Here it is in all its glory. Britain’s latest military white elephant – the new aircraft carrier Queen Elizabeth II which will be named today amidst much pomp and media puffery
Isn’t it wonderful? Doesn’t it make you proud to be British?
There are only a few ‘small’ niggles.
1. No aircraft – There is something about the words ‘aircraft carrier’ that our military bosses seem to have misunderstood. Because when this floating white elephant is launched, there won’t be any aircraft for it to carry. They won’t be ready for at least another 6 years. So, this monstrosity is going to paddle round the world, costing us hundreds of millions a year to run, supposedly ‘projecting British power’ without any aircraft. You’d laugh if this wasn’t so tragic. Though I suppose in the meantime, it could carry a few clapped-out helicopters if military bosses can find any that work and can afford fuel to put in them.
I warned about this lack of aircraft in my 2006 book PLUNDERING THE PUBLIC SECTOR. That was eight years ago. At the time my warnings were ignored as nobody thought our over-paid, over-pensioned military leaders could be so incompetent. Well, they are.
2. One will be mothballed – If I remember correctly, two of these £6bn monstrosities will be built, because the military signed contracts for two of them. But as we can’t afford to run both, one will be mothballed or even sold at a knock-down price to our potential enemies. Ye gods, we truly are led by brainless donkeys! Sorry, I’ve just insulted brainless donkeys by comparing them to our hopeless, big-spending military bosses.
3. They are vulnerable targets – I suspect we’ll never be able to use this white elephant in anger. It’s so vulnerable to attack by missiles or even small motor boats loaded with explosives that we’ll have to keep it awfully far away from our enemies, making it next to useless. Of course, our great military leaders will deny this. But they also denied we’d end up with aircraft carriers but no aircraft.
4. Are they being built just to buy Scottish votes? – One could imagine that we don’t even need these while elephants at all and that our billions could be better spent preparing for the predictable, never-ending future wars against the Religion of Peace rather than on vulnerable, eye-wateringly expensive aircraftless aircraft carriers. One could even suspect that the useless recidivist liar Gordon Brown only put the contract out to create spurious jobs in Scotland in order to ‘buy’ Scottish votes for Labour
Britain’s ordinary soldiers may be ok. But their leaders are IMHO stupid, over-paid, over-pensioned, self-serving, self-aggrandising, incompetent buffoons only interested in getting lucrative post-retirement jobs working for defence companies and seats in the Lords.
No wonder we humiliatingly lost our last two wars – Iraq and Afghanistan – where we were utterly thrashed by poorly-armed, poorly-trained, poorly-equipped but more motivated and better-led opponents.
seem to recall that the construction contract was given to Scotland by the Scottish dominated Labour party. The same people whose legacy is a demographic bomb in the heart of England.
I like this article. They dispensed with the Harrier, an ideal plane for terrorist
operations, i.e., no airfields required. As a bankrupt small country , the ” Ark Royal”
type carrier would have been sufficient for our military requirements. But of course our
leaders still think we are in the heavy-weight division , and that is why they require
“Trident”, costing us billions of pounds that we hav’nt got. Actually, we have a capable
alternative in the “Astute” class submarine with it’s 36 Tomohawk missiles which can
carry a small nuclear war-head for a distance of 1100 kilometres. It is time we started
thinking on the lines of saving money, not wasting it.
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Maybe they could use it as a launch pad for the Red Arrows? They could tour the costal resorts and entertain the sunbathers.£6Billion well spent.
There really out to be a new law put on the statute books, even though we have far to many already. Make it a criminal offence to waste public money. Those found guilty, after a fair hearing (honest, well intentioned mistakes apart)those responsible should have pensions cancelled, all assets sequestrated, and in some cases serve time.
The first in the dock should be Gordon Brown for selling our gold at car boot sale prices. The list would be endless.
Governments are put in place to do three things.
1. To spend, waste, every available penny of revenue.
2. To devise new and imaginative new taxes.
3. To borrow from any idiot that will lend them enormous amounts of money, knowing full well they will not be found out, until they have retired or are dead, whichever comes first. In the unlikely event they are found out, a mysterious and unexplainable malady has occured, sometimes known as the, ‘I can’t remember’ syndrome.
Sound familiar to anyone?