Navy Aircraft Carrier Will Be Sold After Three Years - And Never Carry Jets

[interestrateripoff]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/8072041/Navy-aircraft-carrier-will-be-sold-after-three-years-and-never-carry-jets.html

The Government’s Strategic Defence and Security Review will also confirm that Britain will not have an effective “carrier strike” capability – a working aircraft carrier equipped with fighter jets – until 2020.

David Cameron had wanted to scrap one of the two carriers, the largest and most expensive vessels in British naval history, but the review found that contracts signed by the previous government meant that doing so would end up costing the taxpayer more than going ahead with both. As a result, the two carriers will enter service, but one will be mothballed as soon as possible.

The scorched earth policy of the previous govt, lovely.

I wonder overall how many other govt contracts / commitments to spend cannot be cancelled?

I would love to know who we would sell the carrier too and how much they think they'd get for it.

[Pent Up]

I just hope no one decides to invade the falklands over the next decade!

[Snugglybear]

I doubt if any supplier would enter into a contract with major costs in terms of planning and development work, buying in materials and construction work, if that contract had a clause in it which said in effect "And we, the purchasers, can cancel this at any time with no financial penalties to us".

Edit: clarity

[sukuinage]

I doubt if any supplier would enter into a contract with major costs in terms of planning and development work, buying in materials and construction work, if that contract had a clause in it which said in effect "And we, the purchasers, can cancel this at any time with no financial penalties to us".

Edit: clarity

All properly negotiated contracts contain "get out" clauses which will allow payment for the currently completed work but not for work which has not yet been completed. It appears that the contracts were not properly negotiated - either from incompetence or malice - and so the tax payer must carry the burden of paying for these, and probably other, mistakes

[geezer466]

India have traditionally been the buyer of some ex RN ships........

Ark Royal comes with a problem though as they will need sea harrier also for it to be of any use......

[Pent Up]

India have traditionally been the buyer of some ex RN ships........

Ark Royal comes with a problem though as they will need sea harrier also for it to be of any use......

I assume they would come with it as sea harriers aren't much good without a carrier to put them on!

[blankster]

The defence sector seems hung up on 'flagship' vanity projects - while our forces on active service in Afghanistan have been denied suitable equipment until recently.

Why replace Trident with another American system that will require US permission to be used in anger? Also, if we were ever in a position where we needed to use nuclear weapons, surely the USA would also be in that position, making our 'independent' nuclear deterrent redundant. My attitude would be slightly different if we were still a real nuclear power, with our own nukes developed here.

But if we buy into an American system, in future a nuclear threat scenario, supposing we had a sort of Bush / Blair pair of leaders each side of the Atlantic, the Americans would get us to use our nukes before they use theirs, in order to divert retaliation away from the USA.

And the Typhoon Eurofighter - a plane too expensive to risk in combat? None have been deployed to either Iraq or Afghanistan but 4 have been used for patrols based in the Falkland Islands!

[1929crash]

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/defence/8072041/Navy-aircraft-carrier-will-be-sold-after-three-years-and-never-carry-jets.html

I would love to know who we would sell the carrier too and how much they think they'd get for it.

I hear Osama is looking to buy one to go next to his dialysis machine in the Binladen Cave.

[efdemin]

The defence sector seems hung up on 'flagship' vanity projects - while our forces on active service in Afghanistan have been denied suitable equipment until recently.

Why replace Trident with another American system that will require US permission to be used in anger? Also, if we were ever in a position where we needed to use nuclear weapons, surely the USA would also be in that position, making our 'independent' nuclear deterrent redundant. My attitude would be slightly different if we were still a real nuclear power, with our own nukes developed here.

But if we buy into an American system, in future a nuclear threat scenario, supposing we had a sort of Bush / Blair pair of leaders each side of the Atlantic, the Americans would get us to use our nukes before they use theirs, in order to divert retaliation away from the USA.

And the Typhoon Eurofighter - a plane too expensive to risk in combat? None have been deployed to either Iraq or Afghanistan but 4 have been used for patrols based in the Falkland Islands!

*sigh*

Typhoon is an air superiority fighter so there's no pressing need for it in Afghanistan / Iraq. Much better to have it in the Falklands where it can both be bedded into operational use without much fuss and it also acts as a deterrent.

We need Trident, even with the American oversight, otherwise we become just a.n.other western nation with an army. Not to mention, if we canned it we would lose the skills of the shipyards and the navy running it. Getting those skills back would be very, very hard.

[Snugglybear]

All properly negotiated contracts contain "get out" clauses which will allow payment for the currently completed work but not for work which has not yet been completed. It appears that the contracts were not properly negotiated - either from incompetence or malice - and so the tax payer must carry the burden of paying for these, and probably other, mistakes

Including contracts for things like aircraft carriers? What would the supplier do with a half-finished aircraft carrier if the purchaser withdrew from the contract part way through?

[montesquieu]

The sensible thing would be unilateral withdrawal from the mess in Afghanistan, over 10 years that would save enough billions for a fleet of jets for the new carrier.

Frankly it's ridiculous that two aggressive wars of choice have so bankrupted the MoD that we are about to sacrifice genuine capability to DEFEND ourselves and our interests in the world.

