Trident Options

[Simon Kirby]

I thought we had a Trident thread but I couldn't find it.

So anyhoo, Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, has come out in support of Jeremy Corbyn's propodal to abandon Trident, saying the wrapon is "less about security and more about sentimental status seeking".

[Andy Capp]

I thought we had a Trident thread but I couldn't find it.

http://forum.newburytoday.co.uk/index.php?...st&p=107857

[Simon Kirby]

http://forum.newburytoday.co.uk/index.php?...st&p=107857

Ah, righto.

Anyhoo, here he is, Hans Blix on Al Jazeera.

[Exhausted]

Ah, righto. Anyhoo, here he is, Hans Blix on Al Jazeera.

It's an opinion and it is an expensive piece of kit but it does keep a large technical workforce in jobs and whilst Trident and the submarines that can deliver it are around I feel more comfortable knowing they are there. The submarines are not only loaded with the missiles, they could support more localised warfare using conventional warheads instead of nuclear and they do have torpedo systems which can deliver a hefty punch to casual invaders.

The flip side of the coin is our national pride. We are still out there with the big boys and as a nation we want to hang on to it even though we are no longer the huge colonial power we were when Victoria was on the throne. How can we have any credibility sending a scruffy old man in pullover and slacks to an international summit. Even the laid back Scandinavians look the part and can use people like Mr Blix to their advantage even though he has been off the international scene since 2003.

[On the edge]

It's an opinion and it is an expensive piece of kit but it does keep a large technical workforce in jobs and whilst Trident and the submarines that can deliver it are around I feel more comfortable knowing they are there. The submarines are not only loaded with the missiles, they could support more localised warfare using conventional warheads instead of nuclear and they do have torpedo systems which can deliver a hefty punch to casual invaders.

The flip side of the coin is our national pride. We are still out there with the big boys and as a nation we want to hang on to it even though we are no longer the huge colonial power we were when Victoria was on the throne. How can we have any credibility sending a scruffy old man in pullover and slacks to an international summit. Even the laid back Scandinavians look the part and can use people like Mr Blix to their advantage even though he has been off the international scene since 2003.

National pride Exhausted! This is the lot you recon wouldn't take National Service, heaven help us if one of these aggressors we are scaring off decides to take their jacket off!

The national pride you seem to want is exemplified by the young lad in his Boys Brigade uniform waving his flag as Uncle Sam marches past! Those days are gone, the Empire dead, we can't even build ships that work.

I'd rather be proud of our nation for its technical achievements, it's commercial savvy, and the freedoms it gives its people. No, I really ain't scared out of my wits on the thought that the Russians will throw a nuclear bomb at me...I'm actually more scared that we can't build our own nuclear power stations and that some foreign engineer might accidentally pull the wrong lever.

[je suis Charlie]

Remember the young rating captured by the Iranians when their rib went over the borderline? Remember him crying when they confiscated his iPod? One small reflection on SOME of the youth of today. Thank the lord they ain't all like him though.

[spartacus]

Those days are gone, the Empire dead, we can't even build ships that work.

Oh we can BUILD them it's just that political interference often means that ships designers have to compromise their blueprints in order to meet those political objectives (as in the case of the Type 45s powerplant)

[On the edge]

Oh we can BUILD them it's just that political interference often means that ships designers have to compromise their blueprints in order to meet those political objectives (as in the case of the Type 45s powerplant)

Of course!

Shrinking violets our British engineers.

[Simon Kirby]

The flip side of the coin is our national pride. We are still out there with the big boys and as a nation we want to hang on to it even though we are no longer the huge colonial power we were when Victoria was on the throne. How can we have any credibility sending a scruffy old man in pullover and slacks to an international summit. Even the laid back Scandinavians look the part and can use people like Mr Blix to their advantage even though he has been off the international scene since 2003.

Credibility amongst who? I've never had much time for people in suits and have always rather thought that the world would be a better place if more self-effacing bicycle-riding vegetarian atheist peace-loving republican allotmenteers had a bit more responsibility.

[je suis Charlie]

Of course!

Shrinking violets our British engineers.

If only Gresley built ships. Sigh!

[On the edge]

If only Gresley built ships. Sigh!

Ironic, but given the earlier comments, he did actually suffer from 'executive interfearence' but managed to deal with it! Perhaps he is a good example of our national malaise; we've lost far, far more than an Empire!

