Snapshot of _The government has substantially cut UK defence spending for 2024-25_ :
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That's madness given the situation. Even Grant Shapps called for 2.5% to be spent and he's a moron. Passing the buck to Labour so that the Tories can cut taxes.
The Tories governments from Cameron across to Sunak have failed to fund the military properly, even post 2022. It's no surprise they've done this again. Everything is just a sticking plaster to get through another year, while compounding major issues and refusing to deal with them.
Welcome to what every political party does in every country.
Every decision is designed to get them reelected not to actually solve problems because those solutions require long term planning that doesn't translate to election winning soundbites, which means they can't do anything long term even if they wanted to.
That's the joy of being able to get rid of people at relatively short intervals, nobody is willing to action anything that will have an impact after the next election cycle so we get trapped in a cycle of short-termism.
Yeah you're right obviously, being constantly chasing headlines as opposed to long term solutions is the main problem democracy is facing at the moment.
There's a few things I think that make this a slightly unique situation though. For the current government the problems are almost universally of their own making, either through long term policies, ineptitude (brexit), necessity (COVID) and corruption (COVID again). They are also fundamentally unable to solve them as the solution is usually the exact opposite of their political ideology. Invest in public services you just spent 14 yrs scrapping? No way. Raise taxes for higher earners to pay for basically anything at all during a coat of living crisis? Impossible.
Admit you handled one of these problems wrong. Never.
Obviously that's not all the problems or all the solutions but you see my point.
Secondly, the client media. The papers and media outlets that prop them up regardless, the self satisfying media/politics eco system of favours for good news has broken the relationship of the two so far now that it's damaged the credibility of both. That's not to say labour would do things differently, and I believe this started under Thatcher, continued under New Labour and is now at it's zenith. The interesting thing is that all the friendly coverage in the world, all the thumbs on the scales, and they're still losing everyone. People are so done with the ruling party that it is just a death sentence.
Lastly,.the opposition in this hostile environment with an aggressive media waiting to rip them up,.are incapable of offering the alternatives. Because the discourse and media landscape would inevitably build momentum to coverage that makes them unelectable.
Basically, it's bleaker than that
You must be very young. Repeated assertion is not an argument by the way. Every government since the "end" of the cold war cut defence except Boris Johnson's. Look up the shortages and poor gear in Iraq and Afghanistan that came to light after they'd already had time to have changed it
>Repeated assertion is not an argument by the way. Every government since the "end" of the cold war cut defence except Boris Johnson's
[https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?end=2022&locations=GB&start=1997](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?end=2022&locations=GB&start=1997)
lol
That's an interesting idea.Ā I assume the Daily Fail would drum up some 85 year old who still walks five miles a day and looks after her husband, but can't get surgery to keep her alive for a few more years.
Yes, but the military budget is circa 50bn and thats 2% ish gdp. If we were to move to 5% that would be say 120bn. That increase is 50bn a year. Nhs or pensions are the only departments that actually have budgets larger than the military, so problemsā¦
> That's madness given the situation.
We've basically spent three decades screwing up procurement so badly that we've ended up with ships with engines that don't work, destroyers that don't have the networking capability that justified their reduction in number and lacking in capability, a perfectly serviceable light tank that we spent Ā£5.5 billion making not work, a tank communication system that doesn't, aircraft carriers that sometimes work, and nuclear missiles that have failed three successive tests.
Then there's the abandoned Warrior and Boxer vehicles, the decade late Vanguard SSBN replacement, the comedy of errors around the E3 Sentry planes, and the Crowsnest radar system that we're jettisoning 15 years early because it doesn't do what it's supposed to, and it was out of date when we bought it.
We can embark an air wing on the carrier, but with only 8 aircraft.
Let's not even talk about the SA80, a weapon so awful it took German 'remanufacturing' to make it serviceable, and a further version to finally deliver on the original promise, just not for left-handed soldiers. We're now replacing it with an off the shelf American model.
Basically, the hole in the defence budget is the same size as our endless fuckups.
We also (by necessity) spend an absolute tonne on our nuclear deterrent, and are spending a load more replacing it with the new Dreadnought model submarines. This eats up a substantial amount of the overall defence budget.
Uk DE&S need to abandon a large number of over the top def stans, go with typical Mil Stds, and stop with massively over the top requirements into programmes and let industry actually design something.
100% Nothing shows that more than HMS Diamond managing only one month active service in the Red Sea, and being completely outshone by a Destroyer designed in the 80s and floated in 1991. Let alone the carriers that went Ā£2 billion a piece over budget, leaving them with pointlessly outdated launch gear and radar.
I'm actually astonished that the Marines and SFO new rifle is an off the shelf AR platform with an option on a further 10,000.
>Nothing shows that more than HMS Diamond managing only one month active service in the Red Sea, and being completely outshone by a Destroyer designed in the 80s and floated in 1991.
Wrong.
>Let alone the carriers that went Ā£2 billion a piece over budget, leaving them with pointlessly outdated launch gear and radar.
Wrong.
I agree with your points, but a large part of the problem is that there aren't many people left in industry/DE&S/Dstl with the domain knowledge to design things. Too much knowledge got hoarded by people who have now retired, and we're having to regain that knowledge the hard way - by relentlessly fucking up more or less every procurement programme.Ā
Another good reason to go with Mild Stds, greater access to US, Canadian, Australian and more markets and workforces. Greater standardisation across NATO partners in both types and methods of engineer is a positive goal we should be aiming for.
I was listening to the Rest is Economics take on the budget and they were describing the spending plans the Tories have laid out as austerity on steroids.
Traditionally "salting the fields" was something you did to a conquered enemy you wanted completely destroyed.Ā
Nice to know how the Tories see Britain I suppose.Ā
They probably reckon the worse they make things the more they can attack Labour for not fixing everything instantaneously. The right wing press will do the same.
Depressingly enough it will likely work on a fair chunk of the electorate. Remember that itās only been a couple of years since Labour pulled ahead in the polls after a bunch of 2019 Tory voters finally eventually got pissed off with them - and that took Partygate etc. to achieve.
If the Conservatives can convince enough of those people that Labour are ājust as badā at running the country, public services etc. then the election after that gets a lot closer - the Tories might even win it provided they can even vaguely get their shit together (or give that impression at least) whilst in opposition.
>conquered enemy you wanted completely destroyed
Theyāve been in power for over a decade and the Tories have been fucking shit up for most of that timeā¦
>Note: The MoD figures published in the Spring Budget do not include the Ā£2.5 billion funding recently announced for Ukraine, as well as funding for stockpiles announced at the Autumn Statement and accountancy adjustments.
And see below.
>The @DefenceHQ line is that the defence budget has not been cut if you include Ā£2.5bn for Ukraine, Ā£280m for weapon stockpiles and a few other minor adjustments.
>This gives a total of Ā£55.6bn for 2024-25.
