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Tuesday, 26 May, 2009
 | Canvassing over the Bank Holiday weekend |
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We had another busy week canvassing, which is why I’m not updating the website as often as I would like to at the moment. We were joined by Sir Robert Atkins (North West MEP) on Thursday 21st May and we canvassed Hawcoat with our County Council Candidate Dave Roberts. Dave has just finished his year as Mayor and he said it was nice to be back to campaigning. The weekend was quiet; most people took the advantage of the weather to go out so we didn’t find too many people in. Overall we picked up a lot of support in the week and I am grateful for everyone who has said they will support us.
Usually at about this point in an election campaign you are starting to feel very tired, your feet ache from so much walking and your life revolves around canvas sheets, pledge targets, leaflets and flyers.
What drives campaigners on is an overwhelming desire to get the job done and get their people elected. Our unpaid, and none expense claiming, ever faithful party workers (and this goes for all parties) are the lifeblood not just of the Parties but of our democracy. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude and MP’s, MEP’s and Councillors should always remember this.
For all of my team, who have worked so hard to date, and will keep doing so until Election Day next week…a big thank you, you make it all possible.
Wednesday, 20 May, 2009
| Expenses – What I will do |
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The expense saga continues to run and out canvassing this week I haven’t been surprised when people asked about it or expressed their disgust.
All of us have a right to feel badly let down by our MP’s, the system which allowed abuses to grow unchecked and Parliament that failed to change the system. It is too easy to blame the system as some are doing and claim that expenses were within rules, when it is obvious to most of us that some claims were abusing the spirit of the rules if not the letter. Even worse is the cases were some MP’s were claiming when there wasn’t an expense, what every firm I have worked for would classify as fraud and gross misconduct.
I once read a quote, allegedly said to Douglas Bader (WW2 Fighter Ace who had lost both legs in a pre war flying accident). The quote is:
“Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men”
It is a principle that I have often thought applicable to many things we do and perhaps if a little more ‘guidance’ had been taken by our ‘wise’ MP’s then Parliament wouldn’t be in this mess.
The history of Parliament is one of evolution and change and it adapts and reinvents itself to the Britain it finds itself in. So for example in the days of Pitt the Younger, patronage was seen as perfectly acceptable, not now. Later on, MP salaries were introduced (as well as additional home allowance) so that normal working class people could become MP’s and Parliament was not a rich mans club. I have no doubt that what we are seeing is as the Daily Telegraph puts it today a ‘Very British Revolution’. Parliament is ultimately responsible to the people of this country, it is their disgust at what has been happening that is driving change, this is a good thing, this is British democracy working.
Soon, within the year, we will get a chance to vote in a General Election. Some may be tempted not to vote, or to vote for minority parties, but this, in my view, will not achieve anything. The best way to clean out the House of Commons is to vote out MP’s who have abused the rules, vote out a Government that has presided over this mess (among many messes) and vote in a large number of new MP’s, untainted by the previous scandals.
My expenses pledges to the people of Barrow & Furness are these:
- I will make my expense receipts available for inspection (and on line)
- I will hold an annual general meeting where people will be able to ask questions
- I will publish an annual breakdown of my office costs
I can only offer my promise that I will act with honour and integrity, it will be up to voters to decide whether this is enough.
Friday, 15 May, 2009
| Stop the gravy train - elect new MP's |
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The main story this week has been the expenses scandal. I have been ashamed and disgusted by what some MP’s, of all parties, have been doing. It does make you question why you want to be involved in politics in the first place. I was re-assured by David Cameron’s press conference on Tuesday where he took immediate action to begin to deal with the problem. They say a week is along time in politics, but this week I think David showed that he has what it takes to be a great Prime Minister.
Al I can say is that I promise, and I am sure you have heard this before, that I will not treat the honour, if I am elected, of being the local MP as a ‘get rich quick’ scheme. Parliament and British democracy can get through this but we need a change of Government and MP’s to do that. Only with a new intake of MP’s, untainted by this scandal, can we clean up Westminster.
Friday, 08 May, 2009
| 3 or 4 Submarines? |
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In the news there has been a lot of talk about the Trident replacement and whether the submarine force should be 3 or 4 submarines.
Given the need for a deterrent to have sufficient range and survivability in order for it actually deter, then I think a submarine based ballistic missile system, such as the Trident replacement, is the right choice for Britain and no other alternative system can do this. The Government, with Conservative support in the House of Commons, have agreed with this. There is a question that the deterrent could be provided by 3 submarines not 4. However for the last 40 years or so the Royal Navy has maintained 1 deterrent submarine on constant patrol and it has done this with a force of 4 submarines so I think the case for 3 submarines is yet to be proved.
At this time, I think we need to plan on needing 4 Trident replacement submarines in order to ensure that this constant patrol capability is maintained
| MP Expenses |
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The Daily Telegraph has today published a list of expense claims made by members of the Cabinet. There is some ‘interesting’ reading in them and people have every right to be angry. As a mere candidate I cannot comment on the issue in any detail and I am as angry as everyone else that some MP’s appear to be abusing the system whilst staying within the rules. There is no doubt that the system needs to be cleaned up to give people confidence that MP’s are not just ‘on the take’.
A number of Cabinet Ministers are missing from this list including John Hutton. Speculation is mounting that these are missing either because the expense claims are ‘clean’, and so not newsworthy, or that the claims are so ‘juicy’ it will warrant a separate story in the Telegraph.
