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Thursday, 24 September, 2009 
Commenting on Gordon Brown’s offer to reduce Britain’s number of Trident submarines, Shadow Defence Secretary Dr Liam Fox said: “We have often restated our commitment to Britain’s independent nuclear deterrent and to the replacement of Trident. If we can maintain our independent nuclear deterrent and make a contribution to disarmament, then we should look at ways of doing so.
“But there is nothing new in what the Prime Minster is saying. In the Government’s White Paper in December 2006, they said they would look at reducing our deterrent to three submarines.
“We have already said that we would consider reducing the number of submarines to three if we can maintain continuous-at-sea patrols and the UK’s credible nuclear deterrent with this number.”
In December 2006, the Government said it would examine the number of submarines:
‘We will investigate fully whether there is scope to make sufficiently radical changes to the design of the new submarines, and their operating, manning, training and support arrangements, to enable us to maintain these continuous deterrent patrols with a fleet of only three submarines. A final decision on whether we require three or four submarines will be taken when we know more about their detailed design’ (MoD and FCO, The Future of the United Kingdom’s Nuclear Deterrent, Cm 6994, December 2006, p.7).
See also this blog on 8th May 2009 and John's comments to the Evening Mail in the news section.
Tuesday, 22 September, 2009
Tory Bear has another superb example of double standards from the so called defenders of the working class. Kevin Maguire, one of my favourites, has posted the following comments through twitter: “Nick Clegg’s told me Baroness Scotland needn’t resign. Depressing if one of the few Black women in public life must walk”
Now for the record, I’m not sure if she can remain in her position, but I would hope that the colour of someone’s skin was not taken into account when deciding whether it is a resigning matter. Imagine the outcry, from Mr. Maguire and his friends if someone suggested someone shouldn’t resign merely because they were white?
Remember what David Cameron said about twitter? Too many twits make a….
Link to Torybear:
Tuesday, 15 September, 2009
In my blog entry yesterday I suggested three things that Peter Mandelson might have been trying to say in his speech. The last one was that he could be saying that there would be cuts but only of non essential items, which begs the question if there is non essential spending happening, why? Well today Gordon Brown has given his take on the cuts argument. He said:
"Labour will cut costs, cut inefficiencies, cut unnecessary programmes and cut lower priority budgets."
So let me get this straight, Labour is spending/wasting money now on ‘unnecessary programmes’ and on ‘inefficiencies’.
If it is unnecessary in the future, it follows it is unnecessary now, so the message to Gordon is simple.
STOP WASTING OUR MONEY NOW!
Monday, 14 September, 2009
Peter Mandelson has launched the latest attempt by the Government to convince us all of its infinite wisdom and farsightedness with a speech to the Progress Think Tank. It started rather badly when in a pre speech interview with the BBC he attempted to say that Gordon Brown had never used the ‘Tory cuts vs. Labour investment’ line that Nick Robinson (BBC) quotes. This was soon disproved by Nick Robinson (and others) who were able to quote the many occasions Gordon Brown has used this line (see link to blogs at the bottom of this article). Mandelson then went on to make a speech, the upshot seems to be that the nasty Tories will cut public spending and services, but Labour will maintain public services but cut the deficit.
Now maybe I am missing something here but let’s get this straight:
So Peter Mandelson is not being truthful because:
So which one is it Peter?
Why can’t the Government just be straight with people? We are facing a huge debt problem and the only solution is to start paying off this debt and that means public spending cuts. The evidence is that you can’t achieve this by mere tinkering around the edges you have to be honest and look at what Government does and ask the question should it do it, and if so how – in other words what is essential. Only this way will we achieve the kind of structural changes we need to bring the deficit under control.
Nick Robinson blog: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/nickrobinson/2009/09/noone_can_rewrite_political_history.html
Sunday, 13 September, 2009
Link to the story:
Monday, 07 September, 2009
Well I’m back and like most people after a day back at work, the holidays already seem a distant memory. We had a very nice time touring Brittany in the trusty van and went down towards La Rochelle and Rochefort before turning back to head home. In Rochefort we came across a couple of reminders from home. First there was a Transporter Bridge that took me back to my childhood trips to Middlesbrough to see my Gran. Second, in Rochefort in the old shipyards they have their own version of the DDH. They are building a replica of a sailing frigate ‘Hermione’ inside of a large covered drydock which was interesting, though I would say the Barrow version is more so!
Anyway, it’s good to be back and for the campaigning season to be underway again.
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