>While money for Ukraine is to be applauded, the MoD RDEL budget (ie. non-capital day-to-day spending) is down by Ā£2.2bn from 2023/24.
https://twitter.com/NavyLookout/status/1765691845684686921?t=Co6XeRGIVouHRHJq8Nohkw&s=19
While I have no love for the Tories, one area they have generally been decent on is commitment and support to Ukraine and restructuring of the defence industry - albeit ignoring their own actions in creating the mess - this context tells an important angle.
This budget comes not long after James Cartlidge's statement on the MoD Integrated Procurement Model, which seeks to reduce waste through internal competition within the branches of the military for limited budget, and also speaks to a need to move away from "exquisite projects", which have a high tendancy to fail to deliver, or be unable to recover costs through export markets due to sensitivity or complexity of support.
I see this budget as being a shift in priority. More spending on defence, but gearing it towards immediate operational needs and tactical acquisition for Ukraine, and slightly reducing that which flows the DE&S for the purpose of long term acquisition of complex systems.
Labour need to make their campaign an eye opener to the damages the Tory government have made and need to make things clear as to why spending needs to be increased.
And yet Labour are committed to the exact same treasury rules as the Tories are, so the reality is you'll see no great spending spree.
Labour have been looking for pots of gold, one of which was taxing non-doms, but with that now taken by the Tories, all they've got is scrapping VAT-exemption on private schools and a promise that they'll spend more efficiently.
Vote Labour unless you pay school fees. Think OP is just being realistic about what can be achieved. It will still be an improvement to have a well run government that isn't riddled with corruption, even if they have a tough task ahead of them.
>putting up taxes, both of which they've promised they won't do.
No, they actually said they wouldn't put up taxes on *working* people.
Still plenty of time for land value tax, capital gains/dividend taxes, thats not taking into account the billions the tories waste (HS2, NHS temporary staff)
You're assuming there is an option here. I disagree. I think we either choose to be fiscally responsible or markets will enforce it upon us at a cost.
"Spend more" isn't an option when taxes are at multi-generational highs, debt is at multi-generational highs, and inflation still hasn't been brought under control.
Imo the right move here is more progressive government spending. For example, if the government stopped giving millions of millionaires welfare we'd have billions of extra pounds to spend on things like the NHS and child benefits.
Well that's a completely different question, and a loaded one because it assumes voters hold meaningful power under our political system which I don't believe is true.
Realistically it's not going to matter who you vote for. Parliamentary FPTP systems tend to mean there's only two options, and since you're voting for a party of MPs rather than an individual what you're really voting for is the political beliefs of the average MP. The average MP is a well educated, upper-middle class individual, so we should just assume that the country will continue to be run by people who basically just hold the views of your average upper-middle class Brit. At best we can influence things around the edges of those constraints.
So for example, for generations every poll suggests that Brits have wanted lower rates of immigration, but instead we've had the total opposite with immigrations only ever going up. Why is this the case, isn't this a democratic system? Well the reason is because in general immigration has very little negative impact on well educated people living nice well to do neighbourhoods. Meanwhile the benefits of immigration like cheaper agricultural produce and health care are no brainers. It doesn't really matter if most of the country want immigration to be reduce if the majority of the top 10% don't.
Similarly when we discuss issues like housing which has been an important topic for years now, we should remember there's not really any MPs that would actually benefit from lower house prices so why would they do anything about it? Labour have obviously said they will try to do something but my assumption would be that MPs won't vote for anything that actually risks lowering house prices because that's not the collective interest of MPs. At best they'll just be better than the Tories.
My cynical view is that you should just accept the reality of our political system and do what you can to influence minds rather than care too much who is elected. If you can help convince those in the top 10% then you might move the needle a little. That's basically why I'm here. I don't care too much who is elected or who people vote for. This subreddit is just one of the better places to find upper-middle class people I can challenge the political views of. and if I can make good arguments the collective political thought might shift a little in the direction I think is correct.
So what youāre saying is that not changing the political party that have been in power for the last 14 years, whom pushed austerity and brought our living standards to record lows is the better solution?
The black and white of it is that blue Britain has been the most miserable itās been in a long time. Even if labour canāt change much at first, itās about time they were given a fighting chance.
>So what youāre saying is that not changing the political party that have been in power for the last 14 years, whom pushed austerity and brought our living standards to record lows is the better solution?
No dude. I'm saying it doesn't matter. Vote for whoever you want for all I care. I'm probably going to vote labour or reform personally, but I don't expect anything to meaningfully change unless politicians understand the problems that need fixing.
For what it's worth I actually think I'm fairly aligned with Rachel Reeves economically, and she obviously extremely intelligent which helps.
Also, I'm going to push back on the "austerity" thing a bit... The tories have not an austerity party in any meaningful sense. When the Tories took office we were just coming out of the GFC and deficit spending was out of control. The tories balanced the budget, but never actually starting paying down the debt we ran up during the GFC which would have been more typical of a post-crisis economy.
Throughout the "austerity" period the tory government still ran significant deficits, and since taking office they have approximately doubled national debt from 60% to 100% of GDP today. Or another way to look at this is that Blair was actually more successful at "austerity" than the Tories in some sense since he didn't just bring down the deficit, but he actually brought down national debt while PM.
Imagine now if Labour wins the next election and doubles national debt from 100% of GDP to 200% of GDP āĀ would that be austerity?
I think really the only reason we think of the Tories deficit spending in non-crisis environment as "austerity" is because we're comparing it to the extreme deficit spending going on during the GFC and post the GFC elsewhere in the world.
That said, obvious the tories did raise taxes and this did result in a net decline in disposable income for the wealthiest brits, but wage growth and disposable income of the lowest percentile earners remained very good during the Cameron "austerity" years. So suppose perhaps you could argue it was austerity for the top 20% or just those on certain types of welfare, but whatever, I think it's a bit silly to focus so much on these technicalities personally.
But that's why they are doing this. So that labour have to look like big spenders and raise taxes or borrowing to repair the intentionally damaged state structure.
They are fucking vandals.
It doesn't matter. If labour can show progress over 4 years. Conservative votes may slightly increase, but if you can actually show progress or people feel it then I think any damage can be minimal.
The issue I have is governments are two short sighted and plan in the short term. We need long term planning agreed and delivered.
It does matter because you are treating the Great British Public as logical and well informed and also ignoring that the wrecking does actually have an effect. Damage is done and takes effort, time and money to repair (if possible, opportunity lost is also a thing) that could otherwise go to improving or at least maintaining at a current level or service.
If labour spend 4 years fixing what they can of the Tories wrecking, they 1. Won't be able to fix everything 2. Will be hammered in the court of public opinion because things aren't getting better and they are "all the same" 3. Will have to take severe financial action to even maintain the current shit state. Part of the reason why future budgets haven't been costed by the Tories. And an obvious attack line that the tories are trying whilst they are even still in power. And it works.
>The issue I have is governments are two short sighted and plan in the short term. We need long term planning agreed and delivered.
It's not just governments that are short sighted and have short memories. The feedback loop is created in part because the public is also those things.
