moonraker

Speechless and shocked, he gave us all hope and belief in our club again, my thoughts and prayers are with his family and friends. RIP

I am not in the know and living 80 miles away from Southampton have no direct contact with any one in the know, so I don’t hear things relating to the club and if I did I would weigh them up very carefully unless they came from someone who had direct executive authority within the club. As one involved in the marketing, promotion and selling of a successful business I sympathise with businesses that have frustrations with the press, especially the local press who in my opinion have a different responsibility to local businesses and organisation than the rag bag national media. At best newspaper articles have an element of truth at worst they are distorted and inflammatory and should always be read with a healthy degree of scepticism. Any one who has been the subject of a newspaper article for which they have been interviewed knows only to well how distorting and unrecognisable the final article can be, that’s why any well run professional business spend good money and time managing its Public Relations. In the matter of the OS this is rightly part of the clubs marketing toolset and no business would use the media within its control to impact on its business objectives by publishing negative material. One thing it certainly is not is propaganda, a word which relates to politics i.e.” The systematic propagation of a doctrine or cause or of information reflecting the views and interests of those advocating such a doctrine or cause” your use of the word well illustrates how easy it is to use inappropriate words to elicit a negative or reactionary. I am in the “If NC delivers success on the pitch without breaking the law” camp. If he does this he will have my support as it is the only worthwhile objective of any professional football club.

The format for Successor is far from decided, the idea of stretching Astute may not be simple but it is eminently possible, the R boats were basically stretched Valient's. Th big issue is the SWS as we will be using a US system, the programmes of the UK and US SSBN replacements are out of step and a simple answer is to extend the V boats and delay successor until they are. Your list of long term commitments illustrates only to well how committed the RN is and it dons't include surveying, EEZ protection, standing force commitments, training etc. etc. Your right Carriers are one of the most flexible military capabilities, they offer so much more than any other single capability.

Your right there was a plan, but it was dismissed as being both too expensive and engineering wise to much of a challenge, additionally the performance would have been degraded. You do make very valid points about the US and there arrogance and superiority in defence deals and our politicians fawning acceptance of it. Hopefully overtime the European defence industries can learn to work together to reduce our reliance on US kit, tough as I pointed out above this has been very difficult to date.

Whilst on the face of it some of your suggestions appear to have merit the first point reference Typhoons is a non starter. Firstly reengineering a Typhoon for naval operations would be very costly, the airframe was not designed for the additional forces a carrier aircraft experiences, many components in naval aircraft require additional protection to deal with the maritime environment, add to this folding wings comms and avionics upgrades and you are setting yourself up for a very costly and drawn out programme that could not deliver in time for the entry into service of the carriers. TDD makes the pint well about the ICBM (Trident) vs Cruise missiles option; they are in no way comparable. Yes the CDS should be Navy but sadly the Army are the blue eyed boys at the moment. However the bottom line for any defence policy must be based on the fact that we are an island nation and a strong and capable navy is the corner stone of our defence. Whilst the Battle of Britain was a truly magnificent achievement it has been categorically proven from German Wartime records that the deciding factor in the German decision to abandon operation Sealion was their inability to secure mastery of the sea not the air.

Oh its so simple, why haven’t we thought of these things before. We are already members of the WEU, unfortunately this arrangement will cease to exist in 2011. Europe will only become a balancing power to the US, China Russia et al when it can agree a single command structure, the UK cannot do this alone and I wish you all the very best in persuading the French, Swedes, Italians, Spaniards et al in signing up to such a structure. Common purchase and supply policy is a very good idea however very difficult to deliver, the most prominent examples Tornado and Typhoon it has been argued resulted in much higher costs than were predicted at the outset. The current state of the A400M programme is also of concern. I was involved in the predecessor programme for the Type 45 Destroyer known as HORIZON, UK, France and Italy. An old hand predicted the projects demise very eloquently when he observed that the Italians required a ship that looked nice, the French required a ship that was comfortable and the British wanted a ship that could fight, whilst a little tongue in cheek it does illustrate that agreeing common requirements and capability is a very difficult and expensive process. I agree the Special Relationship is a problem and we need to become more independent of US foreign policy. An EU Strategic Deterrent is a non starter on many grounds not least the fact that the EU’s formal military treaty is enshrined in the Treaty of Lisbon which as stated above will superseed the WEU and only a very immature Foreign Policy combine that with who will sanction its use and act as the operational command it is a totally impractical solution. The comparison with Japan is again misguided; the Japanese Armed Forces are very capable, however their use in support of international operations including UN is severely restricted by international treaties, therefore whilst their equipment and personnel budget is comparable to the UK their operational cost are smaller. To mirror the Japanese model we would have to radically alter our foreign policy, withdraw from NATO and other international security treaties and agreements, accept a significant loss of influence thereby causing a vacuum for AN Other country to fill (be careful what you wish for) or seed more power to the US, Russia and China. We have pulled out of Iraq!!

