Yeah, though from what I can tell that's never a thing that happens...and the boats being built to replace the current sub fleet actually have a lower capacity, as a nod to the fact that the current fleet is never fully-loaded anyway (and not for lack of warheads).
Part of the new defence plan will see the army reduced by another 10,000 soldiers, down to 72,000, (nearly 4000 fewer than the capacity of Old Trafford). We will lose 13 Hercules Troop Carriers leaving us with 0, none, zilch. We will lose 13 Royal Navy Minesweepers leaving us with 0, none, zilch. Challenger II Tanks down from 227 to 151. We also lose 2 Frigates and 24 Typhoon Fighter Bombers. Call me old fashioned, but I think we are more likely to be involved in a conventional war than a nuclear war, yet we are continually reducing our capability to defend ourselves with the ongoing cuts. No point in increasing the nuclear weaponry, that will (hopefully) never get used, when we are effectively inviting any country interested in having a ruck, to just walk in through the front and back door.
We are currently at war but it is a digital war. Why bomb a country and destroy it when you can cause its collapse by destroying its communication and management systems and who need tanks when AI is changing the way wars are fought.
Nail hit squarely on the head there, Shandy. Someone is going to make a fortune out of this, in my opinion ..... and now we can’t even protest against us. I am beyond despair now and wondering if it’s just worth upping sticks and moving somewhere out of this septic island and to hell with the difficulties. My daughter is seriously considering a move to Ireland with her husband and my granddaughter, as they’ve qualified through his mother and my son is considering a job in California. Once they’ve gone, there’s nothing to keep me here and, to be honest, with the way this place is going, I’m not sure I wish to grow any older here. One cannot be proud to be British any more ....
I feel much the same sometimes Dave. I think if it weren’t for my children and one grandchild who still live fairly close I’d be off too. The only thing that puts me off about Ireland is that they don’t have an NHS, which is one of the other reasons to stay here. I remember as a 17 year old marching all the way from Trafalgar Square to Aldermaston (great free concert by Hawkwind to greet us) with CND. All the way along the route we had great support from people watching us walk by, offers of overnight accommodation in West London, Maidenhead (yes, really!), and Reading, and the feeling was that nobody really thought nuclear weapons were worth keeping. In the 80’s I Embraced the Base with hundreds of thousands holding hands around Greenham Common. Both these took place at the height of the Cold War, when there really was a possibility of nuclear holocaust. Remember the government leaflet Protect and Survive, advising us how to stay alive when everything had been wiped out? Remember Raymond Briggs’ devastating When the Wind Blows? It’s a completely different world nowadays. There is a possibility of a threat from countries like Iran and Pakistan, but hardly a credible one. Non-governmental terrorist groups might conceivably get hold of a weapon, but even if they did, what possible retaliation could a Trident sub carry out? We have to fight this, in every possible way. I just despair that Labour have become so spineless under Starmer, who I honestly didn’t expect to have rolled over on just about every issue.
I looked for my old CND badge the other day but can't find it anywhere. I am sure I must be on a police file somewhere as a trouble maker. I too am worried about what is happening in this country. I just don't recognise it anymore. Its full of nasty fascists who swallow the Tory propaganda hook line and sinker. We have become devoid of a moral code and are content to break international law and get into bed with every other nasty grubby ultra right wing state. I can't go anywhere else as no one will have me but I wish my children would leave for their own safety and moral well being.
Exactly - I was at Greenham Common too - I abhorred the thought of nuclear weapons then and I do now - even more so as we naively thought that, when the period of Glasnost came in, they were a thing of the past. Now we have a government hell bent on sabre rattling, attempting to prove to their blinkered supporters that we’re “Great” (we’re not in the slightest) and spaffing billions of pounds, which future generations will have to pay for, to their mates. I’ve today, once again, written to Caroline Nokes reminding her that, if it hadn’t been for the suffragette movement and their protests, she wouldn’t be in such a position as she is and asking her how, in all conscience, she could support the bill. I don’t expect more than a trite response, probably carefully worded to follow party lines, but it’s the only thing I can do. I know that moving out of this country will have major negatives in terms of healthcare, insurance, etc, but I’m getting increasingly concerned that, given a couple of years, the NHS as we know it will have been dismantled and we will be “assured” by the ongoing Tory government that the only way is some level of “national charge” to go to the private healthcare companies who will be given carte blanche to take over more and more of the running of hospitals, etc. I’m thinking that I may as well get out sooner rather than later, but there are massive barriers to get over and I’m sure my standard of living will drop pretty dramatically. It’s something I’m going to have to carefully consider, sadly ......
