Seconded.

Thirded.

bring on the aircraft carriers I say….

I think we will double the UK land mass when these blighters are built.

oh and whilst we are talking about war (sort of), its nice that the Israels were trying to sell Nuclear weapons to South Africa in the 70′s, guess the ambiguity of ‘have they/havent they’ is now up with the release of secret documents

In evidence to the House of Commons Defence Select Committee on 23 January 2007, the US nuclear expert Richard Garwin said that the plans [to replace Trident] were “premature and wasteful”, and that delaying the decision for 15 years following inexpensive engine repairs would save £5bn. He added that pressure to commission a new fleet of submarines was rooted in the shipbuilding industry’s urge to land lucrative contracts.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2007/jan/24/immigrationpolicy.weaponstechnology

In theory I agree, however take a close look at Universities and the courses they have on offer and run and then dont run especially at adult ed ie part time courses. There is in my opinion a lot of veiled fraudulent behaviour going on. Some of these courses are so wishy washy it is beyond belief. Also, take a look at the students, the ones needing funding I know of several cases where students have pleaded poverty, got an emergency grant and used it to buy drugs the whole system needs sorting out so that people who really need funding get it, and those who bumble along getting rubbish grades get kicked out. The people who introduce courses need those courses to be verified that the content is of a high standard and is worthy of running. It is still a student numbers = funding situation which I feel is wholly wrong or at least mismanaged.

I have come to the conclusion that during the past ten or so years many of the universities, colleges, examination boards, curriculum agencies and associated quangos are simply self-serving parasites sucking out the tax pounds to keep up the pretence of providing useful education and training. This has been part of the delusion and illusion of actually seen to be doing something useful while not actually providing anything of concrete and real value. This has been New Labour through and through.

The main purpose of expanding the universities from what were perfectly good polytechnics providing useful education and training has been another scheme to expand the economy by providing loans to 18 year olds many of whom will not pay them off for many years ,if ever, while in the meantime accruing interest on that debt. The whole system is corrupt and the sooner an axe is taken to this “industry” and education and training courses funded properly by the state based on ability and necessity, the sooner the country will be onto the road to prosperity once more. A good clearing out is needed in UK Government and it’s agencies, hopefully it will be delivered shortly. There will be many complainers as the medicine takes effect but the tide has turned and the good times will not be rolling for years to come.

“We look forward to the day when schools get the equipment they need, and the Air Force holds jumble sales to buy a new bomber”.

Craig, you barsteward, email me a free copy of Murder in Samarkand, please! I’m broke! I have no credit card and no credit anyway! I know you’re buying a house so your budget is stretched at the moment, but you can surely spare one little ebook for me?

Craig,

Agree with you on the ringfencing of the defence budgets but I think the idea that the teritary education sector is not in need of a drastic over haul is wrong.

As someone who went through the undergraduate process in recent years I would ask the following questions:

- Why is it setup in such an inefficent way?

- 3 years except it’s not. Once you take out the long holidays the actual term time is drastically reduced.

- Oh but the long summers allow the academic staff to go on the conference circuit and top up their (albeit generally meagre) wages.

Putting an arbitary figure on the percentage of people who should go into higher education was a massive mistake by the previous regime. Many of those at university are not there for a love of learning but to delay going into the employment market and because they have been raised to believe that is the only way to gain access to the employment market.

-Many of the courses – worthless

-International students are seen as cash cows to milk for every last penny

-Academics use PHD students to take the lions share of the lectures / seminars.

What concerns me more about the cutting of universities is that the government are not resolving the problems are even acknowledging. In just merely cutting budgets and allowing the universitys to deal with the issues (in the hope that they become more efficent) means that the underlying problems will merely be exacerbated. More foreign students coming with open minds and being subjected to less than rigirous intellectual environments.

You talk about the message our foreign policy sends out but never address the parlous state of our higer education institutes and consequences of this on our standing in the world.

-Control

so breakin gup the banks, removing the ability for public funds to be plaed on the stock market, removing the ability for pension funds to be played on the stock market, kicking into touch PFI whens that gonna happen then? what about civil service performanc bonus’s? when are they gonna be tackled?

Control,

An overhaul is not the same thing as a budget cut.

I don’t know what bit of academia you’ve seen, but in the subject I work in (mathematics), the summer activity of going to conferences doesn’t earn you a penny. There is often travel and accommodation expenses for speakers; certainly not for nonspeakers. Expenses, as in they take receipts and reimburse them.

