Helicopters. The oppositions new attack weapons of choice.

"Future Lynx is exactly what the Fleet Air Arm need to replace their old Lynxes. These Lynx aircraft will need replacement in the next six years", so we should be seeing these in about 2008 by that reckoning!"

Speaking in 2002, the defence procurement minister Lord Bach.

The go ahead to begin designing and building the Future Lynx, now designated Wildcat, was not given until December 2008. Up to then there was a real possibility that the entire project could be scrapped. So just the prototype has been built although critical milestones have been met. The military helicopter will not be in service until 2013-2015 at the earliest.

Future Lynx, in typical MOD fashion, will be a multi-role, multi-purpose helicopter for both the army and navy. It will be able to be a transport aircraft for up to 9 infantrymen, a small cargo carrier, an anti submarine platform, a reconnaissance aircraft, Medevac, and an air to surface anti ship platform.
Critics complained at the time of its announcement that the cost of supporting Westland {AgustaWestland, the Anglo-Italian helicopter company owned by Italy's Finmeccanica} would be expensive, around £14 million a piece compared to £4-6 million for an off the shelf alternative.

A good selection of the arguments for and against off the shelf can be found on this forum
Slightly overlooked though is the fact that the MOD are trying to get one helicopter when it should be buying different types. Our multi role efforts usually mean 'adequate at some tasks, indifferent at others.' Wildcat will be no different. The army wanted a light chopper with good anti missile defences for recon and transport and a heavy one for missile, ground support. The navy wanted a fast agile, modern sensors and ASW weapon load craft that could fit on our smallest frigate landing deck.
If WA can get anywhere near the two different aims, while still being able to fly in tropical and arctic climates they will have done very well.

Normally off the shelf look so much better value to us at C@W. Thinkdefence think it would definately have made sense to buy foreign. However helicopters are one of the few bits of military kit that actually have a very useful peacetime role. Our tanks, fighter jets, submarines, and artillery are useless except for war. Helicopters have uses from flood rescue in this country to food drops in Africa to air sea rescue. Developing a capable product would produce valuable exports. The old Lynx was sold to over a dozen nations in its naval or land based role.
The contract is only for 62 anyway. Of those only 34 are for the army.

Bob Ainsworth talked of the £6 billion spending on helicopters "In coming years" which is just the same current spending and Westland money that's already been announced.
Having a new helicopter fleet arrive in 2014 will be of little benefit to the generals and soldiers tomorrow. In the meantime our existing airframes and parts are being worn out and need replacing.

Bob talked of "huge" increases in helicopters in Afghanistan. A smokescreen for there being many more helicopters in theatre that came from Iraq. Sadly for Bob, the troops came with them too, so the ratio didn't improve. Bob Ainsworth again points out the troops have to get out to fight. Heavy armour won't save them.
Of course troops will die. Many more in an offensive. But there is no need for the blokes bringing up the rations to get killed too, if the bully beef could be flown in.

The real problem today is the one that the Lib dems and Tories are accusing the government of. The £1.4 BN cut in helicopter spending in 2004.

At the height of TWO wars, each with terrain that makes airlift essential, the then chancellor, the current PM, decided to cut helicopter spending.

Liam Fox the shadow defence minister said
"Brown was to blame, particularly when it comes to the shortage of helicopters. That was a Treasury decision when Gordon Brown was Chancellor."

It was Gordon's decision back then that gives him his difficulties today.

The real dividing line between the Conservatives and Labour

I recently thought that right leaning bloggers, such as Dale + even more independent minded ones were wrong to demand that the conservatives should be honest about tax cuts.

I knew Brown's boys would never admit to a penny off any department and would be proclaiming ever higher spending, financed out of exaggerated, badly rounded, misrepresented and just plain untrue tractor stats.

Labour have been proclaiming Tory cuts mean an end to hospitals, schools and even food for pensioners.

My argument was never give your opponent the argument they crave. Brown desperately wanted the Tories to say they would make cuts of any size, to let him make his social concious, spending is just investment arguments, against the heartless Tories of the 80's.Labour are the party of investment, the Tories are the party of cuts. Today the shadow chancellor decided to do just that in a piece in The Times.

Having seen Question Time last week when Peter Hain tried just such a tactic, he was eventually reduced to pleading that if the audience didn't vote labour then they would only have themselves to blame when the cuts came. The audience , by around 2/3 , did not agree. People do appear to have understood that there is no money. No money today and no money tomorrow. Even more astounding was the media. The bloggers pointed out the holes in the Labour arguments immediately, but the newspapers, the networks and even the BBC were not fooled either. Instead of reading the press release , they actually analysed it. Just yesterday John Pienaar again contradicted the studio anchor and his 'Tory are milk snatchers' guest, making the point that what the Tories propose and what Labour propose are within a hair of each other.


The new strategy of telling a version of the truth, that I thought very risky, does seem to being received quite well.. the people do appear to understand. Whether this will continue when they are told the details, like schools must merge, class sizes must rise, train tickets must go up 15%, parking charges will triple etc remains to be seen. For now it appears that Gordon Brown is making a mistake. He is fighting a previous war, with old, obsolete tactics. He does not seem to have learnt, post Expensegate, that saying "I will be more open and honest"is not enough. He needs to be seen to be open and honest and with Malik and Iraq he is off to a very bad start.

The Conservatives can manage to simplify their message to chime with all the workers being asked to take zero or minus pay rises, or who have had to cut out holidays or luxuries. If you spend £4 when you get in £3 you will eventually have maxed out your credit card, and will be paying a hell of a lot of interest on what you have spent. This message does have power. It points out the previous overspending of Labour and highlights that further continuous overspending is impossible. It can highlight the astronomical black hole in government spending and income, and allows the Tories to say at least they are being honest, unlike ponzi Brown who promises what he knows he can't deliver. There is the rich vein of broken manifesto promises, from student fees to the top rate of tax, for Mr Osborne and the shadow cabinet to mine.