Just a view on the rumours over 30k cuts in uniformed personnel - There will be cust, this equates to about 10% so quite possible espeicially if the RAF relqted rumours come to fruition. little or no use of tanks for the army (mothballing them for long periods) Makes Sense and likely transfer of the Royal Marines from the Navy to the Army - Very unlikely more realistic is the transfer of the RAF Regiment Army to totally withdraw from Germany - Already in train the only reason we have stayed is because of the lack of accomodation and training facilities in te UK due to the Last Toery governemnts massive sel off of Defence Estate Assets. all support organisations to be drastically cut... Another ongoing policy with more support being outsourced in te belief that it offers better VFM civillian employees of the MoD to be drastically cut - Already happended DE&S have reduced staff by arond 30% in the last 3 yeasr and have actualy overshot theri target, less ships in the navy - Quite possible Trident replacement and the new aircraft carriers are to be protected - Almost certain Defence has always been in a no win position, the majority of the population are either ill informed or unwilling to recognise and understand the purpose off and need for effective armed forces. The national media are useless at reporting the facts when it comes to all things military whether it is about equipment or personnel they are only interested in negatives. The national media neither inform their readership nor support our forces with their approach. This is sadly exacerbated by a generation of politicians who are equally ill informed about and lacking in understanding of the Armed Forces.

+1 Only managed 19 years but they were real submarines Os and Ps

The key role of the Queen is Head of State, if you abolish the monarchy it would have to be replaced, typically a presidency. Presidents whether Executive (e.g. USA) or Non executive (e.g. Eire) still require funding, and in addition incur the cost of an election every 4/5 years. Our current system whilst indefensible on inheritance grounds actually works very well as the Head of State is non political and enduring, they are also trained for the job, when has the QUEEN ever embarrassed our nation?

I was attcked by a pavemnet in Gib, it just lept up and smashed in the face, funny it had to happen in the last o a dozen or so bars I had visited!!

Initial reaction, it looks vv good, many thanks

Markus's pic on his coporate website would indicate some commitemnt, http://www.mali-group.com/, seems to show him sporting a Saints Tie.

++1

William Hague’s alleged politically motivated wife come out nicely!!!! http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-443579/Ffion...

Many many Labour party supporters consider themselves Socialists and are happy to say so, can’t believe many Tories would happily label themselves fascists

If were judging PMs spouses then surley you must include Dennis 'the drunken menace' Thatcher, have to agree if it were purly a visual thing Mrs Cam edges it.

How many would they have without PR?

The irony here of course is that the Conservatives are the 'Unioist' one nation party and do not want any further movement on devoloution or indeeed indpendence, you cant have it both ways, either we are a single sovereign nation where all elected MP's count or we are not. That being said the SNP really p**s me off.

Oh I hadnt thought of it like that, doffing his cap in thanks, what utter sh*t you do spout.

Cant be ars*d to answer line by line but in a nutshell really should stop quoting the daily mail so accurately, like politicians they raely tell the truth.

Whilst not Labour supporter these achivemnts are very comendable, sadly in life as in politics and football people are more often judged on their mistakes not their achivements.

Maybe just like 65% of the population dont like diddy Daves policies, however that is not my point, the system is not democartic, party policy has nothing to do with it.

It’s obviously totally unfair. The argument against PR is full of holes, for 40 years we have been ruled by governments who have come no where near obtaining a majority of the votes cast. The numerous boundary changes under both the Tories and Labour have always been biased to ensuring their unholy and unwritten agreement to keep the first past the post system to ensure they can take it in turn to govern. Lack of PR has nothing to do with Lib Dem sour grapes it is about democracy and a fair voting system, 35% of the electorate did not vote for the Tories or Labour and yet the share of seats are Tories 36% of teh vote 48% of the seats, Labour 29% of the vote 40% of the seats Others 35% (more than 1 in 3 of us) of the vote 12 % of the seats, if that’s democracy I’m a Skate!!!!!

The fact they are legally constituted (just) does not give them legitimacy, Griffin is an attention seeking oik whose Cambridge education has equipped him to lead a bunch of ill informed irresponsible thugs. Immigration is an excuse for the NON-WORKING-CLASS to justify their idleness. They do not and never could represent the real working class of our great nation. BNP = Bunch of Nasty Pr**ks