And I don’t know of any other summertime ways of increasing income that happen on a large scale.

Also, I’ve only seen a PhD student give a lecture as a substitute in case of illness. It is very much a last resort in all three universities I’ve been at.

Are your experiences very different? What’s your subject?

The question about the quality of higher education and its worth, is, perhaps, a little complex to get into here, and arguably irrelevant in relation to Craig’s general point; and that is the choices we make as a society about where scarce resources are best allocated, and what benefits society over the long term.

The UK “defence” budget, is grossly inflated, way beyond what is necessary to “defend” Britain. But, of course, that’s not really what its for, the defence of Britain.

The military budget is a kind of totem, or national symbol, designed to project and illustrate the kind of country and people we think we are; that is, a great power. The inflated military budget allows us to percieve ourselves as larger and more important than we actually are. It allows us to “fight above our weight” on the world scene, as this is important.

Especially important since the debacle of World War Two, when Britain effectively bankrupted itself, lost an empire, and became a de facto US protectorate in all but name.

Today, after a thirty year party paid for by the North Sea oil and gas revenues, and increasingly by massive debt creation; the “party” is definitively over for most people, and the time has come to pay the bill.

For over thirty years the UK economy has been criminally and stupidly mismanaged by successive governments. The idea of allowing the manufacturing base to whither and die, replacing it with the bloated financial sector, was madness; but that’s another story.

The UK should have a military comparable to… to Austria. A country that accepted the loss of its empire and international status; unlike Britain which preferred to hang on to a dream, and expensive dream, for as long as possible, because the dream disguised the true of extent of its loss of real power.

Trident, in a nutshell, is a giant phalus symbol struting up from the waves that Britania no longer rules.

Agree that the idea of setting top down targets for university places was misguided.

Ive always felt it is more important to get education at the primary and secondary levels right. Create world class education at the grass roots, so people can develop a taste for education whether they are wealthy or poor.

If you get that right then higher education will be easier to sort out along real, meritocratic lines, as opposed to who can afford to do it.

People should be encouraged to do what they will enjoy and what will be most useful to their careers and to society. For some that will be vocational training, for some that will be PPE and for some that will be mechanical engineering.

Fantastic comments, Writerman. Agree wholeheartedly on the points about the military. “A US protectorate in all but name.” Nicely put. Which is why I believe scrapping Trident makes sense: the NPT asks other countries to operate under the umbrella of US protection. If we can expect Germany, Japan and even Iran to do that, I dont see why we cant feel safe with the same level of protection.

There has been a lot of grand talk about accepting the mess this country is in and adapting to it. And yet we cannot let go of a long since defunct status as a world superpower which costs as far more than we can afford.

But the UK’s military might is far more than symbolic. It is being put to great practical use. The occupation of Afghanistan, as with Iraq, is a huge military operation. It is costing us something like £3 billion a year.

Over 60% of the people are against the occupation and want an immediate withdrawal, yet the idea is not even discussed. So on whose behalf is our money being spent? Certainly not ours.

Today the coalition government unveiled plans to cut public spending by £600 million, a mere fifth of the cost of being in Afghanistan.

What concerns me is the remarkable symetry between the first Great Depression in the 1930′s and this one, though in some respects things are potentially worse, at least for the advanced, western economies.

It’s astonishing to see governments planning massive cuts to their spending at a time like this, when one should be doing the opposite, stimulating the economy and demand, not axing vital areas.

The question of the huge debts incurred in more complex than is apparent. Does one really succeed by cutting one’s way out of a depression? This leads us way back to the 1930′s and the strategy adopted before the New Deal, a strategy that made the Depression worse, at least that’s the concencus view.

But did Keynes’ recipe really work back then, or was it the Second World War that saved Capitalism and got the wheels turning again, replacing all that was destroyed and artificially creating demand? Creative destruction on a global scale?

These are obviously complex and vast questions. Like, is war and the destruction it brings, an integral part of the capitalist model? The final lifeline for a system which has ground to a halt, and needs the ultimate stimulus package? Clearly, one would prefer the answer to be a catagoric “No!” this isn’t part of capiltalism’s DNA!

The scary thing is, that I believe the current government’s economic policies are going to make things far, far, worse, not better. In this depression the middle classes are going to be hit hard, so hard they may cease to exist. A social class, historically on their way out, state left. After all, isn’t that what happened to the working class over the last few decades?

