Britain collects new naval tanker a mere 18 months late Britain’s naval service will receive new fleet support tanker RFA Tidespring more than 18 months late, following delays which left the vessel languishing in a South Korean shipyard. Tidespring was formally named at Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering’s (DSME’s) Okpo-dong yard on 7 October 2015, according to the Ministry …
"Money - it's a hit"
Thats the easy answer. In reality part of it was bloody minded unions who just like the NUM and the agitators at Leyland, screwed their own members in an attempt to win an ideological and political war which they invevitably lost. And former governments weren't blameless either. Thatcher let her red mist descend and couldn't see beyond the union intransigence to understand that having a manufacturing base is generally a good thing for an country and she bet everything on services and the City which turned out ok-ish, but if we still had large scale manufacturing we could be standing shoulder to shoulder with Germany right now.
Read something other than the Daily Mail
It takes two to have a dispute. Are you happier with the current situation? No unions, bosses taking millions upon millions come success or failure, taking 50,100,150% pay rises while workers are replaced with offshore people and their wages cut again and again. Hell even in IT wages today... just raw number never mind what it actually buys after the ravages of inflation are 30-40% down on 10 years ago.
This is what you get for no union.
The papers portrayed the unions holding the Leyland management and the coal board to ransom, yet in most cases they were only talking about matching pay rises the bosses were taking.
Then offloading all our work to foreigners is why we have millions watching day time tv and no money to sustain a proper navy, airforce or army.
What will we do if the Argies decide they want the oil at the Falklands... nothing, because there is nothing we can do, we do not have the forces required to sort out if the Argies invaded the Isle of Man far less something the size and distance away of the Falklands. The French and Americans wont help - they didn't last time!
What will we do if the Spanish decide on invading Gibralter... send in the Spanish tanks???? Ask them for some spare parts when they break down? Thought not.
"Read something other than the Daily Mail"
Is it Cliched Comment Day already?
"This is what you get for no union."
Right, because the unions did such a stand up job for our manufacturing industry didn't they. Endless strikes and work to rules = business goes overseas. The fuckwits put themselves out of a job but I guess if all you can achieve in life is getting a job hammering rivets, bolting cars together or digging dirt then you're not going to have the smarts to see the inevitable.
And how exactly do unions prevent offshoring? "Offshore our jobs and we go on strike!". To which the answer is "Knock yourselves out, we're going to sack you all anyway, this'll save us some payroll".
"yet in most cases they were only talking about matching pay rises the bosses were taking."
A boss taking a 10% pay rise has minimal effect on a companies finances. The entire workforce getting 10% can put it out of business.
"Then offloading all our work to foreigners is why we have millions watching day time tv and no money to sustain a proper navy, airforce or army."
I agree, but the horse has bolted. You can thank the likes of scargill and robinson for that.
>Endless strikes
That's the lie you got from the Daily Mail (or one of the many other lying rags). Strikes were never as common as the rags pretended - most union members never went on strike, during their entire careers. Those that did, did it rarely - and only when employers behaved like total prats.
At Leyland, industrial reporters learned to predict strikes, by observing the surplus of cars stored, unsold. When the surplus got too big, some management numpty would sack a shop steward, provoking a strike, allowing the surplus to be run down.
"That's the lie you got from the Daily Mail (or one of the many other lying rags). Strikes were never as common as the rags pretended - most union members never went on strike, during their entire careers. Those that did, did it rarely - and only when employers behaved like total prats."
Unlike you I suspect , I was actually alive in the 70s and yes THEY DID go on strike that often. I have none too happy memories of eating by candle light in the evenings because of power cuts due to coal shortages directly down to striking miners.
And I am also that old.
There were strikes but the 'winter of discontent' wasn't actually a normal thing. Indeed the coal miners 1872 strike for pay was apparently the first since 1926 and was down to money, 1979 the next peak of days lost was public sector... nurses, teachers, fire etc.
However yes it was difficult to live with candles for a few weeks but as I have said before it was not the unions going on strike for the sake of it, the managers were refusing the payrise they needed to cope with the rising cost of living. Now maybe the management needed to discuss the problems around lack of investment in plant, lack of increase in productivity, cost of our product compared to Columbia etc as part of the negotiation, and maybe the unions should have listened and taken note but neither side was covered in glory
As I recollect as well (I lived near the huge power station at Didcot that in those days burnt coal... it was demolished and sent to China and replaced with a gas plant because of EU regulations). The power stations themselves had huge reserves of coal for dealing with strikes of a few days or weeks but to try and keep the strikes short unions tended to work together, so if the coal miners were on strike the trains wouldn't deliver and the power workers wouldn't use. In a way a mess but if you want to work together you sometimes need to make a mess.