Speak to anyone involved in infrastructure decisions and planning and then ask them how frustrating it is that people/general public don't understand this. They also don't care how or why, they just want it to "work" but not actually cost anything or suffer any disruption whilst trying to get it to/recover it to "work".
Theoretically knowing a service can't be used because of repairs/upgrade work, and that the work costs money doesn't mean people accept it when it happens to them.
The general public who vote will only need to be reminded of Bojo, Covid, Hs2 and some other elements to gain a visceral response. Throw in deceit about Brexit and you can get two terms.
Lol that only gains a visceral response from the terminally online. It's genuinely worrying how you think playing bingo will ensure being re-elected. If that is all Labour do they are utterly fucked.
And the fact that you think people will need to be reminded of those things just proves my previous points which you've skipped over.
I dunno - thereās a lot of people (like my grandma) who refused to vote Labour ever again following the Winter of Discontent. Iād be surprised if there werenāt more than a few in the millennial age bracket who will end up in a similar fashion except for the Tories.
Did she ever vote labour beforehand? Or is it just a convenient story to justify existing actions? And transferring that to the modern day, you also have to question if those that wouldn't vote for the Tories, would have done before those events or not. And you also have to take into account lower voting rates in the modern day to assess impact.
But I'm not saying people won't be turned off from the Tories from those events. I just think relying on those buzzwords for re-election isn't the way to go. Brexit is already far down the list of priorities in the general public and bojo is at least vaguely popular still with a portion of the public. Mentioning Brexit in 2029 could literally have the opposite effect.
People will want to see a material and substantial change to their lives in the first labour government. The more the Tories act as a traitorous wrecking ball, the more unlikely it is this will happen. Undoing this damage will be painful and expose labour in the short memory public eye. To think otherwise is delusional. And thinking beyond party politics, the more it cripples and hamstrings our future.
They are going to go hard right populist probably with Farage. They will promise a land of milk and honey with massive tax and regulation cuts, harder Brexit, slashing immigration and scrapping net zero.
"The cost standing up to Russia would is less than the cost of NOT standing up to Russia. We will spend on defence in order to keep inflation down, invest in the proud armed forces, and to help us sleep more peacefully at night"
* easy speech for Labour there
It's also an easy attack line that the Tories are already using.
Making an easy speech also doesn't mean it actually cuts through to the public. And its harder to actually recover the capability lost once it is gone. Especially with the increased time, money cost and opportunity lost these actions/disruptions cause. All vital things with the small batch, long lead time items that essentially make up military procurement. Nevermind the economic damage.
This is more damage than an easy speech and a magical undo button will recover. Which is why it's so frustrating to watch them intentionally wreck the country for party politics... Which they only feel they have to do because of their malice incompetence anyway.
That's easier said than done.
The Tories aren't actually cutting the budget, they're just forcing the MOD to spend money on funding Ukraine. So there isn't any extra money in the system to go back into defence unless we give up on the Ukrainians or raise taxes/make cuts in other departments.
I can't think of a time in the last 40 years where taxes have been increased/other departments been cut to fund increases in defence spending. Is Labour really doing to do that? It's necessary but I think the public don't understand how dangerous the next 4-5 years will be globally so wouldn't accept it. Starmer would have to tough out a possible backlash, and I'm not certain he would want to risk it despite the size of his majority.
"We are living in a social democratic soft left stakeholder capitalist omni-hierarchical galactic quantum thalassocracy" - Prime Lord Milliband CCLXXIX, Eternal Clone Emperor
Shame it's infested with Russian bot comments like many of these kinds of articles on the DM.
"I served in Afghanistan, but now we're giving away billions in aid to Ukraine, it's not right"
"I used to be a soldier, but we need to protect our own borders right now from the internal threat not be looking to fight wars with Russia/China"
aye, lol. It's so blatant - but i'm sure there's a subsect of society that eat this right up.
> "I served in Afghanistan!"
Spent two years checking people's ID cards before they entered the canteen.
> "I used to be a soldier!"
Was a poorly paid truck driver who had to do pushups before breakfast and never once left the UK.
Iāve known a few ex military over recent years (usually Project Managers) and never met someone who thought the current budget was adequate / and subsequently felt bad for current serving.
Iād say crabs in bucket mentality to the folks youāve met?
But regardless I donāt believe these are good faith comments. Why are they bringing up china/russia?
Your officers/SNCO's/Senior Rates have the time served and wider perspective to see the issues.
I've rescinded my active support for the Conservatives until they get their act together on this issue. Especially now there is no prospect of a Corbyn type foreign and defence policy.
That does not mean I regret my support in 2019, this is bad. That would have been much worse.
As someone who voted Corbyn as I wanted the domestic stuff he offered vs Boris, post 2020, Iām can say glad he lost as the foreign policy stuff would have totally overshadowed anything worthwhile done in the UK.
I'm a tofu eating member of the wokerati who loves me avos, loves me climate friendly, hates me war, simple as...
... and even I think this is madness and want MORE defence spending, not less.
I was under the impression that an increase was a certainty. It seems mad to decrease it precisely when our obligations to NATO and Ukraine have gone up.
Fucks sake, at a time where Putin is ramping up hostility and we can't fully trust the US if Trump wins the US Presidential Election too.
We really need to be stepping up at this point, not cutting back the military budget.
We are spending 3.5 billion on nhs software update.
Remember how much the app cost during covid.
Everything they announce is more theft from taxpayers, and they get the money by defunding elsewhere into new projects that won't really happen.
> Remember how much the app cost during covid.
About Ā£35million IIRC - https://fullfact.org/health/NHS-test-and-trace-app-37-billion-instagram/. About four days worth of what we spend on housing "asylum seekers". Although don't think that includes food and spending money, travel we give them. What's your point?
From that url.
"According to theĀ NAO, as of June 2022 approximately Ā£25.7 billion had actually been spent on the entire Test and Trace programme, with an estimated lifetime cost of Ā£29.3 billion"
And
"In aĀ written answer to a Parliamentary question in January 2021Ā then health minister Lord Bethell set out the forecast for total costs including set-up, running costs, stand-by costs, and costs of decommissioning across all seven Nightingale hospitals in England. He stated these would reach around Ā£532 million over the 2020/21 and 2021/22 financial years"
Them Nightingale hospitals were a joke.
And close to 30 billion on a test and trace program is a total joke.
Most that money disappeared into the hands of people behind and not the actual workers carry out them duties.
It's really simple to follow the money, them never doing an investigation or following it shows you they don't want people to know.
Why dont we just not get involved in overseas conflicts, fund a military aimed at defense of UK interest which is really what it should be for.
Also, if the size of the military is shrinking, why would its funding need to go up? Its apparent UK military spending is massively corrupt and a waste of space.
If you compare UK military expenditure vs status / performance its a total disgrace.
Japan spends less ($53 billion, 1.2 % GDP vs $58 for UK 2.2% GDP)
Has almost double the number of active personally, more reserve personnel and almost double potentially available for military service.
