Jeremy Corbyn

It's significantly better than supporting the purchase of a 200bn weapons system capable of erasing most of the life on the planet.

I haven't said I support it. I am presenting another side of the argument. But that's really dreadful arguing.

you haven't told me which credible threats it would deter in the future.

I don't know. Neither do you know they won't be a credible threat deterred by nukes, nor if there have their been credible threats deterred by nukes.

Try answering the central question to your argument, and perhaps I won't have to treat your non-answers with quite so much disdain.

I am trying to do that. You're dragging the argument through the dirt in lieu of a proper debate. As evidenced by referencing overtaking. If you're going to do that, then this is going nowhere and I'll leave it.

Back on track then - can any Corbyn supporters counter CaptJon's quotes of a few pages back about poor management?

Seriously, that is your response?

Absolutely.

[i]"When I raised my concerns it was simply shrugged off. It undermined me in front of colleagues and made me look weak. It made me feel like I was wasting my time. That my opinion didn't matter. And it made me miserable."[/i]

Any MP saying something like that above should really think about getting another job. Just what did Lilian Greenword think being an MP was all about?

Erm, they haven't ever been used.

Are we sure ?

[img] [/img]

Atomic weapons were used against a country that had a development program but had not managed to create a functional weapon.

[url= https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_nuclear_weapon_program ]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_nuclear_weapon_program[/url]

There is probably a lesson to be found in there for those who say we don't need nuclear weapons because there isn't a clearly defined threat at the moment. Asking a threatening nation to come back and threaten us again at a later date when we've started making nuclear weapons again is stupid. As stupid as a party that failed, due to being too left wing to appeal to voters, selecting Jeremy Corbyn as its next leader.

dazh - Member

Seriously, that is your response?

Absolutely.

"When I raised my concerns it was simply shrugged off. It undermined me in front of colleagues and made me look weak. It made me feel like I was wasting my time. That my opinion didn't matter. And it made me miserable."

Any MP saying something like that above should really think about getting another job. Just what did Lilian Greenword think being an MP was all about?

Why are you focusing on how she felt about Corbyn's actions, and ignoring the fundamental point that if what she says is true, Corbyn's actions demonstrated poor leadership?

dazh - Member
Absolutely.

"When I raised my concerns it was simply shrugged off. It undermined me in front of colleagues and made me look weak. It made me feel like I was wasting my time. That my opinion didn't matter. And it made me miserable."

Any MP saying something like that above should really think about getting another job. Just what did Lilian Greenword think being an MP was all about?

Presumably she thought that she'd be developing policy in a particular area as agreed, rather than agreeing it then having it changed without consultation. You appear to be ignoring the actions of Corbyn and focusing on the response.

You're also ignoring the utter disorganisation about what Debonaire's role was/wasn't and sacking her without telling her.

If he can't organise who is doing what within his shadow cabinet, or stick to agreed policies, how is he going to run the country?

I may have switched sides, actually.

You appear to be ignoring the actions of Corbyn and focusing on the response.

Not at all. I've said a few times I think he's less than competent. I do wonder though if Corbyn were to write a similar self-pitying confessional whether there would be the same level of sympathy.

You're welcome.

Pretty clear I meant nuclear weapons, certainly to me or anyone else reading the discussion I would have said. Petty point scoring and nit picking on your behalf. Same old same old hence the yawn

Sky believes 50% of Labour MPs will vote for Trident. Also saying that as the renewal decsion was effectively taken in 2007 this debate and vote (pointless) was a deliberate move by Cameron to further humiliate Corbyn as he has teed up Labour MPs to publically speak and vote against Corbyn.

Isn't the vote just on renewing the subs - the issue of renewing the missiles isn't due for another decade - so this vote won't stop the trident program.

The point is simple though - to make it not worth it for anyone to think they could gain from launching a strike against us.

Like the school bully not picking on someone because he knows that the guy has a bigger brother and the cost of picking on the younger one is not worth it - just taken to the extreme.

Sure the leadership might think they could survive in some bunker, but it would be a nuclear wasteland above them.

