"Git thar fustest with the mostest".
The now time-honoured way of winning battles, even if the quote is up there with 'elementary' etc and 'you dirty rat', 'beam me up Scotty' etc as a quote not made by the alleged author.
Anyway, our friends at Unite do not seem to agree on the 'mostest' bit, judging from this press release:
"At a fringe event on the defence industry at the Conservative party conference, Dr Liam Fox stated, that a defence industrial base in the UK shouldn't lead the UK's procurement policy. Bernie Hamilton, Unite's national officer for defence and aerospace said, "The Conservatives are threatening thousands of skilled jobs in the UK with their views and potential policy decisions. An enormous amount of work has been done to maintain Britain's leading edge in the defence industry. This has created valuable, high skilled British jobs. It's astonishing that during a credit crunch the Tories are devising policies that would actually cost British jobs."
Quite possibly, but I do not think that military procurement should be based on what it does for the defence industry establishment, as opposed to fulfilling the needs of the military. Feel free to add names of noted military clunkers that the MoD - or rather we - have forked out for, but the Tornado will do for now.
Who knows, there might even be some bargain chairs to be had at Ik*a.
Anyway, our friends at Unite do not seem to agree on the 'mostest' bit, judging from this press release:
"At a fringe event on the defence industry at the Conservative party conference, Dr Liam Fox stated, that a defence industrial base in the UK shouldn't lead the UK's procurement policy. Bernie Hamilton, Unite's national officer for defence and aerospace said, "The Conservatives are threatening thousands of skilled jobs in the UK with their views and potential policy decisions. An enormous amount of work has been done to maintain Britain's leading edge in the defence industry. This has created valuable, high skilled British jobs. It's astonishing that during a credit crunch the Tories are devising policies that would actually cost British jobs."
Quite possibly, but I do not think that military procurement should be based on what it does for the defence industry establishment, as opposed to fulfilling the needs of the military. Feel free to add names of noted military clunkers that the MoD - or rather we - have forked out for, but the Tornado will do for now.
Who knows, there might even be some bargain chairs to be had at Ik*a.
Labels: matters military, Unions
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on Thursday, October 02, 2008 at 1:24 pm.
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Military clunkers? Where to start?
Chinook, Armoured personnel carriers, Foam suppressant for Hercules, shambles over Nimrod, Bowman, Pay as you dine (or is that, Die) accomodation, aircraft carriers without aircraft, etc etc. The list is staggering.
And as you rightly point out - Whitehall is doing very nicely thank you. Plasma screen anyone?
Not only both versions of Tornado, what about the SA80 rifle, Sea Wolf, Sea Dart, Storm Shadow, ALARM,in fact virtually everything that BAe has a hand in. Which brings us nicely to Eurofighter.
If the British "Defence" Industry, better known as BAe was to be shut down tomorrow, along with Defence Procurement at MoD, Gordon Brown would be awash with cash to ride out the current crisis and our troops would have the reliable equipment they so richly deserve.
There might even be something left in the kitty to buy some aircraft for Gordon's new carriers.
In the words of Verity - 'I'm really feeling the love (for BAe) here'
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