RAF cuts

The Times reports that the RAF is planning to axe 10,000 staff and "five large air stations".  

Is this not the price of the Eurofighter - and of protectionist defence procurement?

Defence procurement is not a choice between buying British for a little bit extra, or purchasing it from overseas.  As the decision to shut down of a quarter of the RAF suggests, it's instead a decision between having the kit, or not having it at all.

Posted on 15 November 2009 by Douglas Carswell

Comments

All this confirms is that for fifty odd years that governments of all persuasions have pursued a policy of rampant social welfarism. Labour despises wealth creation, industry and entrepreneurship. Given that we don't make anything and given that we like to spend money willy nilly (for example £800million to India, a country with a space program) what else can we expect but cuts to the core things goverment should really be doing: protecting the country.

It's simply evidence of our decline as a nation. What a joke.

Maybe David Cameron might like to rethink the international aid budget?

Posted on 15 November 2009 19:30 by Liam Hemmings

In a word, no.

It is the sort of price all government departments will have to pay for failed banks being (rightly or wrongly) baled out, a colossal welfare budget, falling tax revenues due to recession etc etc.

Typhoon is a phenomenally capable aircraft available at a fraction of the cost of the few comparable aircraft.

And before anyone suggests that it is an irrelevance in the Afghanistan conflict, the answer is simple. Typhoon will be in service for decades. Can anyone here state with certainty that we will not require its war-winning capability at any point in the next three decades? I'm not sure anyone in 1980 successfully predicted where we would be today and all of the intervening conflicts in the Falklands, Iraq, the Balkans, Afghanistan...

Posted on 15 November 2009 20:01 by Tony Steel

Douglas,

Check this out from Iain Martin a few months back. http://blogs.wsj.com/iainmartin/2009/09/18/will-the-tories-axe-the-royal-air-force/

Posted on 15 November 2009 20:04 by Daniel1979

Things are going downhill so fast here in the UK one wonders if Brown will manage to bring us to our knees before the election and gain full 3rd world status? Seriously though this spending and EU tripe has to be dealt with asap, we have to leave the EU and save our businesses and retain the £6.5bn we spend on the EU each year, we have no choice and Dave, George and William now have to wake up to 2010 being the year they let the British people leave the EU, to fail in this duty will leave the Tories failing within the first 12 months of office and wreck our nation long term. Dave would have the will and the mandate, never been a better time, the alternative is a never ending EU battle with our government having to lie to us, so come on Dave get ready to leave!

Posted on 15 November 2009 21:34 by Richard de Gerber

Tony Steel says: "Typhoon is a phenomenally capable aircraft available at a fraction of the cost of the few comparable aircraft".

And before anyone suggests that it is an irrelevance in the Afghanistan conflict, the answer is simple. Typhoon will be in service for decades."

Tony, it is an air defence fighter. Whilst we need some, we also need a good replacement for the Harriers and the already gone Jaguars. Now you can hang some ordnance onto the euro fighter and pretend it is bomber,but it will not carry any appreciable load, and once again we get a half-assed solution. We need a dedicated air to ground attack machine - which the eurofighter ain't.

Not the Tony Steel ex-CAA?

Posted on 15 November 2009 22:40 by Steve Stubbs

It's more than the defence procurement policy. It's political will that has been lost. We are spending less and less as a percentage of GDP on defence because government's have decided it is easier to cut there. This is, as we are now seeing, a very bad idea. And who knows what the next emergency is? Certainaly not the MoD, who are now signing a contract for the helicopters we needed two years ago, which are to arrive two years after we finished needing them.

You can't do defence on a shoestring.

Posted on 16 November 2009 12:17 by thedarknight

The RAF has been on its knees for years, stuffed full of low-grade civilian staff and reduced to nothing. Yet it is the first line of defence of these islands in time of trouble.

Still, it's not as if we're paying higher and higher taxes... oh.

Posted on 16 November 2009 14:01 by Roger Pearse

The purchase of helicopters for Afghanistan is an admission that ground cannot be successfully held or secured. Firebases, helicopter transport between them, dwindling public support and political commitment to win sounds ominously familier!

Posted on 15 December 2009 22:46 by Ian Thomas

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