In a similar vein today, I here that Surrey council are going to hike tax by 15%, if the people of that county ALL got together and said no then it would be stopped, as it is the council are going to hold a referendum AFTER they have imposed the hike and MIGHT pay back if it is rejected (though how they will pay back money they have spent is quite beyond comprehension or belief). The French farmers work together as do their lorry drivers and get a far better deal than we do!
It is cliched comment day.. that was started when people blamed unions for every ill in the country
There are always going to be people for whom sticking a rivet in a hole is the best they can manage, we need work for them as well. However the real issue is that today there are machines for much of that, and most of our competitors are using British tax payers money to buy the machines to ensure they can out produce us. They are using British tax payers money because the British government would rather give it away as aid or buy foreign products than support the country that funds it. The unions have pretty much no say in the updating of machinery or skills. It was reported very loudly on the odd occasion that a union did object to a change in practices or machinery that would make people redundant, I have never claimed the unions were right in every case and where they were holding up progress they were often wrong.
The boss taking a payrise while denying one to the workforce may or may not have a huge effect on the finances (although to be honest taking an extra 10 million rather than investing it in a new product, tool, better office facilities, workforce training etc is probably a huge effect on the long term finances) but at the least it is a very poor example of I can have my cake you can swivel which hardly does anything to endear or motivate.
Scarghill made a massive mistake with the coal dispute, he didn't hold a ballot that he would have won and which would have stopped a lot of the legal challenges. However in many respects he was totally right, buying in foreign coal and now Russian gas and oil makes our energy prices susceptible to world wide trends, massive increase and leaves us totally strategically under the control of foreign powers. Had we still had a coal industry we could have considered doing something about Crimea (I dont say we should have done something but we would have been able to). Both the UK and the EU in general are so dependent on Russian gas that we could NOT have said no to the Kremiln, if we actually did something they would just turn off the gas and oil and hey presto nothing for the QE ships, nothing for these tankers to carry, nothing for the tanks to run on, no electric for the command centre... we would have been stuffed and the Russians know it.
People say the horse has bolted but the country created the industries in the past, other countries create them now, we could create them again. Its like we are still running down the rail network, digging it up and claiming its too difficult to fix but the Germans are still building new ones... and no I haven't forgotten about hs2... the myth that I reckon will remain on the drawing board for ever.
@Dave
You're good, have an upvote!
This post might get censored, last time I commented on Falklands, that was the case ...
1. Where are the Flaklands
2. Where is Britain
There, see that ... ouch ... Falklands is a British colony and the colonial times have long gone.
Same for Gibraltar ... I guess that, in 2019, when you all will have exited EU, you will not only have the Spanish armed forces but the EU armed forces down near Gibraltar ... and you will back up .... colonies is a thing of the past, face it, mate.
Imagine the mess you see at Nortern Ireland border with Ireland and Gibraltar border with Spain .... all for the sake of .... BS.
The Falklands are not British, you know that, I know that .... Gibraltar and Northern Ireland are NOT British, same thing, really ...
Remember, I have a British passport ...
@Hans 1,
"The Falklands are not British, you know that, I know that .... Gibraltar and Northern Ireland are NOT British, same thing, really ..."
Land does not have a nationality, people do. For instance, what nationality is Antarctica?
The population of Gib and the Falkland Islands have made it very clear they're content with current arrangements. And I the case of the Falkland Islands, there really wasn't anyone else there as an indigenous population to ask anyway. In the case of Gib, its population's origins also include Spanish ancestry.
If one shouts too much about history and who used to own what and how that should all be put back, you'd also implicitly be supporting a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, the restoration of bits of Germany and Russia to Polish administration, you'd be raising question marks over whether the Alsace should be French or German, whether Ceuta should be Spanish or Moroccan, the return of Alaska to Russian administration on its way to independence, etc.
It's a ridiculous attitude to take. There's no room in the modern world for shit like that. People today matter, not what happened decades or centuries ago.
He could go further and claim that most of Europe still belongs to Rome :)
Though somewhere in the middle Mongolia might stake a claim to parts of China, India, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia (probably also Israel and Palestine just to really shake things), half of Russia, Germany and even a good chunk of France and Spain.
If one shouts too much about history and who used to own what and how that should all be put back, you'd also implicitly be supporting a Chinese invasion of Taiwan, the restoration of bits of Germany and Russia to Polish administration, you'd be raising question marks over whether the Alsace should be French or German, whether Ceuta should be Spanish or Moroccan, the return of Alaska to Russian administration on its way to independence, etc.
On the other hand, the US would have to be divided up by England, France, and Spain. Hmm... do you guys really want us back?
> Land does not have a nationality, people do. For instance, what nationality is Antarctica?
[...]
I do not think about who owns what ... I think it funny for French from Alsace, who speak a funny German ... akin to pigeon English ... and claim they are French ... I speak German fluently, natively, actually ... but still, I do not care.
I think efficiency ... you have a territory which is in the southern hemisphere of this planet in control of a nation that is in the northern hemisphere, now that is just silly! There are thousands of miles between London and Stanley. Alsace, Taiwan is a completely different story, they are close.