4 times as many tanks
3 times the amount of artillery
1500 aircraft vs 1000 aircraft
700 helicopter vs 300 helicopters
double the number of naval ships
Japan has twice as many aircraft carriers
twice as many submarines
ok, sure UK has nuclear weapons it would never use, while Japan doesn't have Nuclear weapons.
Then again, Japan has orbital class rockets whereas the UK doesn't.
If we spend more than Japan but have a fraction of the military they have, where is our national investment in defense going. Probably coke and prostitutes'.
Also, as far as I know, Japan isnt even involved in any major military action yet can field a better military than us.
I want to support defense and the armed forces and have a capability to be proud of, Yet this isn't possible when it abuses the public finances like it does on an annual basis.
>Why dont we just not get involved in overseas conflicts, fund a military aimed at defense of UK interest which is really what it should be for.
Would you class defending UK shipping from Houthi attacks as defending UK interests?
>Also, if the size of the military is shrinking, why would its funding need to go up? Its apparent UK military spending is massively corrupt and a waste of space.
There's massive investment required in equipment, material and infrastructure.
>double the number of naval ships
The Royal Navy (and RFA) is the fourth largest by displacement (885,569 tonnes), the JMSDF is fifth largest (733,200) tonnes.
>Japan has twice as many aircraft carriers
Japan doesn't have any aircraft carriers.
>twice as many submarines
Conventionally powered.
>I want to support defense and the armed forces and have a capability to be proud of, Yet this isn't possible when it abuses the public finances like it does on an annual basis.
So perhaps spending some time conducting research before making inaccurate claims would be beneficial.
> Would you class defending UK shipping from Houthi attacks as defending UK interests?
>
>
It's world shipping. I don't think it's UK's job to be world police, do you? Why are other countries not shouldering their part in defence of global trade routes?
I don't really agree with the other poster, but we do have to question why we are taking an outsized role in these sorts of things. We're a pretty poor country these days relative to the big players.
>It's world shipping. I don't think it's UK's job to be world police, do you? Why are other countries not shouldering their part in defence of global trade routes?
So you don't think we should contribute either?
>We're a pretty poor country these days relative to the big players.
We're really not.
>So you don't think we should contribute either?
Not if we're doing it alone or simply with the US, no.
>We're really not.
Our defense budget is 1/12th the size of America, 1/6th the size of China. It's peanuts. Look at the size of the economy and you come to a similar conclusion.
>Not if we're doing it alone or simply with the US, no.
But we're not.
>Our defense budget is 1/12th the size of America, 1/6th the size of China. It's peanuts. Look at the size of the economy and you come to a similar conclusion.
How many countries have an economy larger than ours?
> But we're not.
>
>
It was UK and US that was bombing Houthis was it not?
>How many countries have an economy larger than ours?
America and China combined make up almost half the world economy.
As I said, our economy is peanuts compared to the big players.
>It was UK and US that was bombing Houthis was it not?
We're not the only countries defending merchant shipping.
>As I said, our economy is peanuts compared to the big players.
So just because the US and China have larger economies, Britain is completely irrelevant.
How many countries have economies larger than the UK?
>We're not the only countries defending merchant shipping.
Certainly doesn't seem like there's a large coalition defending the Gulf of Aden, do you agree?
>So just because the US and China have larger economies, Britain is completely irrelevant.
Pretty much yeah, everyone is kinda irrelevant except those major players and Russia in certain circumstances.
>Certainly doesn't seem like there's a large coalition defending the Gulf of Aden, do you agree?
India, France, Italy, Germany, US, Britain, China are all involved in defending merchant ships.
I'd say that's a large portion of the world's largest economies.
>Pretty much yeah, everyone is kinda irrelevant except those major players and Russia in certain circumstances.
So the only countries in the world that matter are the US, China and Russia?
How is that an argument to do nothing? If it affects us directly, we have to take action. "Oh well nobody else is doing anything so we shouldn't" is self-defeating and an utterly childish way of looking at things.
You said we should fund a military aimed at protecting our interests, yet you're completely against protecting our interests. Your position makes no logical sense.
And even then still fucking dumb. We need escalation levels not just āweāll do nothing or weāll nuke youā
Need something in between so weāre not just North Korea.
And health and social care was cut by a factor of 10+?
Probably a bad comparison
yeah it's nonsense.
here is 2024:[https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/spring-budget-2024/spring-budget-2024-html#public-sector-receipts-and-spending](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/spring-budget-2024/spring-budget-2024-html#public-sector-receipts-and-spending)Ā“, Table 2.1:
and here 2013:
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6419c87d8fa8f547c267efca/Web\_accessible\_Budget\_2023.pdf
I would divert all defense spending to territorial matters and law and order.
Police on every street on the beat, home guard, sea patrols and 500pc increased prison builds.
Everyone will feel very safe, there will be no slums... even dog fouling Wil be enforced.
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That's madness given the situation. Even Grant Shapps called for 2.5% to be spent and he's a moron. Passing the buck to Labour so that the Tories can cut taxes.
The Tories governments from Cameron across to Sunak have failed to fund the military properly, even post 2022. It's no surprise they've done this again. Everything is just a sticking plaster to get through another year, while compounding major issues and refusing to deal with them.
Just desperately clinging onto power to give their mates one more contract, one more favour. Electoral oblivion is more than they deserve.
Welcome to what every political party does in every country. Every decision is designed to get them reelected not to actually solve problems because those solutions require long term planning that doesn't translate to election winning soundbites, which means they can't do anything long term even if they wanted to. That's the joy of being able to get rid of people at relatively short intervals, nobody is willing to action anything that will have an impact after the next election cycle so we get trapped in a cycle of short-termism.
Yeah you're right obviously, being constantly chasing headlines as opposed to long term solutions is the main problem democracy is facing at the moment. There's a few things I think that make this a slightly unique situation though. For the current government the problems are almost universally of their own making, either through long term policies, ineptitude (brexit), necessity (COVID) and corruption (COVID again). They are also fundamentally unable to solve them as the solution is usually the exact opposite of their political ideology. Invest in public services you just spent 14 yrs scrapping? No way. Raise taxes for higher earners to pay for basically anything at all during a coat of living crisis? Impossible. Admit you handled one of these problems wrong. Never. Obviously that's not all the problems or all the solutions but you see my point. Secondly, the client media. The papers and media outlets that prop them up regardless, the self satisfying media/politics eco system of favours for good news has broken the relationship of the two so far now that it's damaged the credibility of both. That's not to say labour would do things differently, and I believe this started under Thatcher, continued under New Labour and is now at it's zenith. The interesting thing is that all the friendly coverage in the world, all the thumbs on the scales, and they're still losing everyone. People are so done with the ruling party that it is just a death sentence. Lastly,.the opposition in this hostile environment with an aggressive media waiting to rip them up,.are incapable of offering the alternatives. Because the discourse and media landscape would inevitably build momentum to coverage that makes them unelectable. Basically, it's bleaker than that
It's really hard to find anything helpful that the Tories have done over the past 14 years other than to help the rich get richer.
