Better late than never

I know this was originally published in the Naval Engineer, but now there is a wider audience....

'Not enough sailors, ships that ground to a halt and second-rate equipment': Admiral unleashes a broadside at our broken-down Navy | Mail Online

When I came outside, I was one of the 'people' he mentions that used to go onboard to do maintenance and repairs, even mods. That was when things weren't so bad manpower-wise too!

Maybe the RN could get Nigel Farange on the case?

 

Interesting thought.

Thatcher won the hearts of the Armed Forces when she finall gave them a pay rise which took the wage above the poverty line and above the level of entitlement for income support (dole) when she first became PM. Since then there has been a very pro Conservative element of support in the Armed Forces, despite the damage done by Camoron.

If Farage were smart enough to highlight the folly of further inevitable defence cutbacks following the withdrawal from Afghanistan, he may well sway the service vote. This in turn would have a knock-on effect as the military still has public support, particularly amongst the nationalistic vote of former service personnel - few famalies have zero military
connections despite its relatively small, present day size.

Rightly or wrongly, Farage could further rattle the mainstream parties by stealing the populist vote from under their noses whilst they still try in vain to smear UKIP. It depends whether Farage is clever enough to see this. Probably not.

 

It's a bit ripe of the Admiral to blame HMG. Whilst he has a point many of the policies that got the Engineering Branches into the parlous state they were in were choices made by the Navy Board.
WBD, canning Tiffs, the use of civvies through CLS, etc. These were not government decisions.

Shouldn't the be in Current Affairs?

 

It may have been the navy board that made the decisions but they had their hands forced by the treasury. Civvies look better in the account books. It's the same as selling off property looks better than keeping it and renting it out get the assets off the books and you appear to be making an effort, regardless of the fact that in 4 years the price of the contract skyrockets and we are up a creek without a paddle and no way to recover.


It was like that when I found it chief