Capitalism was, is, a collosal power that can change societies beyond recognition, a revolutionary force; but destroying the old ways of producing and living, has negative costs as well. All revolutionary change isn’t necessarily postive, and certainly not for everyone.

Britain’s position isn’t an enviable one. One has created a vast, bloated, edifice of material over-consumption that simply isn’t built on a solid and sustainable economic and productive foundantion. The country is too rich by far. Only the wealth is an illusion, based on giant confidence trick of massive proportions, created by successive governments, a monumental house of cards.

I was referring to Trident as the most obvious and grotesque example of how resources are wasted on military excess for “symbolic” purposes.

In purely practical terms, to waste so much on weapons designed to wipe out cities, when our soldiers are fighting a colonial/imperialist war against a mobile guerrilla army, seems somewhat odd. Precisely what state is supposed to be a nuclear threat to the UK that we need to invest so much in the Trident project? Surely we have to debate this sensibly and rationally? Are we really supposed to assume that Britain will be involved in a conflict with Iran or North Korea and therefore Trident is vital to our national security? If it’s not them, where does the threat come from? Or are we planning to spend a fortune on an unidentified and potentially non-existant threat?

Writerman, agree with all you have posted.

I wonder are you aware of Common Purpose’s role in our wasteful dysfunctional state?

The central question, which should be at the forefront of the “debate” about Trident, is, what is it for exactly? This is a deceptively simple question, yet it goes to the core of why Britain has nuclear weapons. If Trident is useless in the war against terror where do we plan to use it and under what circumstances? Can the UK even use Trident without the sanction of the United States? Does the UK have access to all the firing codes for the system, or are they held for safe keeping by the United States? Does Britain really, truly, have a totally independent nuclear deterrent? Can one envisage the UK using or fighting a nuclear war independently of the United States?

These are crucial questions that should be asked and debated before we allocate vast resources towards the purchase and maintenance of Trident, at the last count in excess of 130 billion over twenty years.

And where are the precious Liberal Democrats here, in this vital, democratic debate? Was their opposition to Trident merely window dressing, signifying nothing much, but never-the-less, good for the soul and a good chat-up line to get laid?

Writerman: you asked “is war and the destruction it brings, an integral part of the capitalist model?”

I’d say no, it’s an integral part of having a fiat currency system issued and controlled by global finance. The banksters love war – are dependent on it in fact. First they lend to both sides to fight the war, getting them in debt; then they lend to both sides afterwards to finance the reconstruction, getting them in even more debt.

Then you ask “Precisely what state is supposed to be a nuclear threat to the UK that we need to invest so much in the Trident project?”

Of course there isn’t one. Or at least if it got to the point where we were seriously considering using them then we would already be done for. The point about Trident is surely related to the above. The people who own the military-industrial complex are the banksters. They insist that we buy there useless garbage otherwise they will make life very difficult indeed. It’s finacial blackmail, pure and simple.

the question should be asked why is the UK under a greater threat than say Italy, Spain, Greece, Sweden, Norway, Holland and Belgium? These countries don’t have nuclear weapons but seem non the worse for that. In fact they seem much better for it with far superior public transport and health systems. We along with the American populations have for many years been sold a big big lie and by and large it has been swallowed whole. Only now with the wheels falling off the cart do we see the folly of previous policies. Sadly I fear there are too many powerful vested interests for these policies to change in the short term.

Common Purpose? I think, years ago, I went on course, but that was only because I knew a young women who was involved. I had absolutely no interest in Common Purpose, but I was interested in her. Craig and I have many of the same “weaknesses” in relation to young women.

Writerman, lol.

You and Craig are not alone…

YNWA

I’d agree but for one thing. The crazy, international league table driven, edict from Zanu Labour that 50% of 18 year olds should go to University. Sadly our education system isn’t capable of ensuring that this percentage of students are capable of gaining a worthwhile degree. The upshot is a dilution of what were good degrees, and an increase in fig-leaf qualifications.

A nation that cannot control its territory will ultimately control nothing. But a nation without a an educational system among the best in the world cannot hope to maintain for long the industrial technology necessary to support an effective and independent defense establishment.

As Caroline and others have noted, Britain’s system of higher education is, despite the undoubted merit of some of its components and participants, mostly crap: a bureaucratic system designed to fulfill the needs of the academic bureaucrats who run it, and to keep young people immature, inexperienced and irresponsible and out of the workforce for as long as possible.

Thus, any cuts to higher education will likely be beneficial, even though they will be implemented by the educational bureaucrats so as to achieve the most damage to the most valuable parts of the system. For the goal now must surely be to replace the system of higher education in its entirety by new and more effective instruments.

