Healey’s decision appeared to have taken No 10 by surprise despite a protracted row over defence spending, during which he had called on ministers to consider “creative funding” mechanisms like those adopted by other European countries, based on more borrowing.
Or why not just print the money? After all, as Spud says, most of it comes back in tax anyway, right?
“Creative funding”. Don’t they already include pensions as part of Defence spending?
Time for a fundamental discussion. Continue wasting our money on welfare for foreign nationals, Net Zero, illegal migrants, foreign aid (to include that as ‘defence spending’ was floated as an idea some years ago wasn’t it?) et al, or ‘invest’ (so much more positive connotation than just ‘spend’ don’t you think) our money on defence.
And not just on kit. How many Admirals do we have? Why are the MOD so bad at procurement?
There was a plan to include middle-of-nowhere superfast broadband roll-out spend in defence spending.
Are we still doing that, because I would end that on day 1. Starlink. £40/month. And in a few years, we’re going to have Amazon Leo and Vodafone on satellite via AST.
The way to fibre up the country is to do it when other work is being done. New water pipe, new road? get a ditch dug
No idea.
I assume it was just of those The Thick of It-type announcements – yay, we’re spending x% on defence – which turned out to be bollocks when someone realised it meant no more than cash spaffed on broadband.
They really are kiddies playing at being clowns.
The conduits to run phone cables already exist, pulling a fibre link alongside the existing copper ones is just a question of logistics. It’s the final link to the premises that’s the stumbling block.
I quite like the idea of printing money for defence.
I mean the stuff is destined to get blown up anyway, which takes the money out of circulation again.
I think we might need a war to make that work properly though.
Invade Southern Ireland.
Or maybe Ely.
We are waiting for you to invade us. JD and Pete would love to do it, maybe as soon as Iran is finished. There will be no resistance but the ladies of the Guardian might pen some disapproving columns.
It doesn’t get taken out of circulation. It ends up in the pockets of those in the defense industries & is spent by them on produced value in the economy. But since the value in the economy is fixed at any one time. because they’re consuming the production, other people don’t get to consume it. Or to put it another way, inflation. And since defense industry production is not available for consumption by the public, there’s no benefit from it. It’s paying people to dig holes & then paying them to fill the holes.
It’s paying people to dig holes & then paying them to fill the holes.
The whole theory only works if the people who own and work in the tank factory drive the tanks as well. Then they don’t get to spend the money made from producing said tanks.
That sounds like quite a good summation of Spudanomics.
Sign me up for returning benefits, money raised and money doled out, to the local level. That’s one of only two ways, permanently, to end the welfare scourge. The other being total, final ruin.
And by all means let’s devote more money to surljaz, guns and bombs just so we can sit a little higher in the saddle.
But given that our biggest enemies are in Westminster, Whitehall and their outposts, what, really is it all for?
The primary job of the armed forces is to defend our borders. They are not doing that. I see no prospect of them doing that. We are, and have for years, been invaded on a daily basis by violent men, because our biggest enemies are in Westminster and Whitehall.
So what is the threat that is going to be defended by spending more on something that isn’t being used in the first place?
A hobgoblin called Russia. Ooooh lordy lordy how scary they are.
Moscow openly regards the UK as an enemy state and has intensified a relentless “hybrid war” on the UK — ranging from cyber warfare to physical sabotage to maritime provocation to assassinations on UK soil…
100%
So it turns out that all those big propellers on sticks which cover the east coast are actually a defence against low-flying (Russian) aircraft and thus paid for from the defence budget. So’s Border Farce.
No, they’re a fence stopping us from getting out.
Slightly OT, but topical:
The government minister specifically responsible for the Royal Navy in the UK is Luke Pollard MP, who serves as the Minister of State for Defence Readiness and Industry. He oversees the Royal Navy, including its equipment, readiness, and submarine delivery.
Is he still in post? Why?
What else is he going to do?
From Wokipedia:
This is someone with no skills or experience outside political graft.
The DoD may as well be shut down. They can’t protect our borders from invaders and now councils are telling residents not to fly the England flag during the World Cup because it might intimidate immigrants.
We may as well start flying the white flag, the government, the civil service and the local councils have already surrendered.
Here’s an idea. At every site where the Cross if St. George flies, put in an office for complaints about it. If anyone is offended they can complain. Inside the office door is a long corridor. It leads to the departure lounge at the nearest airport.
It leads to the departure lounge at the nearest
airportabbatoir.Ah, the rotating knives.
Lord Vetinari employed a remote controlled Deep Pit in the middle of the corridor… The Goldén Hat came out the other side… Others…. didn’t…
I believe the scorpions at the bottom are mere Myth (which he cultivated by neither confirming nor denying..)…..
But it sounds like a sound and sensible Feature of such a corridor…
Print money to fund the armed forces, then tax the armed forces to get the money back.
I don’t think we need more defence spending. We used to have a massive navy because of a massive empire, not to protect Blighty, which is a cold wet island with not a lot of resources
When was the last time anyone attacked purely to get Britain? WW2? Nope. That was about Germany invading Poland. The Armada? Nope. That was about Britain interfering elsewhere in Europe. The Castillian attacks of 1374, maybe?
And all our recent wars were humanitarian choices marketed to the public as self-defence. Iraq, Afghanistan, Ukraine. Why the fuck were we in Sierra Leone, Kosovo or East Timor? Were one side going to ban imports of Northamptonshire brogues and Paddington? Were the Sierra Leone army going to come for Tunbridge Wells next? If not, what was our interest? Let them get on with kicking the shit out of each other. They talk about Russians looking at our undersea cables. Yeah, because we’re arming people in Ukraine that shoot at Russians. We attacked Russia, so shockingly, they might like to fuck around with us.
Britain should be like Switzerland. It seems that not bothering with the whole “leading the world” gig made them stinking rich.
The many people coming to your island in boats and hiding in trucks are a current invasion. That they are not being repelled is a choice.
Well, yes. But you don’t need to spend lots of money to stop it.
May I refer you to the late Paddy Roberts’s ditty “The Englishman”…
1688
Just like today, the military and political class sided with the invaders.
Again… not a question of budget. A couple of little lightly armed boats in the Channel, and the will to do what is necessary. You wouldn’t even need to do it many times before people stopped doing it.
Correct.
Correct.
Correct.
In fact, in the long-term it would save lives due to preventing diversity and their kids being drowned en masse very year or two.