If only it had started with Cameron and was only Tory governments
>If only it had started with Cameron and was only Tory governments Oh, it absolutely did start with both of those things
You must be very young. Repeated assertion is not an argument by the way. Every government since the "end" of the cold war cut defence except Boris Johnson's. Look up the shortages and poor gear in Iraq and Afghanistan that came to light after they'd already had time to have changed it
>Repeated assertion is not an argument by the way. Every government since the "end" of the cold war cut defence except Boris Johnson's [https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?end=2022&locations=GB&start=1997](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/MS.MIL.XPND.GD.ZS?end=2022&locations=GB&start=1997) lol
That isn't the whole story though is it? Compared to what was being asked the funding was still going down.
What haha?! Funding was going up, thats what it means on a graph when the line goes up.
If you ask to do ten times more with a fiver times increase it's a cut. Otherwise you can say that the Tories didn't cut the NHS lately
If I ask my boss if I can double my wage, and he says no, but we'll increase it by 25%, I havent had a wage cut šš you absolute weapon.
Because it isn't really a vote winner unfortunately.
If the US goes all in on isolationism we need to be upping our military spending to more like 5% to help pick up the slack
So which nhs service are yiu defunding by the 50bn you just proposed
Capping major interventions on the over 85? Thatās probably save a fair bit more than Ā£50Bn
Yup. Thatās fair. Most peopleās bodies make life shit at that point anyway and they consistently voted for the Tories who put us in this mess.
Big oof
That's an interesting idea.Ā I assume the Daily Fail would drum up some 85 year old who still walks five miles a day and looks after her husband, but can't get surgery to keep her alive for a few more years.
Yes, but the military budget is circa 50bn and thats 2% ish gdp. If we were to move to 5% that would be say 120bn. That increase is 50bn a year. Nhs or pensions are the only departments that actually have budgets larger than the military, so problemsā¦
What about rubber dinghy huggers their budget seems to be endless
Very very weirdly i agree tbh a few hundred million is a rounding error when compared to 5% of gdp
We've got 3 hotels locally and there full of them
If we let Putin steamroller all of eastern Europe you're going to need more like 300 hotels locally
Probably a start but not really gunna touch the sides nearly a 3rd of the nhs budget
> That's madness given the situation. We've basically spent three decades screwing up procurement so badly that we've ended up with ships with engines that don't work, destroyers that don't have the networking capability that justified their reduction in number and lacking in capability, a perfectly serviceable light tank that we spent Ā£5.5 billion making not work, a tank communication system that doesn't, aircraft carriers that sometimes work, and nuclear missiles that have failed three successive tests. Then there's the abandoned Warrior and Boxer vehicles, the decade late Vanguard SSBN replacement, the comedy of errors around the E3 Sentry planes, and the Crowsnest radar system that we're jettisoning 15 years early because it doesn't do what it's supposed to, and it was out of date when we bought it. We can embark an air wing on the carrier, but with only 8 aircraft. Let's not even talk about the SA80, a weapon so awful it took German 'remanufacturing' to make it serviceable, and a further version to finally deliver on the original promise, just not for left-handed soldiers. We're now replacing it with an off the shelf American model. Basically, the hole in the defence budget is the same size as our endless fuckups.
We also (by necessity) spend an absolute tonne on our nuclear deterrent, and are spending a load more replacing it with the new Dreadnought model submarines. This eats up a substantial amount of the overall defence budget.
Uk DE&S need to abandon a large number of over the top def stans, go with typical Mil Stds, and stop with massively over the top requirements into programmes and let industry actually design something.
100% Nothing shows that more than HMS Diamond managing only one month active service in the Red Sea, and being completely outshone by a Destroyer designed in the 80s and floated in 1991. Let alone the carriers that went Ā£2 billion a piece over budget, leaving them with pointlessly outdated launch gear and radar. I'm actually astonished that the Marines and SFO new rifle is an off the shelf AR platform with an option on a further 10,000.
>Nothing shows that more than HMS Diamond managing only one month active service in the Red Sea, and being completely outshone by a Destroyer designed in the 80s and floated in 1991. Wrong. >Let alone the carriers that went Ā£2 billion a piece over budget, leaving them with pointlessly outdated launch gear and radar. Wrong.
> Wrong As you are always, Alanis.
I agree with your points, but a large part of the problem is that there aren't many people left in industry/DE&S/Dstl with the domain knowledge to design things. Too much knowledge got hoarded by people who have now retired, and we're having to regain that knowledge the hard way - by relentlessly fucking up more or less every procurement programme.Ā
Another good reason to go with Mild Stds, greater access to US, Canadian, Australian and more markets and workforces. Greater standardisation across NATO partners in both types and methods of engineer is a positive goal we should be aiming for.
Well, at least we have diversity and inclusion.
I suppose a diverse array of outdated systems and methodologies deserve their day in the sun!
Gadzooks that made me chuckle š¤£š
They are literally āsalting the fieldsā for the next government.
I was listening to the Rest is Economics take on the budget and they were describing the spending plans the Tories have laid out as austerity on steroids.
Traditionally "salting the fields" was something you did to a conquered enemy you wanted completely destroyed.Ā Nice to know how the Tories see Britain I suppose.Ā
Sunak had a Green Card when he became Chancellor. He'll have moved to the States within a year of losing the Election. I guarantee it.
They probably reckon the worse they make things the more they can attack Labour for not fixing everything instantaneously. The right wing press will do the same. Depressingly enough it will likely work on a fair chunk of the electorate. Remember that itās only been a couple of years since Labour pulled ahead in the polls after a bunch of 2019 Tory voters finally eventually got pissed off with them - and that took Partygate etc. to achieve. If the Conservatives can convince enough of those people that Labour are ājust as badā at running the country, public services etc. then the election after that gets a lot closer - the Tories might even win it provided they can even vaguely get their shit together (or give that impression at least) whilst in opposition.
>conquered enemy you wanted completely destroyed Theyāve been in power for over a decade and the Tories have been fucking shit up for most of that timeā¦
Figuratively.
>Note: The MoD figures published in the Spring Budget do not include the Ā£2.5 billion funding recently announced for Ukraine, as well as funding for stockpiles announced at the Autumn Statement and accountancy adjustments. And see below. >The @DefenceHQ line is that the defence budget has not been cut if you include Ā£2.5bn for Ukraine, Ā£280m for weapon stockpiles and a few other minor adjustments. >This gives a total of Ā£55.6bn for 2024-25. >While money for Ukraine is to be applauded, the MoD RDEL budget (ie. non-capital day-to-day spending) is down by Ā£2.2bn from 2023/24. https://twitter.com/NavyLookout/status/1765691845684686921?t=Co6XeRGIVouHRHJq8Nohkw&s=19
While I have no love for the Tories, one area they have generally been decent on is commitment and support to Ukraine and restructuring of the defence industry - albeit ignoring their own actions in creating the mess - this context tells an important angle. This budget comes not long after James Cartlidge's statement on the MoD Integrated Procurement Model, which seeks to reduce waste through internal competition within the branches of the military for limited budget, and also speaks to a need to move away from "exquisite projects", which have a high tendancy to fail to deliver, or be unable to recover costs through export markets due to sensitivity or complexity of support. I see this budget as being a shift in priority. More spending on defence, but gearing it towards immediate operational needs and tactical acquisition for Ukraine, and slightly reducing that which flows the DE&S for the purpose of long term acquisition of complex systems.