Regarding your sentence “We have become devoid of a moral code“. This doesn’t just refer to the politicians but to those who know what they are doing, yet still support them. There is increasing evidence that the Tory party is implementing policies that were used by the Nazis in Germany and the Fascists in Italy, during the 30s, to suppress, control and shape the thoughts and actions of the population. It’s somewhat ironic that we have so many people voting for the exact thing that their parents/grandparents fought a war against. But they won’t see it like that because their chosen newspaper is invariably one of those that beats the drum for “patriotism” when in reality the drum beats for Nationalism.
What worries me is how Nationalism has been normalised so quickly. People don't see the harm in some things as we have to be proud to be British. We are, but the press is turning that into Nationalism and we are getting back to the fear of foreigners and blaming them for all our woes. The irony is that as a nation we are now multi cultural and made up of probably more foreign parts anyway. The rhetoric now is that all things non British (be it products, culture or people) are inferior...echos of 1930s Germany.
My entire retirement was planned around living in Spain and I still live in hope that the Spanish government might find it in their hearts to extend the opportunity to relocate there, under the pre-Brexit terms (free access to their health system) to those who own property there. If not, I am left with having to sell up, probably at a great loss because my being British will give buyers an automatic advantage as they will know that I cannot use the property for more than 90 days in a 6 month period. Mind you my situation really exposes how stupid some Brexit voters are. I have been told “If you like the EU so much, **** off and live there”. To which the obvious answer is “If you had known what you were voting for you would know that is no longer an option”.
All but a few countries are made up of mostly foreign parts, really. It's just a question of what time period they were assimilated, and if one argues that it doesn't count because that assimilation happened a long time ago, that's tacitly admitting that national identity and the ability of groups to 'belong' are both dynamic concepts rather than a fixed mark. Given sufficient time those peoples will become more 'British', at the same time 'British' changes to reflect the changing nature of its populace. Just as it's always been and always will be.
But there are questions of rate of change. The UK is a melting pot and quite dynamic and admirable in its willingness to absorb other cultures and adjust to them. We Brits are too quick to assume ourselves worse than other nations when in my experience we are largely better. France is a multicultural community that is desperate to resist cultural change and look at the issues that country has faced. I think it is right to acknowledge this country's great strength is its openness even though if you listened to social media you would assume we were a raging cesspit of xenophobia. It is also okay to say you need to be open to the country's traditions and way of life when you move to it and we do have sections of society whose treatment of women falls short, for example, and we do not do enough to challenge due to an almost paralysing fear of offending people. Anyway, all culture is fluid and all people are fluid too inthis global community. Also, media means culture permeates society where there is not even migration. American culture is often seen as a disease, but it is simply a successful variant of covid... I mean of culture.
I agree that the Conservative Party needs to be confronted more directly, especially in the media, but I'm not sure that it's germane to this discussion.
The conservative party is a mess of horrible hangups but I can't see an issue with admitting there are horribly messed up things going on across all kinds of areas of British life.
I agree that there are horribly messed-up things going on across all sectors of the British populace. Which was the point. It's problematic that a minority of immigrants have seriously retrograde views; it's just as problematic that a minority of people who can trace their ancestry to the Beaker people have seriously retrograde views. I've seen little to indicate that any one ethnic or religious group is more problematic than any other.
Well when we accept one as flawed and do not accept the other as flawed due to our own perverse anxiety about others then there is an issue. I work with young people whose life is mapped out for them and if that life is female it is mapped out in a totally different way than if it is male. That is wrong in the culture that has been built here by all those changing people over the last thousand years but not something people feel comfortable to voice. We do, however, spend a lot time criticising armchair racist trolls. We do spend a lot of our time calling out daily mail readers. So, I am not saying one is worse than the other. I am saying our society is built on multiculturalism but we also need to be brave enough to carve out common values for all so we have an equal society in as much as such a fantasy is possible. I find a lot of university educated middle class white people take great pleasure in pointing out their moral superiority over people whose lives they have no understanding of whatsoever.
