won't disappear, they'll just get Army servicemen to do it themselves, effectively tying up front line troops in admin work. Another false economy.

The announcement of the new anti submarine aircraft is welcome, but it just points out the stupidity of not having ordered them earlier. Last week the MoD had to haul in a French aircraft to hunt for a Russian submarine off the Scottish coast, it's currently operating out of Lossiemouth ... what an embarrassment for an island nation to have to rely on others for such essentials. I'm not against the decision to scrap the Nimrods, though, they were a pile of junk, one of the worst procurement decisions ever was to "upgrade" those aircraft. But they shouldn't have scrapped them without something else being in place.

The F-35's decision appears to make sense, until you realise that they're getting the aircraft earlier but stretching the whole programme out still further. That won't save money, it'll make it more expensive. We should've built cats & traps aircraft carriers instead of these 70,000 ton jump jet ships. Even the US is baulking at the cost of the F-35 programme, looking to buy more 4th generation aircraft instead.

And the ever rising costs of the Trident submarine replacements ... another £6 billion down the plughole. In 2006 the UK government estimated the four new submarines would cost £20 billion, today it's £31 billion with another £10 billion set aside for "contingency". It's not unreasonable to think that each new submarine could come in at £8 to £10 billion pounds each, that's USD $12 billion to $15 billion ? And that doesn't even include the warheads, the anti submarine protection required on the Clyde, the personnel, the infrastructure etc. Yet we're currently fretting about terrorists armed with nothing worse than tuppeny ha'penny AK47's and suicide belts.

The Typhoon fighter aircraft will have to struggle on another 10 years to 2040 before they get replaced. And because police numbers are being whittled down, the Army will have to be called upon in the event of a major terrorist incident.

It's a dogs dinner of a Defence Review, as per usual.

Our trident secrets were given to Russia by the US anyways.
Over the last 4 years the CBRN regiment (chem,BIO,radiological,nuke) has gone from a joint unit manned by the tank regiment???? And RAF regiment
The last sdsr passed complete control over to the RAF regiment and involved an exorbitant amount of money for facilities and equipment to be built and supplied to them at RAF Honington ....now it's going back to the army?!?
Extra f35's against terrorism? Yeah they're great, did you see all the air support during the Paris attack? No me neither
Operational bonuses .....gone
No rnr if your tour is less than 6 months
1% pay rise
Afps15 cutting their pension
And another (failure to be) reservist recruiting drive.....
Civilians cut by 30% (you know the civvies that were brought in to cover the service redundancies of previous cuts)

Had to sit and get told all this b/s from two scumbag officers up from London for the day

AND NO QUESTIONS ALLOWED....that's tomorrow when some other sacrificial officer is there for us to destroy....alas the service members must toe the line ....the civvies?.......I've spent my day giving them all the questions I wouldn't be able to ask

a reply to: TheShippingForecast
Great reply and very informative a massive thanks.

a reply to: AlphaPred

a reply to: chewi

"In times of austerity he has a multi billion £ budget."

That says it all really!

So good at destroying our once great country;
At least we don't die by mustard gas...

well you can be shocked by this or be informed that since the last defence budget change back in 2010 dropped UK military positions down by 33,000 - now going up by 10,000 this and other changes means that between 2010 and now we dropped our budget by 6.5% and now we are going up by 2.5% total so actually we are spending still less than we did in the past 5 years and the trident system is 6 bil alone for maintenance.

All in all, fact remains we are doing less than we ever did. Is that overkill with IS hanging in the east? I say it actually is not enough, France just launched a carrier to support the IS bombing with the allies (which would increase their power in that region x3) that should be us, the UK right behind the USA like we are meant to be.

a reply to: chewi

There is a definate pattern of western govt either passing more stringent security laws, laws that restrict freedom or privacy, after these major events.

We have all lost virtually all of our right to privacy; most of us all have lost many of our fundamental rights in the pursuit of "ensuring the physical safety of the people." Why are out govts seemly so concerned about our personal physical security to such a degree that they strip away our rights and freedoms.

Compare your govt concern for your physical security to their concern for your financial security?

How do they compare for you?

If you conclude that your govts concern for your financial security and that of your fellow citizens, does not match their concern for your physical security why do you think that would be?

If you concluded this was the case, would you entertain the possibility that their concern for your physical security is fake and is just a cover for something else?

You decide

a reply to: Azureblue
I have decided and they are not concerned about financial security at all. I personally think they are close to being exposed for what they are and the things they have done.

The truth will out.

I hope

I wouldn't be to worried about the gcs frigate being cut by 5, because Cameron announced that 5 light combat vessels will be produced instead and 2 extra off shore vessels bringing it too 6 opv www.defensenews.com...

a reply to: blackbird93

They'll have you believe there's no loss of capability by having 5 lighter warships. That's just unrealistic.

The Type 26's are designed to be ocean going multi role platforms, 7000+ mile range at 15 knots, top speed exceeding 30 knots, 2 months endurance. They're designed for a long stretch in service, they're large warships & that size makes them eminently upgradeable later in their service lives. Yet they will carry a relatively small RN crew for their size, plus troops/commandos as and when required. They'll be cutting edge & will integrate well with the Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers and the Daring class air defence destroyers.

What will the new "lighter warships" be like ? No-one really knows, of course. They might share the same hull as the Type 26. Or they might simply be an RN version of the frigates/corvettes which BAe/Vosper Thorneycroft sells for export to the likes of Brunei, Oman, Indonesia.

The Royal Navy pulled this stunt before with the Type 21 Amazon class destroyers in the 1970's, designed to be less expensive than the highly successful Leander class design. The Type 21's were not a great success. They were pretty much useless as anti aircraft platforms, they were too noisy to be effective anti submarine warships, they handled badly in rough weather & were difficult to upgrade because they were too small. Their service lives were relatively brief due to those shortcomings.

So I disagree. I think there's plenty to worry about. Yet more back of the envelope decision making.