The Telegraph talks defense u-turn.
If the UK's defense review got the big stuff wrong then how many of the "little" things did they screw up.
No one in the UK wants to ask and answer this very important question (well no one but the Telegraph).
The defense establishment in the UK is jacked up. I hope they fix it.
Straight to the heart of the matter.Philip Hammond, the Defence Secretary, cannot have enjoyed announcing yet another government U-turn on the type of fighter aircraft that are to fly from the Royal Navy’s new Queen Elizabeth-class aircraft carriers. Only 18 months ago Dr Liam Fox, his predecessor, announced that the carriers were to be fitted with catapults and arrestor gear to enable them to carry the more conventional version of the F-35 fighter. Dr Fox’s decision was one of the central pillars of the much-maligned 2010 Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR). It also meant overturning the previous Labour government’s conclusion that the carriers should be equipped with the Short Take-off And Vertical Landing version of the F-35, a like-for-like replacement for the legendary Harrier jump jet. The Government decided that it no longer needed HMS Ark Royal and its highly specialised team of Harrier pilots, who were unceremoniously consigned to the scrapheap – a decision this newspaper bitterly opposed.Now we find that Dr Fox had not done his sums properly, and that the cost of fitting cats and traps was more than twice the original estimate. Consequently, Mr Hammond, who with his business background knows a thing or two about the bottom line, felt obliged to call a halt to yet another costly MoD procurement blunder in the making, and reverse Dr Fox’s reversal of Labour’s original proposition.If a central pillar of Dr Fox’s SDSR can be jettisoned so easily, we wonder how many of its other erroneous conclusions will need to be redressed. Certainly, so far as the carriers are concerned, we sincerely hope that Mr Hammond’s decision brings this sorry saga to an end, and that we can look forward to the day in the not-too-distant future when Britain once more has a fully operational aircraft carrier to defend our shores.
If the UK's defense review got the big stuff wrong then how many of the "little" things did they screw up.
No one in the UK wants to ask and answer this very important question (well no one but the Telegraph).
The defense establishment in the UK is jacked up. I hope they fix it.
The defence establishment in UKplc has gone 1930's French establishment.
ReplyDeleteSo much money thrown for so little, and then they will evaporate.
Expect massive failure.