I am a galaxist, if I may put it that way ... we are all part of the Milky Way. I think of nations as "administrative entities" for geographic regions.
Renaud, who liked to imagine Margareth Thatcher as a street lamp and himself a dog, peeing daily on the street lamp, sang this (much later with a Belgian singer):
"Les dieux, les religions,
Les guerres de civilisation,
Les armes, les drapeaux, les patries, les nations,
Font toujours de nous de la chair à canon"
An English transliteration would be the following:
"Imagine there's no countries
It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion, too"
Now, I know I am dreamer, but I am not the only one!
First of all .... I am loving it, keep those downvotes acomin' ... you are all upset, and ... the more you are, the more I am celebrating!
Protectorate, colony ... name it the way you will ... it is a colony ... as in, a terrestrial area NOT DIRECTLY attached to the "entity" it belongs to.
Gibraltar is closer to a country commonly known as Spain, equivalement to Northern IRELAND ... I got into trouble when I was 16 ... I had used a black marker to "erase" Northern Ireland from my black and white passport ... apparently, UK immigration was not too pleased ... I told them I spilled some ink ... anybody could see it was a straight line of black marker pen ... they let me through ...
Colonies are a thing of the past .... open your minds, guyz.
Thanks for the downvotes, BTW!
@Hans 1 - Ah. So Long Island is a colony of the USA and the Yanks should bugger off out of it, eh? Likewise the Isle of Wight shouldn't be British anymore, hmmm?
Sorry, but if you're going to spout ridciulous assertions like that, you will be derided on these forums. The Falkland Islanders were asked whether they wanted to remain part of Great Britains domains, and voted unambiguously yes - ditto Gibraltar. You may note that many other bits of the world we once either settled or ruled we have since granted independence too, and happily, at that.
If you don't study history, you're doomed to repeat its mistakes; but if you study it and don't understand it, you;re likely to make foolish mistakes - and you clearly do not understand it. That or you're merely trolling.
"I got into trouble when I was 16"
When was that , last year? You don't sound like you've appreciably grown up.
"open your minds, guyz."
Oh look, 'z' for a plural. Arn't you the hip original free thinker, not at all conforming to a teenage wannabe "l337" stereotype.
So by your arguments the Isle of White (it isn't connected to us) should be a totally separate country as it is obviously a colony?
And of course the Americans must immediately give up on Hawaii
What is more confusing to me is what will happen to Japan and New Zealand under your plans.
Both consist of a whole bunch of islands not connected... I guess they split into ever smaller countries?
Then you have the converse... if it is connected what then? Does Canada have the right to USA and Mexico? as they are clearly connected (the same way as you claim Eire has the right to Northern Ireland and Spain to Gibraltar? Perhaps even Hitler was right... europe did belong to Germany... after all it is all linked as one great big landmass... and linked to Russia, China and Korea.
What then defines a divide anyway... is there a minimum width? Now we have the Suez canal does this represent a break between the middle east and Africa and we should let Egypt only have one side of it?
I fail to see exactly how any of this discussion helps those on the Falkland islands... maybe east and west Falklands become independent countries (they aren't physically linked) and of course all the other Islands in the area? Certainly from your arguments they obviously can't belong to anyone else (such as Argentina) because they aren't linked to them.
>The Falklands was the Falklands before Argentina existed as a country & they are not a colony, it's a Protectorate! And the French settled it originally.
>Sometimes it's better to keep your mouth shut than remove all doubt.
It might have been colonized by the native indians of south america before that and I do not care ... it is a territory on the other side of the world that costs Britain billions to maintain when it would be so much easier for the Argentinians to take care of it ... it does not really add anything to Britain, does it ? Like a thorn in a toe ... but, ok, I understand ... better to keep Falklands than fund NHS ... who needs NHS, right ? It is economically brain-dead, you can spin it the way you want, it makes no sense ...
BTW, same for the Channel islands, they are closer to France, fact, much, much, much closer ... why waste money with very long cables to give them internet access, for example, when the cables from France would be so much shorter ????? It makes no sense ... it is silly Britain is a World Power, an Empire, the sun never sets on the British Empire, we have one of the last godly representations on earth, our monarch etc ... open your eyes, fell free to downvote ... but think, for a second, it is silly, you know that, right ?
@Hans 1
Land does not have the right to self-determination. People inhabiting the land do and like it or not, the land goes with them.
It is also important to apply this rule fairly too all concerned and not only when it suits us such as:
Kosovans can have the right to self-determination and join Albania (which they will do the moment they can), but Russians and Bulgarians living along the Dnestr in Moldova cannot. Croatians have the right to self-determination, but Russians living in Crimea do not. Scottish have the right to self-determination only when we can rig the referendum by promising lies left right and center which we do not intend to keep and so on. The moment it starts smelling like they will win it we tell them that no, they cannot have it as Westminster will not grant it.
