snowychap Posted January 7, 2016 Share Posted January 7, 2016 (edited) 4 minutes ago, Mantis said: Yes and as I've already said, I admit that I wasn't completely clear in my first two posts... You were very clear in your first two posts. I have heeded your request of December 9 to ' stop motives into my head, please' and, thus, am relying on what you have said which, quite clearly, was the following: On 06/01/2016 at 19:46, Mantis said: Are Labour a bigger joke than Villa right now? Probably not, but they're getting close. Unlike with Villa though I'm finding this very amusing. On 06/01/2016 at 22:10, Mantis said: To be fair, Labour are a joke because they're failing to really challenge the Conservatives despite a number of missteps by the government. Even Miliband and Balls would've done a better job. I agree that most people don't care about the reshuffle but then again most people don't care about politics in general. Edited January 7, 2016 by snowychap Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mantis Posted January 7, 2016 Share Posted January 7, 2016 Just now, snowychap said: You were very clear in your first two posts. I have heeded your request of December 9 to ' stop motives into my head, please' and, thus, am relying on what you have said , quite clearly, which was the following: So then why after I've told you that I wasn't completely clear do you continue to try and tell me what I meant? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowychap Posted January 7, 2016 Share Posted January 7, 2016 Just now, Mantis said: So then why after I've told you that I wasn't completely clear do you continue to try and tell me what I meant? You were completely clear in your first two posts and I have explained to you how and why you were. That you have subsequently made it completely clear that you find something else very amusing and that you hate Labour is immaterial and, I'll let you in to a little secret, is hardly news. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mantis Posted January 7, 2016 Share Posted January 7, 2016 (edited) 3 minutes ago, snowychap said: You were completely clear in your first two posts and I have explained to you how and why you were. That you have subsequently made it completely clear that you find something else very amusing and that you hate Labour is immaterial and, I'll let you in to a little secret, is hardly news. No you haven't. All you've done is quote what I've said over and over again even though as I keep on saying, I wasn't as clear as I could've been. I think you know that as well. Honestly, of all the arguments on VT this is the most pathetic, anal one I've ever seen. You're splitting hairs and trying to put things into my head. Edited January 7, 2016 by Mantis Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OutByEaster? Posted January 7, 2016 Moderator Share Posted January 7, 2016 Gents, please agree to disagree on this one. But stop! Please. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 Indi Quote Britain is split down the middle on whether to retain nuclear weapons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted January 25, 2016 Share Posted January 25, 2016 Ill split this rafter yummy pie with you straight down the middle , 49% for you and 51% for me interesting that Scotland seemed to be the ones most against it , considering the impact it's likely to have on its jobs and economy ... 642 if you ask one source but upto 11,000 if you consider the wider implications Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted January 26, 2016 Share Posted January 26, 2016 Can somebody explain the point of 'non-nuclear Trident submarines'? I don't mean the real point, obviously that's to buy Corbyn time with the unions. But what's the pretend point? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swerbs Posted January 26, 2016 Share Posted January 26, 2016 54 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said: Can somebody explain the point of 'non-nuclear Trident submarines'? I don't mean the real point, obviously that's to buy Corbyn time with the unions. But what's the pretend point? The subs still operate but without the nuclear warheads, people keep their jobs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HanoiVillan Posted January 26, 2016 Share Posted January 26, 2016 (edited) Yes . . . Edited January 26, 2016 by HanoiVillan Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted January 26, 2016 Share Posted January 26, 2016 No, that's pretty much it. Nuclear subs create jobs, nuclear warheads kill the proletariat. Keep the subs, drop the bombs (well, you know what I mean). They would still be able to sneak around quietly, they could still have conventional warheads, I guess also, if we were attacked by an island state, we could ram them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awol Posted January 26, 2016 Share Posted January 26, 2016 @HanoiVillan There isn't even a pretend military point, the idea of deploying ICBM carrying submarines without the missiles is utterly pointless and a spectacular waste of money - like an aircraft carrier being banned from carrying aircraft. All this "idea" of Labour's (or more fairly, Corbyn's) really achieves is highlighting their startling lack of defence related knowledge and inability to think through proposals that the average 12 year old would twig are ridiculous. I suspect he made it up on the spot while talking to Andrew Marr which may not be a sensible way to discuss the future of the nuclear deterrent, but there we are. I think his previous intervention was to suggest converting normal surface warships into fresh water bowsers for humanitarian relief. He's like a child with a megaphone and no filter between his brain and mouth. @chrisp65 ICBM's (the the bit that delivers the nuclear warheads) aren't built to be fitted with conventional warheads, but even if they were it would be an incredibly uneconomic way to to go about it and extremely dangerous. The problem with launching ICBM's is that everyone assumes it's a nuke as soon as it appears above the water line, rendering them unusable in a conventional context. There is a good reason ICBM tests are declared to all sides in advance. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted January 26, 2016 Share Posted January 26, 2016 @Awol tell me more about the concept of £6.2 Billion worth of aircraft carrier without aircraft until at least 2020..... I know you can't simply swap the warheads from nuclear to non nuke. But I'd imagine they see some form of conversion as dramatically cheaper and 'better' than retaining nuclear. Even if this conversion was ridiculous, didn't quite work, cost six billion and was delayed 10 years, well, that would just be a standard MoD contract wouldn't it? So we'd end up spending a few billion on something unuseable, rather than a few tens of billions on something unuseable. We don't intend to be hostile towards China, we've let them take over much of our infrastructure. Nukes won't stop a death cult. So, one silly plan is much the same as another silly plan I guess? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Awol Posted January 26, 2016 Share Posted January 26, 2016 Chris, yes the F35 development is taking a while and beyond our control, but the point is we will have a first class carrier force fit for purpose at the end of it. Building subs to carry Trident which are useless in any other role and then not putting Trident in them is possibly the dumbest idea ever. Debating whether we should have a nuclear deterrent is a fair and different subject. Saying we shouldn't have one then spunking 10's of billions of the precious (to the Armed Forces) defence budget on an otherwise useless delivery system is beyond the sun. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MakemineVanilla Posted January 26, 2016 Share Posted January 26, 2016 (edited) There is a wonderful logic about the Subs with no nuclear missiles and seems to follow Aesop's fable of the miser and the gold. Quote Once upon a time there was a Miser who used to hide his gold at the foot of a tree in his garden; but every week he used to go and dig it up and gloat over his gains. A robber, who had noticed this, went and dug up the gold and decamped with it. When the Miser next came to gloat over his treasures, he found nothing but the empty hole. He tore his hair, and raised such an outcry that all the neighbours came around him, and he told them how he used to come and visit his gold. "Did you ever take any of it out?" asked one of them. "Nay," said he, "I only came to look at it." "Then come again and look at the hole," said a neighbour; "it will do you just as much good." The same logic applies to most of the sixty-odd billion spent on 'defence': most of the kit becomes obsolete before it is ever used and the Conservative government introduced a scheme in 2011 for a British manufacturer to build aeroplanes (Nimrods) and then destroy them, so no Tory can claim to not get the logic. The whole capitalist/consumerist conceit is based on the idea that vast tracts of the economy should be devoted to producing goods and services no one needs, while there is a shortage of things people do need. The whole logic of Keynesian economics is that the government should waste vast amounts of other people's money on overpaid and overstaffed bureaucracy, which benefits no one but those doing their non-jobs and drawing salaries. And how many billions do governments spend achieving precisely nothing? How many billions has this Tory government wasted on their projects designed to persecute the poor and how much have they handed out to their cronies in the banks which has produced absolutely nothing of tangible value or use to the country? But governments spending money on projects which dig holes and then fill them in again does keep people employed, produces demand, and helps companies owned by cronies, and they know it and keep doing it. So the idea that subs without missiles runs contrary to the reality and the logic of British political tradition is fanciful and that is putting it kindly. Edited January 26, 2016 by MakemineVanilla 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
foreveryoung Posted January 26, 2016 Share Posted January 26, 2016 We would live in a very weak country if Corbyn ever got elected. An I for one don't want to live in that country. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chindie Posted January 26, 2016 VT Supporter Share Posted January 26, 2016 He has absolutely no chance of being elected so I wouldn't worry. I don't think if he did we'd be that weak. He'd position us even further away from 'power' status on the world stage, but I don't think he'd weaken us to the extent we'd be vulnerable. He would shift the military balance significantly which an awful lot of people would dislike. But, as said, he will never, ever get elected. He knows it too. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted January 26, 2016 Share Posted January 26, 2016 21 hours ago, HanoiVillan said: Can somebody explain the point of 'non-nuclear Trident submarines'? I don't mean the real point, obviously that's to buy Corbyn time with the unions. But what's the pretend point? They can stay at sea longer and stay submerged longer as they reprocess their own oxygen. They would become hunter killers of other naval vessels rather than a nuclear deterrent. HMS Conqueror, the one Brit sub I can actually remember torpedoing anything, was such a vessel. Nuclear power, no ICBMs Actually we're rather good at sonar and radar. Our new submarine ran rings around the dismayed Yanks in sea trials, and our radar systems had a bad habit of detecting hyper expensive stealth tech. Yet with the current system we're still buying their stuff, because we don't want to properly resource our own research, because the rich don't want to contribute. I'd be less adverse to a nuclear deterrent if we were waving our our own willy, rather than an expensive American strap on. The new US fighter we're buying isn't looking brilliant either. Otherwise - Money better spent on those in misery. Nice one Corbyn Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tonyh29 Posted January 26, 2016 Share Posted January 26, 2016 33 minutes ago, Xann said: They can stay at sea longer and stay submerged longer as they reprocess their own oxygen. They would become hunter killers of other naval vessels rather than a nuclear deterrent. HMS Conqueror, the one Brit sub I can actually remember torpedoing anything, was such a vessel. Nuclear power, no ICBMs Actually we're rather good at sonar and radar. Our new submarine ran rings around the dismayed Yanks in sea trials, and our radar systems had a bad habit of detecting hyper expensive stealth tech. Yet with the current system we're still buying their stuff, because we don't want to properly resource our own research, because the rich don't want to contribute. I'd be less adverse to a nuclear deterrent if we were waving our our own willy, rather than an expensive American strap on. The new US fighter we're buying isn't looking brilliant either. Otherwise - Money better spent on those in misery. Nice one Corbyn We should finally see the F-35 at Farnborough air show this year Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted January 26, 2016 Share Posted January 26, 2016 ......with one that can land on our aircraft carrier due in 'about' 4 or 5 years time if there are no more delays - according to the Royal Navy. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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