We’re going to have our own Space Force!

WTAF? Waking up to the defence spend announcement.

OK, it “may” create some British jobs, we “may” need to look at our Forces and satellite security etc if we are about to walk away from wider cooperation, but throwing money at the department that has the reputation for being least cost efficient on spending? Now, of all times!

Unless the flag waving loon really is going to try and recreate the glory days of empire by invading the rest of the world?

Oh, hang on. Previous European governments elected with big majorities via populist lies to recreate a glorious past, boosting military spending to get out of an economic disaster? WhereTF is this headed?

Space Force

Cyber Team

Green vehicles

Green infrastructure

More vaccines than anyone else

Oh look a squirrel…

Just heard we’re ‘going to launch the UK’s first rocket by 2022’, so the budget must be for the time machine to stop them from launching the first British satellite using the first British launcher back in 1971, after which the Conservatives cancelled the programme.

Didn’t it cost us a couple of billion and 15yrs just to get a radio system working that was based on an existing system?

Arms cannot be used for consumption nor production they are therefore ‘waste’ production. Arms production has a high labour capital ratio and a skilled labour force so not an obvious choice for job creation and is likely to have a high import content. Arms expenditure tends to be deflationary in that it can offset the increasing centralisation of capital so it can stabilise the boom/slump cycles but we need reflation. The New Deal involved investment in infrastructure that benefited the economy, an additional £18bn on arms quite frankly is f madness. Historically the arms industry has been found to be generous in its interactions with decision makers and their agents. The hang em and flog em Tories may well be cheered by this but any sentient creature will be angered and bemused. 8000 containers full of overpriced and possibly unusable ppe and now this. It ain’t getting any better.

Is he buying a fleet of gunboats to conduct future diplomacy?

Isn’t today the day the Brexit talks collapse?

Well at least he’s proved Theresa May wrong about the magic money tree.

Yeah but.. a space force!!!

Can we have an Arnold Rimmer style salute?

They’ll be more money announced over the next few years for “arms” (note that most of this particular announcement isn’t for the armed forces) just to stand still. Brexit means we either spend more on security, or accept weakened security… (or, as I think most likely, both).

Presumably the opposition will argue that arms trades should be left to neo-liberal market forces and that taxpayers’ money should be spent on affordable housing, hospitals, schools, public transport, wage rises for the many not the few. Maybe not. Just heard a Tory saying this will create 10,000 jobs per year and using the conflict in Armenia as a rationale. Absolute bare-faced lies, and people go along with it.

using the conflict in Armenia as a rationale

Ah, an updated, post-truth, version of the Cold War ‘Domino Theory’ where superpowers ended up propping up (notionally) loyal but corrupt regimes because if one ‘domino’ fell, the rest would follow?

Different slant, but similar conclusion.

It’s nice that the Tories are going to spend money on ways of killing people. It’s a change from their usual policy of killing people through not spending money.

Would any of his mates happen to profit substantially by new contracts awarded in this area?

Is he buying a fleet of gunboats to conduct future diplomacy?

He’s buying more water cannon to quell the upcoming Brexit food riots.

As with the previous 3 he bought when he was Mayor of London, they’ll be unusable, cost a fortune in trying to bring up to standard and then languish in a a warehouse for years before being sold for scrap.

Historically the arms industry has been found to be generous in its interactions with decision makers and their agents.

Weapons-grade Chumocracy. I’ll bet Dido is getting a gun license as we speak so she can be instrumental in procuring the next tranche of anti-sub choppers via a Swedish banana importer.

And these are the people that voted for hungry kids and cheered when nurses didn’t get a pay rise.

It’s also only about the third or fourth time that the government has announced some sort of cyber force. Makes me wonder how much of this is just people in government relaying on the general public having a short memory for historic spending.

It’s nice that the Tories are going to spend money on ways of killing people. It’s a change from their usual policy of killing people through not spending money.

Brilliantly put. However, this whole announcement is a dead cat to distract from the EU negotiations going nowhere and ‘us’ committing ourselves to utter chaos and turmoil in January.

Boris just loves to think BIG, completely unviable plans. Bridges ranging from the inner city garden to 20 mile sea crossing. Airports in rivers and being Prime Minister. All complete pie in the sky nonsense. As soon as Cummings is out of door he’s free to announce whatever he dreamed about during his afternoon drunken nap.

A moon shot bridge into space. Just Boris on the vino again.

I wonder how much they will try and claw back from benefits for those out of work (soon to be huge numbers),on in-work benefits or disability to pay for this?

The money tree will most definitely be lost of you are on their expendable list and managed to survive Covid…

Wasn’t Dominic Cummings about to bring a ‘hard rain’ on the MoD procurement processes etc? Interesting that this is announced as soon as he leaves.