The only issue would be if the other side thought they had the technology to locate all the subs and to knock out the missiles before they got to them, or if they were religious nuts thinking that they were all destined for 70 virgins.

ninfan - Member
'The money would be better spent on conventional forces.'
So, you think a 6% bigger conventional armed forces would make a huge difference to a potential aggressor?

If it's invasion we are protecting against as opposed to killing brown foreigners in their own country, it would buy a much bigger armed service.

TurnerGuy - Member
...The only issue would be if the other side thought they had the technology to locate all the subs and to knock out the missiles before they got to them...

Which is the most likely scenario. Bye bye the south of Scotland and our fishing grounds.

Ultimately the use of nuclear weapons is primarily a weapon to be used against civilian populations, not military.

Anyone prepared to use them should be automatically debarred from public office because they have just demonstrated the mentality of a mass murdering war criminal.

If it's invasion we are protecting against as opposed to killing brown foreigners in their own country, it would buy a much bigger armed service.

"much bigger"? How much bigger do you think, with 6% more money?

If you're talking about an doctrinal shift away from expeditionary warfare towards a pure home defence force, then you would entirely undermine our ability to intervene in foreign theatres - lets look at what that means for a minute;

Genocide in the Balkans - nope, sorry, not interested any more
Regional conflict in Africa - nope, sorry, not interested any more
Russia invades Ukraine, Bulgaria, Georgia, Finland - nope, sorry, not interested any more
Turkish forces invade Greece or Cyprus (again) - nope, sorry, not interested any more

Funny, I thought it was the Brexiters and right wingers who were 'Little Englanders'!

If there where heightened tensions none of the nuclear equipped submarines would be at Faslane imo, they would all be at sea. The only scenario where Scotland get's nuked / attacked is a total surprise scenario.

The only scenario where Scotland get's nuked / attacked is a total surprise scenario.

Which is why theres always [b]at least[/b] one operational boat at sea, with 40 warheads unevenly spread over eight missiles.

Same old same old hence the yawn

Same old same old. Not taking responsibility for the words you write. Or did you mean "in my opinion" again?

ninfan - Member
"much bigger"? How much bigger do you think, with 6% more money?

If you're talking about an doctrinal shift away from expeditionary warfare towards a pure home defence force, then you would entirely undermine our ability to intervene in foreign theatres - lets look at what that means for a minute;

Genocide in the Balkans - nope, sorry, not interested any more
Regional conflict in Africa - nope, sorry, not interested any more
Russia invades Ukraine, Bulgaria, Georgia, Finland - nope, sorry, not interested any more
Turkish forces invade Greece or Cyprus (again) - nope, sorry, not interested any more

Funny, I thought it was the Brexiters and right wingers who were 'Little Englanders'!

Ah, the delusions of empire and being the world's policeman persist. How about we use up our nukes on one of those "little" problems next time one pops up, that'd fix it much better than conventional forces.

But to answer your question, no doubt we would still be in NATO and get involved where it is.

jambalaya - Member
If there where heightened tensions none of the nuclear equipped submarines would be at Faslane imo, they would all be at sea....

Mmmm, now if you were the enemy in charge of targeting, what would you do?

You'd make sure and hit Faslane and Rosyth to take them completely out of the picture as well as targeting last known positions of the subs.

The point is simple though - to make it not worth it for anyone to think they could gain from launching a strike against us.

Problem is this requires two things

1. Someone wanting to nuke us
2. Non nuke countries getting nuked - did not happen to Iran, North Korea, Vietnam, or any other war zone or pariah nation so pretty hard to make it a credible rather than hypothetical risk- even then Nato means our mates with nukes join in anyway

Emily Thornberry abstaining as the vote is just a trap for Labour, she is right about that. What's bizarre is she supports Trident and she's the Snadow Minister when the leader is against. He can't even fill a Cabinet with people that agree with him on his most important issues.

[quote=jambalaya ]SNP MP for Faslane will vote to renew TridentThat would be Brendan O'Hara. He's going to vote for renewal?

