I wouldnt be able to do neither as id be to busy laughing 😀

There’s more budget cuts on the horizon as well due to the war in Iraq. The Jag force looks to be scrapped completely as well as the Nimrod MRA4 program.

Ive always been partial to the Jag but its a bit redundent to have 3 ground attack aircraft types in service 🙁

Havent mainland flights only been operating for a short time (5 years or so) ?

If I remember correctly in 1988 Britian stopped more or less the financing for the european space agency it also stopped work on such projects as the Hotol spaceplane and the Ariane series rockets. Were now only the 4th largest contributer within ESA 🙁 The only military sat’s we have are the Skynet series communication sats, other joint programs with other countries like italy are civilan programs and outside this discussion.

You can believe this or not but american missles like AMRAAM, Trident and Tomahawk come with “break this seal and you lose you’re warranty” stickers plasted all over them. They cannot be maintained in this country legimitaly and are sent back to the US to be fixed. Replacement of spare parts is a different matter. The defense industry is just like any other business they will seek to tie you into there priority supply chain so as to keep a monoply on future business. Just like Ford and BMW do.

Dont you remember the speach that Maggie gave about how being in space isnt worthwhile as it just sucks cash into it like a black hole? It caused a big ruckus at the time.

The sea harriers are being phased out, the G7’s only have limited BVR with ASRAAM but even that hasnt been fully intergrated due to cut backs. The Tommahawks are special use weapons thus useless for the OCA role. I think its time the government admited to itself we cannot afford a world class navy, airforce and army and stopped pretending that we can the new carriers are unaffordable and should be scrapped.

I dont think we have any infuluence with the Americans at all. They say jump we say how high.

Tony Williams is correct there is no such thing as Great Britian only the UK. Offically anyway.

Is there anything wrong with not being a great power anymore? my grandparents remember the empire and have fond memories, my father who narrowly missed national service remembers it slightly during its swan song time as for me and everyone else who’s gone through british schools post 1970 has been taught that the empire was ‘a tool for slavery and wealth stealing’ so yes it is a thing of the past and no I dont miss it. We’ll find are own future as well we should.

As for the reliance on America im not sure if this is infact true. We are not reliant on the Americans at all instead our politicans are so limp that we get parcelled out to them whenever they ask. Makes me sick just to think about it, its high time we got some proper nationalistic politicans instead of just being the american bitch all the time.

Economic Left/Right: -4.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.62

Apparently im Gandhi but with better dress sense. I wish id been on the board longer as to see if peoples posts fit in with there political makup.