The right either exists or it does not. If Falklands, Seuta, Gibraltar, Jersey, Guernsey and Co are entitled to it, well then so are other places where a majority of the population in a region does not quite fancy being citizens of the country which gave them their current passports. That by the look of it includes you too - you should be able to vote and you can vote.
'same for the Channel islands, they are closer to France'
And Calais is much closer to London than Paris so why don't we look after that again?
Because geographic proximity is no basis for ownership. The UN even have a thing about it, it's called the right of self-determination.
What you say is not true.
The history of who planted flags on islands that at the time of planting flags were not inhabited is vague and unsure at best and even then not really relevant. Currently it does cost a small amount to maintain a pathetically small contingent on the islands, not enough to fund a doctors surgery never mind a hospital. Besides if I had my way the funding for the nhs would be cut my 80% with the cuts starting at the highest paid (da management) not at the cleaners (the way the management always cut). The Falklands in case you haven't read the news do seem to be sitting on a puddle of oil, that might well be very useful and more than payback the costs incurred.
Besides which Argentina invaded someone elses land, frankly it doesn't matter if it is mine on the moon or mine in my living room it is mine and not yours to take.
I do't know about the internet cables in the Channel Islands, for all I know they are routed through France... in fact I would guess both internet and electricity actually come via French suppliers, however they are ours and that is frankly that.
The British had an empire because we were better at it than the others. France, Spain, Mongolia and Italy have all had them in the past and America has one now. Frankly this is the way of the world, the clever or the strong, or sometimes the same, get to lead or rule.
As for last Godly representation I am not sure quite where you are going... we may have a head of state who by the rules is also head of the church but that does not make the church head of state, indeed we are generally pretty good at keeping the church out of actual decisions unlike the Americans. (And yes I know we have bishops in the house of Lords, but the house of Lords is subservient to the house of Commons and although we could elect a Bishop into the commons he would not be there by right of religion.
The monarch is also just a figure head, actually no power at all. True she dissolves parliament... but only when told to, true the government is hers, but it tells her what it is going to do, and yes the armed forces (both people in them) swear allegiance to the crown but their actual orders and instructions come from parliament.
Britain is a world power because it might be a small island and increasingly the idiot people we have put in power might be intent on destroying it but we still have the odd nuke or two up our sleeves, just in case.
Hans1 You've got a source for the Billions claim have you and over what time frame are we talking? I only ask because the cost for defending them can be found here https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/jan/03/falkland-islands-data-charts
The cost for 2010-11 was only £75m so hardly a Billion! To add to that the Falkland Island government themselves say that:
Beyond the cost of defence, the Falkland Islands do not receive any further financial assistance from the United Kingdom.
http://www.falklands.gov.fk/self-sufficiency/
So where did your Billions claim come from?
@Hans 1...
Imagine the mess you see at Nortern Ireland border with Ireland and Gibraltar border with Spain .... all for the sake of .... BS.
The Falklands are not British, you know that, I know that .... Gibraltar and Northern Ireland are NOT British, same thing, really ...
And come to think about it Spain has refused to return Ceuta and Melilla to Morocco. And how come exactly that Spanish is the predominant language in South America, with Brazil's Portuguese being a notable exception?
And I assume that you would be happy to see Israel wiped off the map.
History is littered with the events that brought all the above and much more about. You may or may not like bits of history, but you do not have the right to unwrite them.
>And I assume that you would be happy to see Israel wiped off the map.
No, not really ... I personally have an issue with their claim, because the bible is a load of BS, as we all know ... so their claims are bogus ... however, I respect religions, freedom of bullshit (aka freedom of faith) ... you cannot speak sense into nutters ... so, no ... Israel can stay, with the 1947 borders, though. If they do not like that, then, as you say, no Israel. Nothing to do with Jews, Muslims, or Christians or whatever ... they are all equally brainwashed nutters, imho.
Why 1947, well, that is what we gave them last ... it was not ours to give in the first place, ok, but apparently, the Palestinians are willing to accept that and it would keep several million nutters happy and save lives ... and I am all for that!
Don't you just love "freedom of bullshit" ?
It was ours to give.. if for no other reason than we were the guys with the massive guns and lots of soldiers.
Struth, as I say, go back far enough and maybe ask Genghis Khans descendents what they want to do with it... but then they were once the new boy colonists... how far back do you go until you find someone you like. Frankly giving someone who hates Britain a British passport was bloody stupid.
Perhaps somewhere in the left wing brainwashing you received someone might have pointed out some of the things that the British did that was beneficial? Things like sending the Navy out to put an end to the slave trade?
@Hans1
Don't you just love "freedom of bullshit" ?
As a general rule, yes, but you are abusing the priviledge.