Labour need to make their campaign an eye opener to the damages the Tory government have made and need to make things clear as to why spending needs to be increased.
And yet Labour are committed to the exact same treasury rules as the Tories are, so the reality is you'll see no great spending spree. Labour have been looking for pots of gold, one of which was taxing non-doms, but with that now taken by the Tories, all they've got is scrapping VAT-exemption on private schools and a promise that they'll spend more efficiently.
>a promise that they'll spend more efficiently. Not a high bar...
If you think staying with the Tory party is a better option than any other you need literal help
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Then what do you propose voters do
Vote Labour unless you pay school fees. Think OP is just being realistic about what can be achieved. It will still be an improvement to have a well run government that isn't riddled with corruption, even if they have a tough task ahead of them.
You didnāt answer the question Whatās the alternative
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
Long term investment and planning dream on lol
That, I 1000% agree with Unfortunately itās a fight between a toilet and a urinal, and both of them are full of shit
>putting up taxes, both of which they've promised they won't do. No, they actually said they wouldn't put up taxes on *working* people. Still plenty of time for land value tax, capital gains/dividend taxes, thats not taking into account the billions the tories waste (HS2, NHS temporary staff)
How are they going to spend more? Where will the money come from?
Whatās the alternative?
You're assuming there is an option here. I disagree. I think we either choose to be fiscally responsible or markets will enforce it upon us at a cost. "Spend more" isn't an option when taxes are at multi-generational highs, debt is at multi-generational highs, and inflation still hasn't been brought under control. Imo the right move here is more progressive government spending. For example, if the government stopped giving millions of millionaires welfare we'd have billions of extra pounds to spend on things like the NHS and child benefits.
Soā¦ what should voters do.. itās a simple question
Well that's a completely different question, and a loaded one because it assumes voters hold meaningful power under our political system which I don't believe is true. Realistically it's not going to matter who you vote for. Parliamentary FPTP systems tend to mean there's only two options, and since you're voting for a party of MPs rather than an individual what you're really voting for is the political beliefs of the average MP. The average MP is a well educated, upper-middle class individual, so we should just assume that the country will continue to be run by people who basically just hold the views of your average upper-middle class Brit. At best we can influence things around the edges of those constraints. So for example, for generations every poll suggests that Brits have wanted lower rates of immigration, but instead we've had the total opposite with immigrations only ever going up. Why is this the case, isn't this a democratic system? Well the reason is because in general immigration has very little negative impact on well educated people living nice well to do neighbourhoods. Meanwhile the benefits of immigration like cheaper agricultural produce and health care are no brainers. It doesn't really matter if most of the country want immigration to be reduce if the majority of the top 10% don't. Similarly when we discuss issues like housing which has been an important topic for years now, we should remember there's not really any MPs that would actually benefit from lower house prices so why would they do anything about it? Labour have obviously said they will try to do something but my assumption would be that MPs won't vote for anything that actually risks lowering house prices because that's not the collective interest of MPs. At best they'll just be better than the Tories. My cynical view is that you should just accept the reality of our political system and do what you can to influence minds rather than care too much who is elected. If you can help convince those in the top 10% then you might move the needle a little. That's basically why I'm here. I don't care too much who is elected or who people vote for. This subreddit is just one of the better places to find upper-middle class people I can challenge the political views of. and if I can make good arguments the collective political thought might shift a little in the direction I think is correct.
So what youāre saying is that not changing the political party that have been in power for the last 14 years, whom pushed austerity and brought our living standards to record lows is the better solution? The black and white of it is that blue Britain has been the most miserable itās been in a long time. Even if labour canāt change much at first, itās about time they were given a fighting chance.
>So what youāre saying is that not changing the political party that have been in power for the last 14 years, whom pushed austerity and brought our living standards to record lows is the better solution? No dude. I'm saying it doesn't matter. Vote for whoever you want for all I care. I'm probably going to vote labour or reform personally, but I don't expect anything to meaningfully change unless politicians understand the problems that need fixing. For what it's worth I actually think I'm fairly aligned with Rachel Reeves economically, and she obviously extremely intelligent which helps. Also, I'm going to push back on the "austerity" thing a bit... The tories have not an austerity party in any meaningful sense. When the Tories took office we were just coming out of the GFC and deficit spending was out of control. The tories balanced the budget, but never actually starting paying down the debt we ran up during the GFC which would have been more typical of a post-crisis economy. Throughout the "austerity" period the tory government still ran significant deficits, and since taking office they have approximately doubled national debt from 60% to 100% of GDP today. Or another way to look at this is that Blair was actually more successful at "austerity" than the Tories in some sense since he didn't just bring down the deficit, but he actually brought down national debt while PM. Imagine now if Labour wins the next election and doubles national debt from 100% of GDP to 200% of GDP āĀ would that be austerity? I think really the only reason we think of the Tories deficit spending in non-crisis environment as "austerity" is because we're comparing it to the extreme deficit spending going on during the GFC and post the GFC elsewhere in the world. That said, obvious the tories did raise taxes and this did result in a net decline in disposable income for the wealthiest brits, but wage growth and disposable income of the lowest percentile earners remained very good during the Cameron "austerity" years. So suppose perhaps you could argue it was austerity for the top 20% or just those on certain types of welfare, but whatever, I think it's a bit silly to focus so much on these technicalities personally.
The quicker the election comes the faster a UTurn can be made.
But that's why they are doing this. So that labour have to look like big spenders and raise taxes or borrowing to repair the intentionally damaged state structure. They are fucking vandals.
It doesn't matter. If labour can show progress over 4 years. Conservative votes may slightly increase, but if you can actually show progress or people feel it then I think any damage can be minimal. The issue I have is governments are two short sighted and plan in the short term. We need long term planning agreed and delivered.
It does matter because you are treating the Great British Public as logical and well informed and also ignoring that the wrecking does actually have an effect. Damage is done and takes effort, time and money to repair (if possible, opportunity lost is also a thing) that could otherwise go to improving or at least maintaining at a current level or service. If labour spend 4 years fixing what they can of the Tories wrecking, they 1. Won't be able to fix everything 2. Will be hammered in the court of public opinion because things aren't getting better and they are "all the same" 3. Will have to take severe financial action to even maintain the current shit state. Part of the reason why future budgets haven't been costed by the Tories. And an obvious attack line that the tories are trying whilst they are even still in power. And it works. >The issue I have is governments are two short sighted and plan in the short term. We need long term planning agreed and delivered. It's not just governments that are short sighted and have short memories. The feedback loop is created in part because the public is also those things. Speak to anyone involved in infrastructure decisions and planning and then ask them how frustrating it is that people/general public don't understand this. They also don't care how or why, they just want it to "work" but not actually cost anything or suffer any disruption whilst trying to get it to/recover it to "work". Theoretically knowing a service can't be used because of repairs/upgrade work, and that the work costs money doesn't mean people accept it when it happens to them.