Problem is this requires two things

1. Someone wanting to nuke us
2. Non nuke countries getting nuked - did not happen to Iran, North Korea, Vietnam, or any other war zone or pariah nation so pretty hard to make it a credible rather than hypothetical risk- even then Nato means our mates with nukes join in anyway

in theory the attack need not be nuclear, could be the other two letters of NBC.

Same principle, we are saying that there can be no benefit from an attack.

We play a game of bluff so that any enemy cannot tell if we are serious about retalitating.

But then you get jerkoffs like Corbyn saying he definitely wouldn't use it, which stuffs the deterant idea up completely. Maybe he wouldn't use it, and would rather everyone died meekily, but he has just increased the chances of that happening.

Has he gone yet?

So I rang Brian, my agent, and my adviser, Laurence, to tell them. I wrote my resignation letter and I rang Jeremy to explain. And I texted asking him to call me. And I rang Katy Clark in his office and asked her to ask him to ring me.

After an hour or so he did ring me. And we had an amicable discussion and I explained that I has lost confidence in him.

He didn't even ask me why.

Or what was wrong , or how he could fix it.

I wasn't part of any coup.

I didn't plan it.

I didn't co-ordinate the timing of my resignation with anyone else.

I just knew that I could not go on.

[url= http://www.liliangreenwood.co.uk/lilian_s_speech_to_nottingham_south_labour_party_members ]Source.[/url]

You'd make sure and hit Faslane and Rosyth to take them completely out of the picture as well as targeting last known positions of the subs.

that the locations of the submarines is an extremely closely guarded secret

Very. They go to great depths to stay hidden, so unless you can find one and then track it using another sub following it, you don't know where they are.

I think the interesting question is whether Trident can still actually sail around the oceans undetected, or whether sub-detection (underwater drones, better satellites, etc) will mean that our adversaries could figure out where they are and take them out pre-emptively.

If so, there's not much point in having it anymore.

But trying to argue that if we give it up, so will everyone else, seems naive.

That resignation letter is very damming of Corbyn's teamwork and leadership skills. But hardly a surprise when Corbyn has never worked in a team of ever had to leaf anything. The resignation letter is written in a very measured, calm way, I'd hate to think what he says about Corbyn down the pub.

Dragon, Lilian is a she. Oh, and it's a transript of a speech she gave, rather than a letter.

If so, there's not much point in having it anymore.

maybe that is why we need new subs...

TurnerGuy - Member
maybe that is why we need new subs

CFH that was very a informative read. Thanks.

If you're talking about an doctrinal shift away from expeditionary warfare towards a pure home defence force, then you would entirely undermine our ability to intervene in foreign theatres - lets look at what that means for a minute;

Not invading Afghanistan and Iraq, thus not being responsible for the power vacuum and shitstorm that resulted in Isis?

Sounds like quite a Plan

whether Trident can still actually sail around the oceans undetected, or whether sub-detection (underwater drones, better satellites, etc) will mean that our adversaries could figure out where they are and take them out pre-emptively.

Hmm, as a thought there - have a look at what has happened after plane crashes/missing planes, e.g.. Air France 447

the equipment on board the plane is [i]activley[/i] transmitting a signal, yet despite knowing the rough location of it going missing, and within a few days finding wreckage and bodies - it still took some of the most sophisticated naval and marine assets two years to find it

now have a look at the other planes that have gone missing in similar circumstances, ensuing in huge naval searches - again, despite knowing rough locations and transmitting a detectable signal. how many of them have been found?

then you get jerkoffs like Corbyn saying he definitely wouldn't use it, which stuffs the deterant idea up completely. Maybe he wouldn't use it, and would rather everyone died meekily, but he has just increased the chances of that happening.

By how much? 5%? 50%? 95%?

C'mon, we're talking about 200bn on a weapons system with the ability to mete out a horrific death tha a large proportion of the world's population. If you think it's justified that we as a nation have that power, you must have quantified evidence of the increased risk if we don't, and who poses that risk.

the equipment on board the plane is activley transmitting a signal

For a few days it is yes. It's also the size of a large briefcase, and doesn't float.

