Can see there being a bit of grumbling at Marham from the mob. Cotts wasnt brilliantly well received but at least it made sense from the legacy Harrier standpoint, was close to the A1 and Oakham, while a bit of a trek, had a train station. Marham’s nearest train station is Kings Lynn is it? Near 10 miles from the base and no motorway anywhere near from what I can see?. Going to be a bit of a hike from Pompey that.

Makes you wonder what Wittering did?!. Harrier heritage, home to the RAF’s Expeditionary support capability (i.e the lads that forward deployed F-35B shore dets will depend on) and with decent (compared to Marham) road/rail links.

Sure the Admiralty will be happy they dont have to pay out to stand up Heron to accommodate fastjets again…but accusations of F-35B being an RAF benefit gig are not going to be diminished by this sort of thing!

Pay peanuts…get monkeys…expect inane chattering (especially at PMQs).

Only way to stop it and get something more palatable as a parliamentry democracy is to cull the herd. Chop down the number of MP’s dramatically i.e 50%+ and offer pay equivalent to a mid level CEO, as opposed to that of a fair-middlin plumber, to get the right kind of candidate more consistently in the surgery’s.

You could easily say the same about any group though Al….a few more million and we can cure cancer…a bit more investment and we can crack cheap hydrogen production, end our fossil-fuel dependancy, and save the planet…just a bit more govt funding and we can ease the plight of underpaid binmen in Scunthorpe…etc, etc.

There will always be things that people think deserve additional priority and, surely, for the best of reasons. Thing is that, in the main, those other elements have funding to some degree. By discontinuing the aid effort, in many places, the only tangible element of UK involvement would be ceased and, as noted earlier, that robs us of any kind voice in issues we want to have a voice in.

As I said initially maybe there are cases, in the budget, where our national interest isnt that great and they can be cut, but, you are only looking at perhaps a few hundred million a year in savings…is that enough to make a significant impact, nationally, in geriatric care…somehow I doubt it.

Look at the sums involved though Paul. These aren’t amounts sufficient to let el Presidente sit back on his **** casually offing political opponents while he lets the gullible British fix all his countries ills are they?.

If you actually look at the work being done in Pakistan UK payments are even backloaded to reward success…to help incentivise the locals towards doing things the way that we want them done.

That being the quite huge element you are missing by the way…the fact that what is of principle concern to us (radicalised young males straight out of Madrassa’s in the Pakistan example) may not be of equal concern to them. Adding a wedge of cash into the mix is a very time honoured way of seeing issues pushed up the governmental ‘to do’ list.

UK First in everything sod the rest.

So, by spending the relatively piffling sum of £140mn, we help young lads in Pakistan stay out of the Madrassa’s and away from radical Islam. In security terms would you say that suits our interests?

Or we spend what we spend in India and help cement a return many times greater, to the UK economy. Does that not qualify as UK first…certainly we are benefiting from it?.

Sodding the rest usually means being ignorant of events and, therefore, having no opportunity to influence them. A very poor position from which to exercise ‘soft’ power as the new paradigm is meant to be!

Lincoln

“yet we still support them with aid”

Thats probably the issue here…we dont!. We give them £295mn from the aid budget…and we get a great deal more back in trade following it. When you realise that we are doing nothing to ‘support them with aid’ realistically then you will see this for what it is.

Ironically from 2015 onwards, when this aid ceases, we are going to have to work far harder to achieve less that is of value to us.

CD,

I think there is some merit in rationalising the list of recipients and prioritising those where we have tangible near/mid-term goals.

Whether it is alleviating genuine suffering (anyone really going to complain about giving token sums to Bangladesh or Ethiopia?), chipping in to help alleviate security issues we may face in the long term (Pakistan, Sudan etc)…or like the Indian example where we can develop, encourage and support lucrative trade. In those kinds of cases I think it a fairly simple exercise to show a national interest in continuing the effort. Others where the justification is somewhat more nebulous (Nigeria??) could stand to be ceased and the savings clawed back and reapplied…though you do wonder quite how much that would ultimately add up to.

Lincoln you do realise that the ‘aid’ sent to India was nothing to do with genuine philanthropy or generosity on the part of any colour of UK Govt for more than a decade dont you?. Its very simply been a sweetener to help keep, according to the FCO, more Indian investment flowing into the UK than to the rest of the EC combined.

With the ‘simple’ route to just chuck a modest sum (in budgetary terms) at them now shut down we’re now planning to take time and effort identifying joint development targets with Indian Govt and are actually going to have to get results from 2015 onwards. So what was easy and, from our standpoint, pretty cost-effective skids-greasing is now something which will take effort and oversight!.

The words ‘own goal’ come to mind!.

Scooter

Look at what they are building and deploy already…2 ships comparable to the Giuseppe Garibaldi and another 2 comparable to the Cavour!. Supporting capital ships is not an issue for them!.