[efdemin]

The sensible thing would be unilateral withdrawal from the mess in Afghanistan, over 10 years that would save enough billions for a fleet of jets for the new carrier.

Frankly it's ridiculous that two aggressive wars of choice have so bankrupted the MoD that we are about to sacrifice genuine capability to DEFEND ourselves and our interests in the world.

Except they haven't. A lot of the ongoing costs for Afghanistan and Iraq are/were paid out of a special extra pot of money that is separate to the main Defence budget. Withdrawing early won't do diddly squat to alleviate the long-term budget problems.

[Riedquat]

The sensible thing would be unilateral withdrawal from the mess in Afghanistan, over 10 years that would save enough billions for a fleet of jets for the new carrier.

Frankly it's ridiculous that two aggressive wars of choice have so bankrupted the MoD that we are about to sacrifice genuine capability to DEFEND ourselves and our interests in the world.

There are a lot more things that have been a bigger waste of money.

I suspect (well, hope) that this is just a ploy to fob off the bean counters and that come the time it won't actually happen. We need carriers, and we need at least two, end of.

[jane58]

Why?

How many does Holland have? Or Denmark?

Great Britain is an island unlike Holland or Denmark

[tim123]

All properly negotiated contracts contain "get out" clauses which will allow payment for the currently completed work but not for work which has not yet been completed. It appears that the contracts were not properly negotiated - either from incompetence or malice - and so the tax payer must carry the burden of paying for these, and probably other, mistakes

Except that negotiating a non cancellable project *should* get you a discount, possibly as much as 20%. 20% of 5 billion is an awful lot of money.

Whether HMG did get such a discount is another matter.

tim

[pyewackitt]

Including contracts for things like aircraft carriers? What would the supplier do with a half-finished aircraft carrier if the purchaser withdrew from the contract part way through?

Would be a great 'buy it now' option for Ebay!

[pablopatito]

All properly negotiated contracts contain "get out" clauses which will allow payment for the currently completed work but not for work which has not yet been completed.

If you read the article, it says "the review found that contracts signed by the previous government meant that doing so would end up costing the taxpayer more".

It doesn't say "the contracts signed by the previous government meant that the project can't be cancelled".

Clearly get out clauses were properly agreed, but its cheaper to complete the build and sell it, rather than cancel and have the contractors complete the build and sell it themselves.

We might even make a profit on the deal!

But no, even though you have no idea what was agreed, its so much easier to just assume it was all down to Gordon Brown being incompetent, isn't it?

[R K]

Why?

How many does Holland have? Or Denmark?

We need to cut our cloth to our much reduced circumstance.

We have some overseas territories that we can't defend. End of.

Many people don't realise that most of the Hong Kong we gave back was not part of the lease that was up. They were ours in perpetuity. We decided to give it up because we wouldn't be able to defend it and it was a convenient time to do so. If we can give everything else up - what is really worth hanging onto?

Let's face it the break up of the Empire will continue right up to the gates of London.

British Virgin Islands.

They wouldn't want those filing cabinets being opened now would they.

[tim123]

Great Britain is an island unlike Holland or Denmark

OK, how many does Iceland have?

tim

[Warwick-Watcher]

Would be a great 'buy it now' option for Ebay!

Already there!

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/HMS-Ark-Royal-/190458248846?pt=UK_Collectables_Militaria_LE&hash=item2c58323e8e

[spireite]

the two new aircraft carriers are going to be alot bigger than what we have at the moment, more on par with frances only aircraft carrier the charles de gaulle,except in wont be nuclear powered.france did initially propose two but due to the huge costs the second never got built. the charles de gaulle has been dogged with problems and has spent a huge time laid up in port leaving the french vulnerable.of our three small aircraft carriers which are a third of the size of the charles de gaulle,one has already been de comissioned,now ark royal is going to mean we will have one. these carriers were designed to hunt out subs in the north atlantic, not really as aircraft carriers as such.many people said at the time of the falklands war if we hadnt had the much bigger and much older hms hermes the task force would have been very vulnerable to air attack.the americans wanted us to have these bigger aircraft carriers as they said they would be a good addition to nato and would work nicely against there carriers.i think we do need a two carrier force with one operational at all times, but i dont think weve learned our lesson and been influenced by the yanks.

[pablopatito]

Aren't aircraft carriers a bit like sooo 20th century, darling? Do we really still need them?

[hilltop]

I am reminded of Thatcher culling the mining industry.

The argument about what we do and do not need seems to be separate from the ideological argument for cuts.

The perspective of the effect on communities has not been considered, remembering that Defence is a major employer and supports sizeable populations often in areas with no alternatives.

If the Armed Forces take to the streets, who will ride them down?

[Riedquat]

Aren't aircraft carriers a bit like sooo 20th century, darling? Do we really still need them?

Yes, unless you want to always rely on the USA (instead of just being part of the USA's forces that they didn't have to pay for themselves).

[General Congreve]

Why replace Trident with another American system that will require US permission to be used in anger?

So the Israeli's have direct control over our nuclear deterrent. That's why. That coupled with David Miliband as leader of the next UK government will ensure we, just like the USA, are fully an Israeli puppet regime rather than just a 'friend' of those bigoted ethic cleansing religious zealots.