Actually, just found this as well:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1288503/BUDGET-2010-Queen-hit-Osborne-plans-review-Civil-List-funding.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

Yes, I know, it’s the daily mail, but bear with me…

apparently although the Queen receives £7.9 million a year, this is counterbalanced by the £226 million received by the treasury from the Crown Estates, the Queen’s private property.

According to the 2010/11 budget announced today, the civil list payments will be frozen at £7.9 million.

I make that £0.13 per person in the UK.

Isn’t that a reasonable sum for maintaining a head of state?

Well, I got hooked by my dad taking me to Mildenhall air show every year, and by watching every aircraft documentary I could get my hands on!

I was thinking of something along those lines, although if there are any other ideas or systems then I’m all ears.

The UK is one of the only countries in the world not to have Police Officers armed as a matter of routine, it seems to me that it might be worth it.

I ask the question again, should the Police in the UK be armed?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/cumbria/10257836.stm

They actually saw Bird walking around with a shotgun, but the unarmed officers could do nothing to stop him.

As for the ‘guns stop tyranny’ argument, it has already been pointed out that gun ownership in some nations, such as Iraq, is very high- and this did nothing to stop a dictator such as Saddam Hussein from holding onto power.

This incident got me thinking though, might the situation have been ended sooner if all Police Officers were armed?

I believe there is a station in Whitehaven, and officers from there responded fairly quickly, evacuating and warning people – but if they had been armed they would have had more options.

Not that I relish the thought or anything, far from it, but it seems to me that if the US/SK ever got wind that the DPRK was about to launch an attack the best way to save lives south of the DMZ would be to launch a full scale first strike, even using tactical or strategic nuclear weapons to make sure the NK launch capability would be neutralised.

I slightly disagree with that. If the Typhoon were the rafale (I mean a true multirole/omnirole aircraft) with stronger AtG capabilities they would probably not have opted for the F35.

F35 strenght is also its versatility. Exept the fact that the F35 is more stealthy I see many common points with the rafale. A versatile/omnirole inter army fighter jet that will eventually replace a lot of different fighter types.

The Typhoon was always optimised for A2A performance, to replace the Tornado F.3 in air policing duties.

The F35 is optimised for A2G duties, with a STOVL capability, which directly replaces the Harrier and the Jaguar, and the Sea Harrier in FAA service.

Even if the Tiffie was fully A2G capable (which given some development time, it should be a decent altitude platform at least), we would still need something for the Carriers, and to preserve STOVL capabilities lost with the Harrier.