Perhaps you would like to reverse the impact of the Viking raids and the Norman Conquest while you are at it. History happened; deal with it.
On second thoughts we should simply shout "Nurse! Nurse!" and make sure you take your medication.
If you want to be honest there were people in Britain, even in the royal family and the government with British passports who wanted to surrender to Hitler. Looking back we might have done a good deal better taking that route... no massive debt, no getting screwed over by our American 'allies' and then a massive bail out of cash at the end when they had finished practicing bomb runs.... but in honesty they may have held a passport and it might be fashionable to say free speech and all that but they were and should be considered traitors
The phrasing has certainly changed.
Gib and the Falklands are part of a reasonable number of (generally smaller) places that are overseas territories. These are places that chose to remain with Britain rather than go it alone (most colonies didn't really choose to be with us). They govern themselves but rely on us for foreign affairs and defence (that last is a laugh now that the entire armed forces couldn't manage to defend the Isle of Dogs in London... in fact the whole armed forces would rattle around in Wembley stadium and not be able to man all the entrances far less defend it.
Actually the Falklands ARE British, historically and by choice
Same for Gibraltar... it has CHOSEN to remain with us
Northern Ireland, for all the noise (most of it supported by the Americans who were happy to see London bombed by the boys back home, just not so happy when someone bombed New York ... the centre of the IRA funding for many years), was in fact a compromise.. a place for those people who wanted to stay with the UK when Eire was created for those who didn't want to stay.
Next you will claiming that Scotland should be independent as well... remember they joined Britain to form Great Britain at the same time planting their king on the throne... hardly the 'invasion' style that many people seem to think.
"Yet they managed to pull G4S's balls out of the fire in 2012."
They did indeed, and one might have hoped that The Powers That Be would recognise that in due course. Which would of course have been a forlorn hope.
TPTB like to invest the taxpayers money in big boys toys like F35s which can't fly (which is apparently OK), and nuclear deterrents we won't be able to afford let alone use (which is apparently also OK).
But if any politician dares suggest that some of the money being spent on these monstrosities should be spent on feet on the street/ground instead, the said politician is monstered by the media.
Funny old world. Getting funnier by the day.
ermmmm I'm afraid the Unions have to take a BIG load of blame for us having very little in the way of ship building capacity in the UK. I used to work in the industry BTW so know a bit about it (funny enough for A&P group) who basically do all the work on the RFA's. When I worked in their yard in Falmouth back in the 90's we STILL had a long list of ship owners who wouldn't even consider using a UK yard because of their experiences years before, ships getting locked in dock due to strikes, etc.
As I said before if you have an argument there are two sides. To get people to walk out on strike, lose their income, lose their work, put their jobs and industry at risk the management must be making some pretty poor looking decisions.
This as true then and to the very limited extent of the few unions left it is true now.
And what we see without any form of union is those at the top are taking ALL the benefits to themselves and passing none to the workers that make the money. This is obvious in all industries, even IT. Just look at the rates advertised for engineers (hardware or software), they have plummeted not just in real terms but in raw numbers over the last 20 years. The wages and money accumulated 'at the top' has by contrast soared. The boss on the golf course yelling it has to be done yesterday and he doesn't give a damn if you work all night and weekend on it is taking all the money for your night and weekend and selling your job off to his mate from Bangalore.
Essentially a floating petrol station complete with shop, her main duty is supposed to be refuelling Royal Navy and allied ships on the high seas
And presumably providing pasties, overpriced 12v chargers, wilted flowers and last-minute xmas and birthday presents for partners of the soon-to-be dumped
"as the admiral at the counter tries to remember his PIN and find his loyalty card."
Haven't we got about 3 admirals per ship these days? Today's admiral seems to have about as much ship to command as a second lieutenant in Nelson's day. They just get paid a lot more.
....anyway, the real reason for the late delivery is obvious. Batteries catching fire.
I wonder what their bid would have been? 2x,3x, 4x the price?
Then again not nearly enough weapons on it for them I suppose.
A bit too civilian for their liking.
Presumably the other (3?) will incorporate this changed wiring spec and come off the slipway faster.
If you can build something in your own tax juristiction, you can afford to pay more for government contracts, at least 10% more, even 20%-30% seems reasonable...
Since a large chunk of the money you pay will find its way back into government coffers...
30% of total wage costs
20+% of corporate profits
plus the other benefits such as
Reduced unemployment
Reduced welfare bill
Not necessarily true.
Although I agree with your point 100% in principle, in practice you're forgetting about the multiple tax dodges, rebates, off-shoring, "research expenditures" and other profit-sinks between revenue and taxation that comapnies like BAe would use to simply trouser the difference, simply meaning UKGov pays 25% more and doesn't get any of it back, instead simply subsidising their shareholders.
...for Colin Furze
I had in mind something like the dancing water jets from places like EPCOT, with the final leap into the Range Rover filler neck...
I'll bite. I think the statement about the car not surviving is reasonable.