If finding submerged subs was so impossible, nobody would have bothered with hunter-killer subs designed for the purpose.

Assuming some transferable tech to drones, and a similar rate of increase in sophistication as we've seen in aerial drones over the past 30 years, it's quite conceivable that by the time the new trident subs are launched, they're about as stealthy as the Vulcan.

Dunno whether it's true or just drunken mumblings but i went to school in the 80's wi someone who ended up on one of the vanguard subs (I'm not naming the sub in particular), he left the navy back in the early 2000's and once whilst extremely drunk at our local bar the subject of his previous employment came up and how much he regretted wasting his life whilst patrolling under the sea and the effect it had continued to have on his mind to this day, it was brought up that the technology of undersea sonic detection by the propellers signature pressure wave was coming on to such an extent that there was very-very few places in the worlds oceans where the subs could hide without detection, they could find subs and identify them across thousands of miles of ocean so i expect with todays technology and the vast amount of underwater listening stations that the subs would be quite easy to pinpoint.

they have a new stealth mode these days call "scattered across the seabed".

[quote=scotroutes ]

jambalaya  » SNP MP for Faslane will vote to renew Trident

"there is absolutely no evidence the threat of nuclear attack has increased."
He told BBC Radio Scotland's Good Morning Scotland programme: "It would also suggest that 190-odd countries that don't have nuclear weapons somehow can't sleep safely in the beds at night.
"It's nonsense - it's another extension of project fear. It's to whip up fear and to make a nation or a people feel insecure in order to secure you're own political ends."

they have a new stealth mode these days call "scattered across the seabed".

It's a pity they don't have to leave a known point like me their base to get there, otherwise there's a risk they might be found and followed 🙄

CFH cheers for the correction. I did realise after I posted but was too busy to edit.

The SNP position on the military I always find a bit of a mess, especially considering it is a fairly big employer.

There was an interesting series on the BBC a few years ago called The Silent War, which was about how the US/UK and Soviet Union nuclear submarine fleets vied for supremacy during the Cold War. It included interviews with the US/UK and Soviet naval officers serving at that time.

According to the programme, NATO was substantially outnumbered by the conventional Warsaw Pact forces in the 1960s, and the US/UK realised that the cheapest and most effective miltary option was to invest in the Polaris subs to neutralise the Warsaw Pact's superiority in conventional forces.

Apparently the US/UK always had the edge in that part of the Cold War due to technological superiority and geography, and its hunter killer subs tracked and followed the Soviet ballistic missile subs when they left Murmansk, and supposedly on only one occasion did a Soviet sub manage to reach the Atlantic and lose its shadowers.

@scot no he voted against in the end.

The SNPs policy on most things is determined by its primary agenda which is independence. The anti-Trident thing is just a stick to beat Westminster and a giant NIMBY campaign.

Robertson's statement after the vote was all about another Referendum. Same old, same old.

[quote=jambalaya ]@scot no he voted against [b]in the end[/b]. 🙄 😆

I take you it you'd heard [i]on very good authority[/i] he was going to vote for renewal then? Seriously buddy, you're just becoming a joke on these threads. Stop typing trash and making a fool of yourself.

The anti-Trident thing is just a stick to beat Westminster and a giant NIMBY campaign.

No, it really isn't. It's about getting value for scarce taypayers' money, and the morality of threatening to obliterate millions of innocent civilians.

Apparently the US/UK always had the edge in that part of the Cold War due to technological superiority and geography, and its hunter killer subs tracked and followed the Soviet ballistic missile subs when they left Murmansk, and supposedly on only one occasion did a Soviet sub manage to reach the Atlantic and lose its shadowers.

I wonder what an equivalent show in Russia would say about how well their hunter-killers fared against the Resolution class leaving Faslane? The truth is we'll never know how much real success NATO and the USSR had against each other in the cold war, in much the same way we don't know how much success NATO and Russia have against each other under the waves now. However, if finding boomers was an impossibility, then nobody would bother with attack submarines designed specifically for that purpose.