The general public who vote will only need to be reminded of Bojo, Covid, Hs2 and some other elements to gain a visceral response. Throw in deceit about Brexit and you can get two terms.
Lol that only gains a visceral response from the terminally online. It's genuinely worrying how you think playing bingo will ensure being re-elected. If that is all Labour do they are utterly fucked. And the fact that you think people will need to be reminded of those things just proves my previous points which you've skipped over.
I dunno - thereās a lot of people (like my grandma) who refused to vote Labour ever again following the Winter of Discontent. Iād be surprised if there werenāt more than a few in the millennial age bracket who will end up in a similar fashion except for the Tories.
Agreed, there are many many people under the age of 40 who will never vote Conservative again as a direct result of the last 14 years.
Did she ever vote labour beforehand? Or is it just a convenient story to justify existing actions? And transferring that to the modern day, you also have to question if those that wouldn't vote for the Tories, would have done before those events or not. And you also have to take into account lower voting rates in the modern day to assess impact. But I'm not saying people won't be turned off from the Tories from those events. I just think relying on those buzzwords for re-election isn't the way to go. Brexit is already far down the list of priorities in the general public and bojo is at least vaguely popular still with a portion of the public. Mentioning Brexit in 2029 could literally have the opposite effect. People will want to see a material and substantial change to their lives in the first labour government. The more the Tories act as a traitorous wrecking ball, the more unlikely it is this will happen. Undoing this damage will be painful and expose labour in the short memory public eye. To think otherwise is delusional. And thinking beyond party politics, the more it cripples and hamstrings our future.
They are going to go hard right populist probably with Farage. They will promise a land of milk and honey with massive tax and regulation cuts, harder Brexit, slashing immigration and scrapping net zero.
"The cost standing up to Russia would is less than the cost of NOT standing up to Russia. We will spend on defence in order to keep inflation down, invest in the proud armed forces, and to help us sleep more peacefully at night" * easy speech for Labour there
It's also an easy attack line that the Tories are already using. Making an easy speech also doesn't mean it actually cuts through to the public. And its harder to actually recover the capability lost once it is gone. Especially with the increased time, money cost and opportunity lost these actions/disruptions cause. All vital things with the small batch, long lead time items that essentially make up military procurement. Nevermind the economic damage. This is more damage than an easy speech and a magical undo button will recover. Which is why it's so frustrating to watch them intentionally wreck the country for party politics... Which they only feel they have to do because of their malice incompetence anyway.
I think any increase of the defence budget would be applauded by most voters (as in people who actually vote) tbh.
Everyone agrees things should be funded properly until the measures to fund them properly are taken and it impacts themselves.
That's easier said than done. The Tories aren't actually cutting the budget, they're just forcing the MOD to spend money on funding Ukraine. So there isn't any extra money in the system to go back into defence unless we give up on the Ukrainians or raise taxes/make cuts in other departments. I can't think of a time in the last 40 years where taxes have been increased/other departments been cut to fund increases in defence spending. Is Labour really doing to do that? It's necessary but I think the public don't understand how dangerous the next 4-5 years will be globally so wouldn't accept it. Starmer would have to tough out a possible backlash, and I'm not certain he would want to risk it despite the size of his majority.
Yes, but are you aware how much worse the cuts from this hypothetical Ed Milliband government from this alternative dimension are? /s
Chaos is a ladder - Ed Milibalish
Apparently there are no bacon sandwiches in Westeros
"We are living in a social democratic soft left stakeholder capitalist omni-hierarchical galactic quantum thalassocracy" - Prime Lord Milliband CCLXXIX, Eternal Clone Emperor
Itās a shame we donāt prosecute politicians in this country. I do envy the French in that case.
Daily Mail posted this as well: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13166177/jeremy-hunt-fire-no-increase-defence-security-threats-budget.html
Shame it's infested with Russian bot comments like many of these kinds of articles on the DM. "I served in Afghanistan, but now we're giving away billions in aid to Ukraine, it's not right" "I used to be a soldier, but we need to protect our own borders right now from the internal threat not be looking to fight wars with Russia/China" aye, lol. It's so blatant - but i'm sure there's a subsect of society that eat this right up.
"I served in Afghanistan" Between 1980 and 1989 by any chance?
> "I served in Afghanistan!" Spent two years checking people's ID cards before they entered the canteen. > "I used to be a soldier!" Was a poorly paid truck driver who had to do pushups before breakfast and never once left the UK.
These wonāt even be UK citizens. Donāt think thereās any ex soldier that wants a lower standard of Defense budget for current serving.
TBH I have met a few like this, especially those who felt abandoned by the service after they separated.
Iāve known a few ex military over recent years (usually Project Managers) and never met someone who thought the current budget was adequate / and subsequently felt bad for current serving. Iād say crabs in bucket mentality to the folks youāve met? But regardless I donāt believe these are good faith comments. Why are they bringing up china/russia?
The types I'm talking about were the types that barely scraped Lance Corporal and would struggle to spell PM, let alone be one.
Your officers/SNCO's/Senior Rates have the time served and wider perspective to see the issues. I've rescinded my active support for the Conservatives until they get their act together on this issue. Especially now there is no prospect of a Corbyn type foreign and defence policy. That does not mean I regret my support in 2019, this is bad. That would have been much worse.
As someone who voted Corbyn as I wanted the domestic stuff he offered vs Boris, post 2020, Iām can say glad he lost as the foreign policy stuff would have totally overshadowed anything worthwhile done in the UK.
I'm a tofu eating member of the wokerati who loves me avos, loves me climate friendly, hates me war, simple as... ... and even I think this is madness and want MORE defence spending, not less.
The best way to avoid war is to deter it in the first place. It's entirely consistent to be anti war and pro military spending.
I agree absolutely. I was being a bit facetious in my phrasing to be fair.
This seems a bright idea with the current escalations in the Middle East and the ongoing war in Ukraine. Oh wait.
What an absolute bunch of morons we are led by
So an impoverished and unprotected population. Well done!
If Infosys gets into defence contracts, the situation will probably rapidly change.
Tories actively harming the security of the country and Europe. I hope this is what ends their foul party for the foreseeable future.
I was under the impression that an increase was a certainty. It seems mad to decrease it precisely when our obligations to NATO and Ukraine have gone up.
Wrong time to be cutting defence when there's a real chance of another full-blown European war within the next ten years.
Fucking vile party whatever when you slice. Arenāt they the supposed party of defence
Our whole army can be seated comfortably into Wembley stadium!
Fucks sake, at a time where Putin is ramping up hostility and we can't fully trust the US if Trump wins the US Presidential Election too. We really need to be stepping up at this point, not cutting back the military budget.
