The Liberal Democrat manifesto is here
Analysis after the jump
With strong Treasury involvement, review all major defence procurement projects through the SSDR to ensure money is being spent effectively. We will not purchase tranche 3B of the Eurofighter.
If anyone thinks we will be actually getting 3B, unless it is a gap filler for any Omani orders they are not living on this planet. The Liberal Democrats seem to have fixated on Typhoon (making a point of not calling it Typhoon) following the ridiculous Lewis Page narrative that it is a cold war relic with no relevance to modern conflicts when the actual truth is that it is maturing into a powerful swing role aircraft with relevance for all types of conflict. This shows a disturbing lack of depth of understanding.
Do we actually need more Treasury involvement in defence issues and how will the Treasury measure effectiveness?
When the Treasury gets involved they decide things like because that Destroyer is now twice as good as the last one you only need half as many.
Rule out the like-for-like replacement of the Trident nuclear weapons system. At a cost of £100 billion over a lifetime it is unaffordable, and Britain’s security would be better served by alternatives
What are these alternatives?
Do they mean no nuclear weapons or an alternative like for example a nuclear armed cruise missile. The fact that cruise missiles can be counteracted by decent air defence systems and that the Tomahawk nuclear version is no longer in service anywhere so would need expensive procurement project seems to have missed the authors of the manifesto.
Reinvigorate Franco-British and wider European defence co-operation to ensure procurement costs are kept low.
Like Typhoon, Horizon, TRIGAT, and A400m, those other famously cost constrained European procurement programmes. The lessons are clear, indulge in partnerships and cost and times rise.
Give a pay rise to the lower ranks so that their pay is brought into line with the starting salary of their emergency services counterparts.
All well and good but what does this mean for those transitioning through to senior ranks, they take their third and get no payrise. The fact is that the armed forces have a hideously complex pay and allowance system that needs sorting out. Trade pay it seems will remain unchanged, which is where most personnel get the majority of their pay rises from.
Is this actually a well thought through policy, I think not
We will reduce the number of civilian staff in the Ministry of Defence
A manifesto wouldn’t be worthy of the name unless it included reducing the armies of pen pushers at the ministry, ha ha!
And that was it
This may be naive, but why do we need a new trident system, what’s wrong with the old one? Couldn’t we just spruce it up a bit replace some parts etc?
Alex
I’ve asked that too.
From Wiki
“Costs for this option are estimated at £15-20 billion based on:
£0.25 billion to participate in U.S. Trident D5 missile life extension programme.
£11-14 billion for a class of four new SSBNs.
£2-3 billion for refurbishing warheads.
£2-3 billion for infrastructure.”
So its mostly building the new boats.
I’m happy to keep Vanguard going for another 20 years if they dont mind.
The Oldest Ohio Class is 17 years older than the oldest Vanguard and the Colonists expect to keep them in service till 2029, so I see no reason why they wouldnt be fine be fine till at least 2029, possible 2045.
Apparently a bloke named Richard Garvin who made the first bomb claims that the Vanguards are being retired to suit Big and Expensives production calender.
I’ve had a look but cant find any information on whether or not the reactors are coming up for a refuel or not.
Its such a problem that the Astutes (and the new Frenchies) are fueled to last their entire life without needing one again.
Worth a read….
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/6454273.stm
Allegedly its because the boats were designed for a finite service life, and they are approaching it. Yes you can pro-long their life, with upgrades and heavy maintenance, but its not much of a deterrent if old age means it “sings” worse that a pack of out of tune killer whales ever time it submerges……
It was nice to see both Labour and Tories go after Clegg in the debate when he brought up Trident. The Lib Dem idea of somehow being able to make the deterrent cheaper without compromising would be laughable if it wasn’t so dangerous.
Also key to note the hypocrisy of the Lib Dems by demanding that Labour and the Tories include Trident in the SDR and yet announcing as a foregone conclusion that they won’t consider replacing it in the same way, no matter what the SDR says. Same with Typhoon. If anything their SDR will be even more useless and cost based than the others.
Admin, thanks for sorting the commenting permissions out again.
when they say the MOD explains it will be too expensive to upgrade to extend the life is it really the MOD or is it BAe doing a builders special standing there with a mug of tea in one hand whistling, giving it the old “oh that’s gonna cost you, i’ll be honest here”!!!
I’m sensing some severe Billy Bull. Also is it just my ex squaddie attitude but 17 years to design a new boat, what are they doing a 3 day week no wonder they’re out of date at the launch!!!
First of all I don’t think it would be actually possible to have a cheaper deterrent after all labour has been in power penny pinching everywhere and anywhere that damages the safety and security of the nation. So I would imagine that the Submarine based deterrent, the only credible option, has also been looked at and pennies pinched here and there not to mention warhead numbers have been cut. I also believe we no longer are allocated as many missiles from the USA as we used to have most likely in an effort to shave away at the costs in every way possible.
Although I’m no expert in on the vanguard class or submarines in general I agree with Jed, there is no point in maintaining them if they make too much noise and can be found easily enough. The yanks have what maybe 4-6 boomers on patrol at any one time not to mention they dozens of SSN’s out there. So yeah they can keep older boats running because they can absorb breakdowns and accidents as well as protecting nosier boats with other submarines and other assets. Anyhow 2025 is the date I think the first new SSBN should be commissioned before as the oldest vanguard will be over 30 years old.
Personally what I see as a minimum nuclear deterrent is what we have now 4 SSBN’s with always one on patrol at any one time somewhere in the murky depths of the world’s oceans. I doubt we even maintain a second boat in that high a readiness anymore sitting in port with missiles and stores loaded. At least nobody here has mentioned trying to work with the French on a joint nuclear deterrent or at least joint patrols which must be ticking over in people minds.