If the media continue to probe and expose the economics of the situation, George Osborne's new found honesty may just be letting Gordon Brown dig himself into a verbal hole increasingly difficult to spin his way out of. It allows the Tories to steal the PMs 'prudent'cloak, his trans-pear-en-sea rhetoric, his honesty helm and move Gordon's favourite 'public investment' ground onto the less certain 'debt crisis' territory.

I was wrong to worry. Rather than be the argument trap that Brown has laid for Cameron, it appears to be the argument that Cameron wants, and Brown may fall for.

What do we get for our recession

Continuing on a theme

Gordon Brown and the state has to spend the taxpayer's money on something. He neither knows nor can conceive of any other way of saving the economy. The New deal is coming. So given that at any moment all thoughts about restraining national debt are to be abandoned and the mother of all splurges is to be unleashed, what should the money actually be spent on? Equality advisers, firework officers and wheelie bin detectives are the usual non-jobs. But if we must spend, then isn't there something that we might actually need?

There could be 2+ million jobs required. We know Alistair Darling reads here.. {If only he was the real chancellor}. At the moment it appears to be windmills and loft insulation. The loft insulation not actually so silly.It is low cost, low tech and redundant trades people can be quickly re-trained and put back into work. But there must be something else. Something that, like cavity wall insulation, fits into the government's wider aspirations.

1]The refurbishment of schools has faltered badly. Construction was the first industry to feel the recession and those workers are the ideal ones to patch up the buildings, rubber mat the playgrounds, and expand the premises. Then move onto the armed service's homes that are a disgrace. Then the completion of the semi refurbished social housing stocks.
2] School diners has been something government is desperate to be associated with but has done very little to actively promote or even encourage. Spend a bit more and help the faltering pubs and restaurants get another string to the bow. Put kitchens back into schools linked to [1] above
3] Special Constables? With the police unable to cope with binge drinking and Home Office unable and unwilling to do anything about it, more 'officers' trained in basic policing? Able to help with Town Center policing and public dis-order.Some consider these Police as a waste of resources already.
4] Agriculture will suffer with the migrants going home. Some incentive to work the harvest next year? Another low skill area where people can be trained quickly
5] Or be smart for the future. What will tomorrows media studies graduates actually do? If money is being spent now, why not a full repayment of student loans for graduates who achieve their degrees in engineering or mathematics or medicine or whatever it is that we need? Won't help now, but will help for the future.
6] Job creation. Small business sheds workers very quickly in a downturn. Tax cuts or some sort of short term 'work grant' would keep more in work. Again, its wasteful, but the money is going to be spent anyway...
7] Future Lynx and a decent high lift capacity helicopter? A decent APC for the troops? New transport aircraft? All still waiting after years of delay from the government for the nod to go ahead.
8] There is no amount of money that couldn't be spent on the NHS. It would cheerfully swallow the bank bailout without even noticing. But there is a shortage of maternity units and midwives. Training and building needed.
9] Prison building... we could wait another decade or build some now.
10] Government funding for nursery schools would allow mother's to take those low paid jobs IF they earn more / hour than they paid in childcare costs. It sort of does it now, but only 2.5 hours/ day. What job can you get for 2.5 hours a day? Make it for 4 hours.

And..fibre-optic cables for our households.. motorway widening schemes .. old branch rail lines reopened if practical.. the military's falling recruitment due partly to pay....mining.. The estuary barrier power schemes if they have any legs.. the shocking waste of water through leaking pipes.. or maybe just for the social good the modernisation or even merging of libraries and post offices and day centres into efficient, modern, comfortable and pleasant places to go to. After all the money is going to be sent on something. Reopening all those recently closed swimming pools.
Or we could just build a giant email and telephone capturing database.

Your ideas and comments welcome as ever.

Super Carrier

So the contract for the two new aircraft carriers is signed. Much to the relief of the workforces in the shipbuilding industry.
Leaving aside the fact that these contracts are very lucrative and secure work for UK companies for a good while and ensure shipbuilding remains a part of the countries industry, are they in fact, value for money.



The carriers will cost 4 billion pounds
At least £4 billion as defence procurements have a history of overspend.

The USA Nimitz class carriers cost around $4.5 billion each. They are nuclear powered and carry 85 aircraft that use steam catapults to launch them.
The UK ones will not be nuclear powered, and will carry UP TO 40 aircraft.
Not being nuclear is apparently a cost issue. But it means that there can be no steam powered catapults as these require massive amounts of power. Instead there is the Ski-jump takeoff.
That severely restricts the type of aircraft that they can carry. One report is that the carriers can only use the F-35B Lockheed Martin built in the USA. This is a kind of new generation Harrier part of the joint strike fighter program. But there is a superior F-35C model already under design that won't be able to be used unless modifications to the aircraft carriers are made, despite it having superior capabilities.

The Nimitz class CV's are now some 30 years old and are still a match for most counties entire air forces. These new generation UK carriers as I understand it would have difficulty going head to head against the USS Nimitz or its sisters and coming out ahead.

I just hope that once again the armed forces do not end up with an expensive piece of kit that is always going to be, at best, just about good enough due to some 'cost saving' decisions in the planning.
We have already had helicopters that don't fly, small arms that required a certain amount of 'assistance' to fire, the Eurofighter that is great for air-to-air, but probably only a little better than what it replaces in air-to- ground.. and so on.

This is a very expensive project it is important to get it right.