The velocity of the fuel is based on the aperture of the nozzle and the amount of fuel that would need to pass through it. Moving fuel to a ship is performed using multiple lines all of which will be wider than a car fuel nozzle. If you try to move the same amount of fuel through a narrower pipe, the velocity will have to be much higher (hence the Mach 2 figure).
Comparing this to water-jet cutters, they typically use similar velocity, and although they normally have an abrasive in them to cut steel, fuel tanks in Range Rovers are probably made from a poly-something plastic.
As a result, I would expect a Mach 2 liquid stream to be able to cut through the car's fuel pipe, tank, and almost certainly through other parts of the car.
And this is avoiding the simple factor that this amount of fuel moving at Mach 2 would have a huge amount of kinetic energy which would have to go somewhere if it were to go from Mach 2 to rest in a short distance. I estimate that ~100 liters of fuel (Range Rover TD6) would weigh only a little less that 100Kg. Mach 2 is about 686 meters per second, so it would have a total energy (E=m*V2) of 47MJ. This is a lot of energy to dissipate.
As a result, I would not expect the car to survive.
This tanker is paid for by BRITISH TAX PAYERS
This tanker is to refuel BRITISH ROYAL NAVY ships
Which anus reckoned it was a good idea to let the Koreans build it?????
Will they fight our damned wars for us?
Will they pay the unemployed BRITISH workers the BRITISH government should have spent BRITISH money employing
Thought not
Bloody British government and civil servants should all be up against the wall and shot with the foreign (south african) bullets they buy for the foreign guns (belgium) they buy worn by soldiers in the foreign (chinese) uniforms.... ALL of that expenditure is money leaving this country and providing no damned benefit for the country. Has anyone read and understood Keynes and the other economists that point out that reducing unemployment and growing your economy means recycling money back into your own economy and NOT buying everything from abroad?
Our leaders - the lot of them - are traitors.
BAE ship cost = cost - all the tax we get back - all the extra exports - all the unemployment we save - all the free prescriptions and school meals we don't pay - all the extra policing we pay for the bored unemployed
Korea ship cost = ship cost + all the lost pride + the exports we could have made if we had a shipyard + the cost of spares and repairs which we cant do ourselves + the cost of being invaded because we can no longer defend ourselves
pretty much I would take the BAE cost ... although if we had done it right as far back as Thatcher we would have swans etc etc etc to compete and BAE would not be so expensive
A fine rant but you missed one rather important point, that is actually in the article.
NO BRITISH YARD BID TO BUILD THE SHIPS
In that case what were MoD supposed to do? Put a gun at their heads and demand they build it?
You are of course welcome to set up your own ship building facility and bid for subsequent tenders.
Frankly yes. Maybe easier for the government to set one up... lets face it would cost a hell of a lot less than the bank bail out and promises manufacturing for the future.
The claim no one bid for the work also requires a scan of the documents - I haven't yet but I have looked at bidding for software related work. One of the things that is pretty obvious when bidding for government work is that they put ALL their effort into clauses and preconditions that make it impossible for anyone but a large multinational to bid.
One early question from a quick scan of the tender document... apparently a credit check on the company is required to be good enough before company can bid... ok except the government should be paying the bills on time therefore a government contract should be a great way of making the company stable especially when like all British ship builders it will have been through a couple of decades of lean times.
Next bidder has to keep tender open even after being told it went elsewhere for a substantial period, this would make taking on work in the event of losing difficult if yard has limited capacity. This puts company and jobs at risk
Each bidder would need to get insurance either from a bank or parent company to cover all sorts of potential losses and this is going to be expensive for the generally smaller British companies than a thumping great Korean conglomerate. Making bidding unaffordable
The doc I found is after the tanker award of 4 tankers to Daewoo in Korea.. Tidespring being the first... lots of work, lots of jobs, lots of money and all exported.
You realise those tender conditions apply to all MoD contracts, it's partly why it cost MoD so much to buy things. It wouldn't have prevented any of the UK yards capable of building the ships building them because they're already MoD suppliers, as the article also states, at the time they were busy building big chunks of the QE Class carriers.
So as no UK yard would take the work it was tendered overseas, the other option would be to wait until the carrier work was finished but frankly the age of the shipping being replaced wouldn't really allow for that.
I would not want to let the Government get involved in actually making ships, have you seen the mess they make of everything else they do? Not to mention the UK's shipbuilding work force was busy making the QE Class so unless you want enthusiastic amateurs to do it you're looking at a large training burden.
Also minor point, in your first post you called it the BRITISH ROYAL NAVY. The BRITISH part is tautology, there are many Royal Navies but only one Royal Navy, the British one.
I know about the one Royal Navy, was making a point that was all.
I didn't even say the government should get involved in building the ship, just in creating the yard. There is a major problem in the UK which revolves around getting funding for doing more than start a corner shop in your front room... you won't get it, it takes more than a week for you to turn a profit and give the money back to the bank.