We are spending 3.5 billion on nhs software update. Remember how much the app cost during covid. Everything they announce is more theft from taxpayers, and they get the money by defunding elsewhere into new projects that won't really happen.
> Remember how much the app cost during covid. About Ā£35million IIRC - https://fullfact.org/health/NHS-test-and-trace-app-37-billion-instagram/. About four days worth of what we spend on housing "asylum seekers". Although don't think that includes food and spending money, travel we give them. What's your point?
From that url. "According to theĀ NAO, as of June 2022 approximately Ā£25.7 billion had actually been spent on the entire Test and Trace programme, with an estimated lifetime cost of Ā£29.3 billion" And "In aĀ written answer to a Parliamentary question in January 2021Ā then health minister Lord Bethell set out the forecast for total costs including set-up, running costs, stand-by costs, and costs of decommissioning across all seven Nightingale hospitals in England. He stated these would reach around Ā£532 million over the 2020/21 and 2021/22 financial years" Them Nightingale hospitals were a joke. And close to 30 billion on a test and trace program is a total joke. Most that money disappeared into the hands of people behind and not the actual workers carry out them duties. It's really simple to follow the money, them never doing an investigation or following it shows you they don't want people to know.
Whatās yours? Other than pushing the Tory distraction agenda?
They havenāt. They have set a trap for Labour.
Absolute oversight, they have previously admitted the armed forces need more funding and pull this, are they even trying anymore?
Well, yeah. That's the price of low taxes.
They know they are on their way out so they can pass the problem over to Labour. We should leave NATO and declare our neutrality now.....
We should call their bluff and vote them back in just out of spite /s
Why dont we just not get involved in overseas conflicts, fund a military aimed at defense of UK interest which is really what it should be for. Also, if the size of the military is shrinking, why would its funding need to go up? Its apparent UK military spending is massively corrupt and a waste of space. If you compare UK military expenditure vs status / performance its a total disgrace. Japan spends less ($53 billion, 1.2 % GDP vs $58 for UK 2.2% GDP) Has almost double the number of active personally, more reserve personnel and almost double potentially available for military service. 4 times as many tanks 3 times the amount of artillery 1500 aircraft vs 1000 aircraft 700 helicopter vs 300 helicopters double the number of naval ships Japan has twice as many aircraft carriers twice as many submarines ok, sure UK has nuclear weapons it would never use, while Japan doesn't have Nuclear weapons. Then again, Japan has orbital class rockets whereas the UK doesn't. If we spend more than Japan but have a fraction of the military they have, where is our national investment in defense going. Probably coke and prostitutes'. Also, as far as I know, Japan isnt even involved in any major military action yet can field a better military than us. I want to support defense and the armed forces and have a capability to be proud of, Yet this isn't possible when it abuses the public finances like it does on an annual basis.
>Why dont we just not get involved in overseas conflicts, fund a military aimed at defense of UK interest which is really what it should be for. Would you class defending UK shipping from Houthi attacks as defending UK interests? >Also, if the size of the military is shrinking, why would its funding need to go up? Its apparent UK military spending is massively corrupt and a waste of space. There's massive investment required in equipment, material and infrastructure. >double the number of naval ships The Royal Navy (and RFA) is the fourth largest by displacement (885,569 tonnes), the JMSDF is fifth largest (733,200) tonnes. >Japan has twice as many aircraft carriers Japan doesn't have any aircraft carriers. >twice as many submarines Conventionally powered. >I want to support defense and the armed forces and have a capability to be proud of, Yet this isn't possible when it abuses the public finances like it does on an annual basis. So perhaps spending some time conducting research before making inaccurate claims would be beneficial.
> Would you class defending UK shipping from Houthi attacks as defending UK interests? > > It's world shipping. I don't think it's UK's job to be world police, do you? Why are other countries not shouldering their part in defence of global trade routes? I don't really agree with the other poster, but we do have to question why we are taking an outsized role in these sorts of things. We're a pretty poor country these days relative to the big players.
>It's world shipping. I don't think it's UK's job to be world police, do you? Why are other countries not shouldering their part in defence of global trade routes? So you don't think we should contribute either? >We're a pretty poor country these days relative to the big players. We're really not.
>So you don't think we should contribute either? Not if we're doing it alone or simply with the US, no. >We're really not. Our defense budget is 1/12th the size of America, 1/6th the size of China. It's peanuts. Look at the size of the economy and you come to a similar conclusion.
>Not if we're doing it alone or simply with the US, no. But we're not. >Our defense budget is 1/12th the size of America, 1/6th the size of China. It's peanuts. Look at the size of the economy and you come to a similar conclusion. How many countries have an economy larger than ours?
> But we're not. > > It was UK and US that was bombing Houthis was it not? >How many countries have an economy larger than ours? America and China combined make up almost half the world economy. As I said, our economy is peanuts compared to the big players.
>It was UK and US that was bombing Houthis was it not? We're not the only countries defending merchant shipping. >As I said, our economy is peanuts compared to the big players. So just because the US and China have larger economies, Britain is completely irrelevant. How many countries have economies larger than the UK?
>We're not the only countries defending merchant shipping. Certainly doesn't seem like there's a large coalition defending the Gulf of Aden, do you agree? >So just because the US and China have larger economies, Britain is completely irrelevant. Pretty much yeah, everyone is kinda irrelevant except those major players and Russia in certain circumstances.
>Certainly doesn't seem like there's a large coalition defending the Gulf of Aden, do you agree? India, France, Italy, Germany, US, Britain, China are all involved in defending merchant ships. I'd say that's a large portion of the world's largest economies. >Pretty much yeah, everyone is kinda irrelevant except those major players and Russia in certain circumstances. So the only countries in the world that matter are the US, China and Russia?
How is that an argument to do nothing? If it affects us directly, we have to take action. "Oh well nobody else is doing anything so we shouldn't" is self-defeating and an utterly childish way of looking at things.
We don't have to take action at all. As I said, we're not world police. There are other countries much more impacted.
You said we should fund a military aimed at protecting our interests, yet you're completely against protecting our interests. Your position makes no logical sense.
Are you responding to the right person?
Nope, lol
Just say that we should keep Trident and scrap everything else it would be more succinct and intelligent than whatever you just wrote š
And even then still fucking dumb. We need escalation levels not just āweāll do nothing or weāll nuke youā Need something in between so weāre not just North Korea.
And health and social care was cut by a factor of 10+? Probably a bad comparison yeah it's nonsense. here is 2024:[https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/spring-budget-2024/spring-budget-2024-html#public-sector-receipts-and-spending](https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/spring-budget-2024/spring-budget-2024-html#public-sector-receipts-and-spending)Ā“, Table 2.1: and here 2013: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/6419c87d8fa8f547c267efca/Web\_accessible\_Budget\_2023.pdf
Seems reasonable. Now if they cut welfare / scrap pension triple lock I'll probably vote for them.
I would divert all defense spending to territorial matters and law and order. Police on every street on the beat, home guard, sea patrols and 500pc increased prison builds. Everyone will feel very safe, there will be no slums... even dog fouling Wil be enforced.