[Turin Machine]

So, what will we be left with? Submarines with no useful role, surface ships that don't go, aircraft carriers (eventually) with no aircraft and ground troops who probably will be spending most of their tour doing diversity training and taking lectures on 'human rights' for fear of prosecution by the mad mullah Corbyn should they have the temerity to get around to pulling a trigger. Laugh? I almost cried! But don't worry folks, I'm sure when we get swept up in the next war, and we will get swept up! The big plan is to invite the other side to tea (decaffeinated, because we don't want to get too excited) and then spend the rest of the day bitching about the tank tracks across the lawn.

Its better to have it and not need it than need it and not have it.

[Turin Machine]

Ironic, but given the earlier comments, he did actually suffer from 'executive interfearence' but managed to deal with it! Perhaps he is a good example of our national malaise; we've lost far, far more than an Empire!

We've lost our pride, our love of country our sense of being, quite simply, English. Its now derided and stretches as far as a tacky plastic flag stuck on the plumbers car when Ingerland!! are still in the cup.

[Turin Machine]

Credibility amongst who? I've never had much time for people in suits and have always rather thought that the world would be a better place if more self-effacing bicycle-riding vegetarian atheist peace-loving republican allotmenteers had a bit more responsibility.

Love the 'self-effacing bit!

[On the edge]

We've lost our pride, our love of country our sense of being, quite simply, English. Its now derided and stretches as far as a tacky plastic flag stuck on the plumbers car when Ingerland!! are still in the cup.

All the time we hang on to the paraphernalia of the past, we aren't going to rediscover a national pride. If you think about it, the only glory of the Empire days was that of the thick bully boy walking down the street and everyone else looking on in the polite contempt we hold Americans today. Yet many other nation states have grown up and got over their imperial past; quietly confident and very proud of their nations and treated by everyone else as a friend and equal. We can do the same but only if we drop the pretence.

[Turin Machine]

Being English, to me, is about being quietly decent, a general love of the myth of cream teas in the summer, willow on leather, thatched pubs, a willingness to live and let live. I certainly don't relate it to the days of empire and striding the world like a colossus or the Jolly Green Giant. And it's about wanting to defend a way of life, a way that is increasingly under threat. I know we don't live in a vacuum and nor do I want to but this unholy, headlong rush that we are being tipped into is not the way. All we are doing is denying our culture in order to please people with an agenda of political ideology.

[On the edge]

Being English, to me, is about being quietly decent, a general love of the myth of cream teas in the summer, willow on leather, thatched pubs, a willingness to live and let live. I certainly don't relate it to the days of empire and striding the world like a colossus or the Jolly Green Giant. And it's about wanting to defend a way of life, a way that is increasingly under threat. I know we don't live in a vacuum and nor do I want to but this unholy, headlong rush that we are being tipped into is not the way. All we are doing is denying our culture in order to please people with an agenda of political ideology.

So, we should be throwing nuclear arms around to support some mythical vision, that never did exist, ever, except in novels or films. As for 'live and let live', our record certainly isn't good there either. We did have a reasonable legal system based on fairness and justice but we won't even fight for that.

[Turin Machine]

So, we should be throwing nuclear arms around to support some mythical vision, that never did exist, ever, except in novels or films. As for 'live and let live', our record certainly isn't good there either. We did have a reasonable legal system based on fairness and justice but we won't even fight for that.

No one is throwing anything around, don't know where you get that idea? We've had the ability to do so for roughly seventy years, don't know of many scorched wastelands around here. Do you? But then maybe that's what it's does, prevents war happening on a nuclear scale. Some of the , and I'll be kind here and call it argument on here, really does border on the hysterical!!

[On the edge]

No one is throwing anything around, don't know where you get that idea? We've had the ability to do so for roughly seventy years, don't know of many scorched wastelands around here. Do you? But then maybe that's what it's does, prevents war happening on a nuclear scale. Some of the , and I'll be kind here and call it argument on here, really does border on the hysterical!!

Yes, you are right. Nonetheless, the non use tends to suggest there is no point in us having them. Worse, wasting the huge amounts we spend maintaining them. I know some insecure people like keeping a truncheon, or a big stick in their bedroom at night as a defence against burglars. Admitted, that helps them sleep peacefully. However, most of us would consider they'd taken leave of their senses if they installed a Maxim Gun and a few tank traps as well. The subject of what is called our national defence does generate lots of hysteria, generally from those who still hanker after imperial glory!

It's over 100 years since the cry 'we want eight and we won't wait' went up. We got them, and much good it did us! Another war we won physically, but lost economically. Perhaps that defines us; Pyrrhic victories!

[Turin Machine]