In all my dealings with John Hutton I have found him courteous and an honourable man so I am sure it is for the former reason rather than for anything else.
Friday, 01 May, 2009
 | Should we cancel the Trident replacement? |
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 This is the second posting on defence and this will concentrate on the future of the nuclear deterrent. The Government, and the Conservative Party, are both committed to replacing the current deterrent force of 4 nuclear submarines, (each armed with 16 Trident ballistic missiles), with a similar force. The submarines will be designed and built in Barrow and the whole programme is estimated to cost around £25bn over 20 years or so.
Inevitably as the country's financial position has deteriorated there are calls for the Trident replacement to be scrapped and the money spent on either bolstering our overstretched conventional forces or used to reduce Government borrowing.
So do we need to maintain a nuclear deterrent?
Some argue that nuclear weapons and deterrence theory are a hangover from the Cold War and are not needed in today’s world. It is true that deterrence theory may, with its concepts of rational opponents and a desire for self preservation, have little to offer in deterring irrational, nihilistic and suicidal terrorists. To be honest we don’t know if the existence of nuclear weapons now, and the possibility of their use, is deterring or restraining some terrorists from using nuclear weapons themselves, and we will never know.
However over the next 50 years, it is not just the threat from terrorists that we may face, but there could also be future aggressive nuclear powered states. We cannot say for certain what threats we may face, and given that deterrence worked in the past by keeping the Cold War cold and not turning into a full blooded conventional war, I have every faith it will work in the future. I would rather have a weapon that we never use, but the threat of use exists, than not to have one at all and wish we did.
Even cancelling it would not generate a huge amount of savings. It would only save about £1bn a year (if it costs £25bn over 20 years or so) which will hardly dent the £175bn borrowing requirement this year alone. The pointless VAT cut cost over £12bn so I think there are more pressing savings to be had from other areas before we start cutting the deterrent.
So I believe we do need the deterrent but having said this, there is a valid question on whether we need to spend this amount of money on this particular system. Could the same, or similar, level of capability be provided for less?
The current assumption is for a one for one replacement for each submarine. This is based on the minimum number of submarines needed of 4. That allows for 1 preparing to deploy, 1 on deployment/patrol, 1 refitting after deployment and 1 spare in case a submarine is unavailable. There seems to be little scope in cutting this fleet to 3 without risking operational capability although this is currently being examined. Given the fact that the Polaris force of 4 submarines and now its successor the Trident force of 4 submarines have maintained a continuous deterrent patrol since its inception, I think 4 is the minimum number and there is a long way to go before we can be convinced that it can be reduced to 3.
Other options instead of a submarine based ballistic missile systems would be a cruise missile based system or an aircraft based system.
Cruise missiles would not offer the same capability as ballistic missiles. They have shorter ranges, (meaning the submarines would have to be closer to the target and therefore more vulnerable to attack), are at risk of being shot down and can only deliver one smaller warhead. This means that a potential enemy could calculate that they would be able to destroy enough incoming cruise missiles and suffer an ‘acceptable level of damage’. This would fatally undermine the concept of deterrence which relies on a second strike that is invulnerable, virtually unstoppable and massive, the type afforded by 16 Trident missiles.
What about a system based on aircraft, say with air launched nuclear cruise missiles or other short range missiles. Before the advent of Polaris and the transfer of the nuclear deterrent to the Royal Navy, Britain operated a force of nuclear bombers. The famous V Bombers (Valiant, Victor and Vulcan) operated through the 1950’s and 1960’s. They were replaced by Polaris because their air bases were liable to attack and the aircraft were vulnerable to being shot down. The same problems would apply today and to mitigate this you would need a large force of aircraft with sufficient range to match what can be achieved with Trident. The V Bombers were a force of about 150 large bombers so you may need a similar number of aircraft. These would need to be designed and built, the airfields built, dispersal airfields developed, and people recruited and trained to re-establish this force. I wouldn’t be surprised if this cost as much as the Trident replacement and delivered a less effective deterrent.
My view is that ballistic missile submarines offer the best system and that is what we need.
There is another option, however, that may provide an answer to meeting our deterrent needs whilst also helping to meet some of our conventional force requirements. Instead of operating a submarine force of dedicated attack submarines (SSN) and ballistic missile submarines (SSBN) could this force be combined into one class of submarine?
Currently it is planned to build 4 additional SSN (0 missile tubes) and 4 SSBN (16 missile tubes), so why not build a class of submarines with 8 missile tubes each. 4 of these could be assigned to the deterrent role and operate on the same patrol cycle as the current boats described above, and offer the same continuous deterrent cycle albeit with a smaller number of missiles. Given that the risk of nuclear attack is low at the moment then surely this lower level of nuclear weapons would be acceptable.
Meanwhile the other 4 submarines can swap their ballistic missiles for conventionally armed cruise missiles and can operate in the attack role. Cruise missiles are designed to fit in a torpedo tube, as they do in the current attack boats such as ‘Astute’, but they can also be grouped together in a launcher and will fit in a Trident silo. Thus armed these submarines would offer a powerful land attack capability. The US Navy has done just this with some of its older Trident boats so the technology is available.
If the threat level changed in the future then the warheads per ballistic missile can be increased and /or cruise missile armed boats reassigned to ballistic missiles. Obviously if this happened then you would need to build more attack submarines to fill the gap.
I have no costings on this, but it may be that it provides a new force of 8 submarines that meet conventional as well as deterrent needs and it may work out cheaper than 2 separate classes of submarines.
Is this an example of more for less? |
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