The early retirement of the Harrier force next year will leave Britain without any aircraft to put on its carriers for at least nine years until 2020 Photo: PA
Posted on 11/13/2010 11:58:07 PM PST by sukhoi-30mki
Head of Navy made last minute plea to save Harriers from scrap-heap
The head of the Navy furiously protested to the Prime Minister, David Cameron, about his last-minute decision to scrap all Britain's carrier aircraft, it can be revealed.
By Andrew Gilligan
The highly-controversial cut to the Harrier force – condemned last week by several former heads of the service as "perverse" and risking "national humiliation" – was decided only three days before the final announcement of the defence review, sources said.
Until then, the plan had been to scrap the RAF's Tornado fleet, the oldest strike aircraft currently in service.
In a tense meeting, Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, the First Sea Lord, told Mr Cameron that he "could not endorse as his military advice" the decision to axe the Harriers and considered it a "political, not military decision."
The early retirement of the Harrier force next year will leave Britain without any aircraft to put on its carriers for at least nine years until 2020.
Senior defence sources said much of the £4.7 billion of cuts in the review was only decided in a series of meetings at 10 Downing Street over the weekend of 16/17 October, two to three days before it was announced.
"There was little more than some PowerPoint presentations and Excel spreadsheets for financial planning," said one source. He said the MoD was left "starting from scratch" that weekend on some of the contentious issues.
For the four months of the review until that weekend, the sources said, the plan had been that the Tornado force would be retired.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
The early retirement of the Harrier force next year will leave Britain without any aircraft to put on its carriers for at least nine years until 2020 Photo: PA
I wonder how long before they decide for budget reasons that the second carrier, the one slated to be the first with cats, gets scrapped all together, and the first carrier doesn't get retrofit with cats, making the purchase of F-35Cs also moot.
I guess A.A. was right. The RAF screwed the Navy. Or the way I read it, Number 10 Downing screwed the Navy.
Say goodbye to the Falklands.
You heard it here first.
One year from today, the British lion will beg for a loan of Harriers from the USA.
Zero will say no.
The Falklands will fall.
Game over.
How many admirals and ministers will resign in protest?
Zero!
Creme puffs don’t resign.
Sell half of them on e-Bay and keep the rest going with the proceeds...(/sarc, sorta)
So in the name of balancing their budget they are going to axe their ability to project force?
Guess they will have to depend on Soccer players and hooligans to protect their island paradise.
Totally.
Agree.....100% !
My first thought as well when I first heard if this.
Sad...sickening.
How about helicopters? Not the force projection the jets would allow, but something.
Could it be this???
Somali family given £2m house... after complaining 5-bed London home was ‘in poor area’
Posted on July 11, 2010 9:53:04 PM GMT+09:00 by cycle of discernment
Somali asylum seeker family given £2m house... after complaining 5-bed London home was ‘in poor area’
By CHRIS HASTINGS, GEORGE ARBUTHNOTT and MATT SANDY
10th July 2010
A family of former asylum-seekers from Somalia are living in a £2.1million luxury townhouse in one of Britain’s most exclusive addresses at a cost to taxpayers of £8,000 a month.
Abdi and Sayruq Nur and their seven children moved into their three-storey property in a fashionable area of London last month because they didn’t like the ‘poorer’ part of the city they were living in.
Mr Nur, 42, an unemployed bus conductor, and his 40-year-old wife, who has never worked, are now living in Kensington despite the fact that they are totally dependent on state benefits.
They live close to celebrities, including artist Lucian Freud, singer Damon Albarn and designer Stella McCartney, and their home is just minutes from the fashionable Kensington Place restaurant which was a favourite haunt of the late Princess Diana.
The family’s new home is believed to be one of the most expensive houses ever paid for by housing benefit, which is administered by local councils but funded by the Department for Work and Pensions.
It is humiliating for, what a mere 100 years ago, was the world's greatest empire to have fallen to these depths.
Wasn’t it about 100 years ago that the british elite decided to go progressive and buy off the masses with healthcare and the like?
I was thinking that Japan might be interested in a few of them to operate of the Hyuga and the Ise.
Those ships were obviously designed with the F-35 STOVL variants in mind. A few years of Harrier practice might be just the ticket. Work out bugs and develop a doctrine for Flight Ops, Japanese style.
Southeast Asia would collectively freak if Japan were to buy them, even though the very construction of those two ship and the planned 22DDH vessels strongly indicates the JMSDF is going to move into carrier aviation again soon.
With 0 in charge, we probably would have any Harriers to loan them anyway, he would send them to the scrap yard on the bidding of his master(s) in the name of “peace”.
Guess the UK needs all the money they can get to provide welfare to the Muslims taking over their country. Have they gone insane?
Guess the UK needs all the money they can get to provide welfare to the Muslims taking over their country. Have they gone insane?
Guess the UK needs all the money they can get to provide welfare to the Muslims taking over their country. Have they gone insane?
(Sorry for the multiple posts)
You are fast on your feet. Good thinking. Maybe they can sell the Falklands. But I think Argentina is broke, too. Maybe China can buy them.
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