It’s nice that the Tories are going to spend money on ways of killing people. It’s a change from their usual policy of killing people through not spending money.

Superb, and needs wider publicity

Indeed – but the thread prize goes to:

Weapons-grade Chumocracy.

Coffee keyboard interfacing has occurred.

Wasn’t Dominic Cummings about to bring a ‘hard rain’ on the MoD procurement processes etc?

Little Marky Francois (whatever happened to him?) famously threatened the military that Dom was going to come and ‘sort them out’

Lets just take a moment to remind ourselves of the look of terror that threat provoked

Incredibly for Penfold, prior to his daft threat, he actually had a valid point about the MOD spaffing billions of quid on stuff that never sees the light of day

That Mark ‘where could he be’ Francois clip is remarkable.

It shows an already grotesquely fat little bastard visibly getting fatter on his own pomposity over the course of a few seconds.

Hopefully the reason he seems to have disappeared is that someone in the dirtier side of the military has done a ‘Markov’ on him with a brolly.

But in actual fact, we all know the real reason….

Just to correct the misapprehensions about Field Marshall François – he’s still on top secret manoeuvres.
Can’t say more otherwise I’ll get a Markov.

How much of that extra spending will be to protect Tory MPs when the reality of Brexit job losses and massive economic crash hits?

What are the odds that Boris will continue to show confidence in Priti…

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-55007122

After all – what’s the harm in a little bit of bullying.

Space Force…………some lord or other paid over a hundred grand a year to have his intern hit page refresh (Internet Explorer 8) on the SpaceX website once a week.

Last weeks deep dive Kingsman, Matrix and Moonraker.

space force, blaah.
But laser guns on Navy ships thats something, about time they get back to close up naval engagements.

Mikkel
Free Member
space force, blaah.
But laser guns on Navy ships thats something, about time they get back to close up naval engagements.

tbf this will play incredibly well with that 40% brexity base (well the Navy bit), territorial waters, our fish, The Falklands!, the days of empire

Its cummingseque in its targeted nature

(of course itll all never happen)

But laser guns on Navy ships thats something

manufacturing lasers that act like the Star Wars weapons is next to impossible to the point where I’m not going out on much of limb to say it won’t happen in my lifetime

Except it is bullshit. This is the MoD and the Navy we are talking about here. They built a 21st century air defense frigate that was ridiculously expensive and stopped working in warm water (like The Gulf). I think they are still being fixed and that only adds to the half billion pound price-tag they had.

Or maybe they will go on the one remaining aircraft carrier we run and will be ready by the time the F35s we ordered are actually delivered. In ten years.

MoD procurement is horrific and slow, and expensive because the requirements always change and that’s just money in the bank to the contractors, most of whom either had senior staff in the MoD, or who send senior staff back to the MoD. It is literally _not_ in their interest to fix that problem.

I’m struggling to think of what a future war will be like, but having laser guns on what remains of the navy is not likely to be a high priority for anyone but the navy. And BAE Systems

@allanoleary I thought exactly the same thing, aside from it being another story to stop people talking about corrupt PPE spending, what better way than to sort out your CV for Feb 2021 when life gets a bit tough and you need a change of scenery after all Westminster is so 2020.

@willard A fair few of my former Navy colleagues went straight to defence contractors after their 22yrs, when you already know the kit it’s a short step into a new job.

I’m struggling to think of what a future war will be like

I’m not, we’ve seen it, it was 2016 and the other side* won.

*Russia, that is. Not the silly little twerps waving plaggy union jacks (made in China) that think they won. Obvs.

What are the odds that Boris will continue to show confidence in Priti…

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-55007122

After all – what’s the harm in a little bit of bullying.

Isn’t it practically a badge of honour for this shower to break the ministerial code?

A bit like ASBOs for teenage delinquents ‘back in the day’?

So Priti Awful was indeed guilty of bullying but it’s not her fault as she’s just so horrible to everyone all the time that it’s not for her to know when it becomes bullying.

That’s all cleared up then

Move along now. Nothing to see here

UK PM's adviser on ministerial code resigns as Boris Johnson backs Home Secretary Priti Patel after bullying inquiryhttps://t.co/FJF0ouff9l pic.twitter.com/TCMDNuXRcx

— BBC Breaking News (@BBCBreaking) November 20, 2020

I’m not surprised he’s resigned. Whats the point in being an advisor if everything you say is ignored as Johnson doesn’t think that any rules actually apply to him and his mates

It’s a tricky one. One one hand, there’s an independent report which says that she’s a bully. On the other, our prime minister, who has been sacked twice for lying, says that she isn’t.