It was the other way around. The UK industry/MOD Alliance partnership was killed off to obey eu rules on procurement. UK yards knew they had all cards stacked against them and were not invited, especially when bae got into bed with the South Korean firm, knowing full well that Barrow and Govan were capable and the latest yards to build military taxpayer-funded tankers. Why would you bid, knowing you will be rejected by your own government?
Would love to know why the thumbs down.
When I see the Americans having the Koreans build ships for them, or the Germans, or French, or Italian then maybe I could understand foreigners giving me a thumbs down. Maybe the thumbs down come from British people who want to watch daytime tv instead of working? Perhaps they come from Koreans
Whoever they are from good luck to you, if you want to see Britain continue to decline then continue to back exporting all our jobs.
Yes
I asked why as well. OK people took it as a rant but in honesty try visiting Germany, you will NOT find a French, Italian, Spanish or English cop car - why - because they support their own industry which flourishes as a result. Now some might try and say German cars are better (and I have been involved in developing them so I know otherwise), if that point was really valid when you go to France you would expect to also find German police cars (after all don't all EU countries abide by the same value for money rules????) But if you make that trip you will find in France that ALL police cars are French. The reasons are simple and as I stated... buying your own is the best option. Hence for us we should have bought a British build fuel tanker for the British Royal Navy. There are all the issues of money leaving the country, marketing, companies going bust and people sitting watching daytime TV (go and look at the ONS and be staggered by the number of Brits who are not working... not paying tax, not contributing... because the British government would rather stab them in the back and get a Korean ship... all that money, all those jobs.
"I distinctly seem to remember a Commentard based in France menitioning that his local cops had a fleet of Fords"
You probably mean this thread:
https://m.forums.theregister.co.uk/forum/1/2016/08/18/new_uk_trade_deals_would_not_fully_compensate_for_loss_of_single_market_membership/
Reg readers are tough crowd. Someone is always going to derail a perfectly good agenda with their pesky facts. Like those much-touted "Spanish tanks" actually being infantry machines and not particularly Spanish. Like Germans and French using a wide variety of cars for their police forces. And so on and so forth.
"Has anyone read and understood Keynes "
Apparently not.
Where's his blog? Where does he Twitter?
"Our leaders - the lot of them - are traitors."
This is clearly true of many (most?) of them in the UK in recent decades; I really don't understand the downvotes for comments pointing out this fact.
I do not understand you here. The Chinese are getting much much richer, this is not because all the money we spend in China is somehow coming back to the UK.
We have a balance of payments deficit EVERY year since I was a kid, our money is going abroad and NOT coming back.
If my local police buy a German car then the German company pay tax in Germany and employ a German worker, the German worker spends the money on German beer and German sausage, they buy things from German farmers to make the beer and sausage and the German farmer buys a German car... the money never heads to the UK again. If my local police buy a British car that money stays in Britain and buys something here, which employs someone (if we all bought local it would be someone local), who also buys here... creating a positive feedback HERE!
"ALL of that expenditure is money leaving this country and providing no damned benefit for the country. "
So, you want to kill all arms imports? If other countries follow that policy you'll also kill off arms exports from the UK. I think (but not sure, couldn't find enough on the ONS web site this morning) that arms exports significantly exceed imports - so the net result of your policy would be to destroy a chunk of British industry. According to some older data, the UK is the world's second largest defence exporter with a market share of 20% (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/defence-exports-largest-increase-in-5-years). And if there were no imports I would rather expect prices for this kit to go up due to a lack of competition.
I'm currently lending a British software supplier a hand with tenders issued by various armed forces elsewhere in the EU. It is because of free trade, specifically the EU public procurement regulations, that they can do that. Once the UK leaves the EU my client's export prospects are going to be significantly diminished. I'm sure their competitors in other EU countries will be delighted to pick up their business. But I guess you think that's a price worth paying "to be in control" (which is impossible in this massively interconnected world).
"Our leaders - the lot of them - are traitors."
Who elected them?
"Our leaders - the lot of them - are traitors."
Who elected them?
In terms of our actual leaders, effectively no one. The party and maybe its members (or just it's MPs) choose their leader who may or may not still be leader after an election. The "people" elect only their own representative who then may or may go on to be a leader. Once an elected MP becomes PM, s/he then chooses the remaining leaders (ministers).
You can't blame the whole country for who ends up as the leaders because in the UK parliamentary system, the people don't get to choose the leader. For that matter, in the right circumstances, the Queen could choose an unelected person and ask them to form a government.
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So the F35-B's that we now have to buy can hover right? And they're also all fitted with in-flight refuelling probes.
Why not fit the tanker with a hose and drogue system on a big crane/moveable arm? Then the F35 hovers alongside the tanker and can start taking on fuel on the wing.
I'm a bloody genius me :)
Russia has the capability to jam ship and aircraft data systems, and has panicked NATO since doing so to a US aegis destroyer in the black sea nearly 2 years ago (with a jamming system.on a jet that flew overhead). All 10 IS aircraft carriers are currently in dock having their electrical systems overhauled. This was possibly cause here. Any copper wire based data transmitting systems need to be removed and fiber optic installed instead, so it is probably a little more than just 'insulation'.
TEMPEST is for reading the emissions from a computer monitor. The AEGIS incident took place a few years ago. IIRC the antique computers on-board crashed when trying to track oodles of targets generated via Electronic Warfare AKA jamming. I'm not sure how scrapping copper cables in favour of fibre optics is relevant to this form of attack. Scrapping computers with less processing power than a Casio wristwatch is surely the appropriate answer?
Getting the US Navy to panic isin't the same as getting NATO to panic; the ships using the Samson/Aster missiles (basically every navy in Europe) are highly unlikely to suffer the same problems since they run on hardware developed during the lifetimes of the crews.
TEMPEST is for reading the emissions from a computer monitor.
That is so much of an over - simplification it is better described as false; it is the prevention of any part and all parts of a communications system from generating compromising emanations that a hostile power could detect and use to their advantage. Using fibre optics as transmission paths between different parts of a system can be a major contribution to TEMPEST accreditation; they are also also EMP - proof and RF proof which can be another major bonus if the overall environment has high - power radio transmitters in near proximity.
If it was just "computer monitors" then large TEMPEST - compliant installations wouldn't need TEMPEST rated filters on their AC supplies.
Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tempest_(codename)
A quick google suggests that you have fallen for another internet myth:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Donald_Cook (in the History section). I know it is Wikipedia, but I don't have time to track down anything more credible just at the moment.
Oddly enough, I suspect naval architects, particularly those involved with Aegis-equipped vessels (radar output = 6MW), are quite aware of the potential for electromagnetic interference, and will have factored that in to the vessel design. I doubt very much whether a single jet zooming around in the close vicinity would cause such a vessel any real issues; I wouldn't be at all surprised if the vessel could cause the aircraft real trouble, at close range. pxd
Following the exocet hit on HMS Sheffield in the Falklands war, the RN have been super fussy about wiring, insulation, low smoke, low halogen, fire resistance, metal cable clamps, and neatness.
Fighting the fire on Sheffield was severely hampered by corridors full of dangling burning cables. They couldn't actually get to the seat of the fire until too much damage had been done. I doubt it cost any additional lives, but arguably the ship was lost because of extensive fire damage.
RN ship's wiring is nowadays very neat and tidy, and you're in for a bollocking if you mess it up or paint over it.
US Navy ships I've been on have got a rats nest of wiring in the corridor ceilings, covered in spray paint and held in place with plastic cable ties, with the occasional metal strap. Not so good.
Screw that.
I'd guess the problem with the Sheffield was the use of Kapton for wiring insulation.
Kapton explodes on short circuits.
I'd say a piece of Kapton coated wiring with a high current flowing through it makes a pretty good exploding bridgewire detonator.
However that should have been eliminated from MoD Specs decades ago.
"I'd guess the problem with the Sheffield was the use of Kapton for wiring insulation.
Kapton explodes on short circuits."
Sure about that? Kapton does not burn easily. It can cause some short circuits because it has a tendency to fall apart in humid conditions, but otherwise it should be fairly inert.
Excerpt from the MSDS:
"Not a fire or explosion hazard. The flammability characteristic of polyimide film is reported as “self-extinguishing”. Kapton chars but does not burn in air. Kapton will burn in an atmosphere of 100% oxygen. The major off-gases are carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide."
It could have been the good ol' PVC that burned down HMS Sheffield. Quick web search did not yield solid answers for that. Only stories of horrid fires and unspecified toxic fumes.
The South Koreans have a track record of covering up bad cabling installs with fake paperwork. Several of their nuclear reactors were taken offline a few years back when it was discovered cable suppliers had faked up certification of the control and power wiring in the reactor buildings. The operators had to rip out and rewire the reactors to spec before they were permitted to restart them. This delay to the RN's acceptance of the Tidewater may have been something along the same lines.
The South Koreans produce some decent bits of kit but they have major institutional corruption problems in government and industry.
The Jews were living in that part of the Middle East for about 2000 years ago and then the Romans conquered it. Bit of research would trick people into thinking you knew what you are talking about. Here's some help: http://www.simpletoremember.com/articles/a/what-the-fight-in-israel-is-all-about/
452 million pounds very late and faulty, and no tax back from this. Plus up to 160 million pounds UK content? Adapted Norwegian design and other things probably BAE expensive bits and UK content sourced from abroad still. The ships were over 150 million pounds each with little or no tax claw back. Compare to the Waves and we can see this was no value for the UK taxpayer.
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