The Internet can deliver vastly more information than any number of universities. Already, MIT and other top universities around the world have placed their entire course content on the Web. The challenge is devise means of using this medium in a way that motivate students, provides them with emotional support and professional guidance, at costs that are a small fraction of the cost of the existing system of higher education.

The important thing is to ensure diversity in the control and development of new educational systems: they must be competitive, not subject to the dead hand of government management.

As Writerman and others have noted, it is far from clear how Britain’s existing defense establishment serves the British people, and in fact the evidence is that its prime function is to serve the American Empire, of which Britain, like Canada, Australia and New Zealand is a part.

The question of the appropriate cost of defense can, therefore, only be discussed in the context of Britain’s position within the Anglo-American empire. What should Britain’s cost be per capita, versus America’s. In a democratic federation, what influence does, or should, Britain (or Canada, etc.) have in determining imperial war policy?

Depends on what the state’s educational priorities are.

I am sure that fighting in Afghanistan is quite an education, in its own way.

Craig

In principle, agreed; the war budget need a serious prune,starting with getting out of Afghanistan asap and caneleiing Trident. But i for one don’t expect that to happen. It’s about keeping a seat on the UNSC, not defending the UK.

And MickS is right. Margaret Hodge didn’t even know what the baseline was when she announced the 50% target, and there is no rational basis for increasing undergraduate numbers and funding indefinitely.

And cutting the INCREASE in student numbers (from 20K to 10K) is not the same as cutting numbers. Applications to University are going up because (a) there’s a recession (b) it’s the fashion and (c) job inflation, whereby a degree is called for in jobs where it is not needed.

“In 1999 there were 334,594 accepted applicants. Ten years later in 2009 there were 481,854 – an increase of 44%”. In 2009 alone the increase was 5.5% (UCAS figures).

What we need is a proper needs analysis of higher education, something Labour consistently failed to even consider. I don’t expect the current lot are really prepared to think outside the box either.

But failing that I’d be happy with a quick survey by someone with some sense who understands social statistics and policy (say Prof. Danny Dorling at Sheffield), of where the growth in student numbers has come from and what the “right” number of students is. The 50% target seems not to have increased particiaption levels among the less well off.

It’s also crazy to ring-fence the defence budget, which provides few jobs and so little tax revenue for the amount spent on it, while making cuts that will result in 300,000 public sector workers being put out of work – which will mean not only service cuts but also a reduction in demand (putting private sector employees out of work too) and a reduction in tax revenues along with an increase in unemployment benefit costs.

The Conservative party leaders seem to think that cutting the public sector automatically increases growth in the private sector – it doesn’t.

‘The UK should have a military comparable to… to Austria. A country that accepted the loss of its empire and international status; unlike Britain which preferred to hang on to a dream, and expensive dream, for as long as possible, because the dream disguised the true of extent of its loss of real power.’

On the surface Britain looks its about had it. But there’s evidence particularly over the last fifteen years that Britain has covertly invested billions overseas from ill-gotten gains.

What I feel annoyed about, is the feeling I have that we’ve, or rather, our rulers, decided to save the financial sector by sacrificing the rest of the country to pay for it. Surely this illustrates, far more than any “free and fair” election, where real power in society is to be found?

Over the last few decades interests of the financial sector have almost totally taken over the country, to the exclusion of nearly everyone else. This happened because the rate of return on investments in the financial sector far, far, exceeded what one could get out of the old manufacturing base, which was allowed to whither away.

Strangely, agriculture, though in trouble, was massively subsidised, and a culture, or way of life, maintained at collosal expense. Why were farmers so special and, in contrast; miners, steelworkers, shipyardworkers, so expendable? Who chose who was worth saving and who had to face naked, market forces without protection?

One cannot trust this new lot, not for a moment. They have only begun to whet the axe, and practice their swing. The real scale of the chopping to come is being hidden, for now. It’ll be on a Greek scale, probably, if they can get away with it, axing 25% of the welfare state over the next few years.

Axing, on this scale, will have a profound effect on the economy, living standards and not least unemployment. After all, remove that much state intervention and support and the economy will have to stand on its own feet, can it do it?

The system we now have, here and in the US, is really a form of state capitalism. With the state massively supporting the so-called “free market” to an enormous extent. Without these gigantic subsidies it’s arguable that modern capitialism can survive in its current form.

In the US, one can argue that the core of the US economy is based on military expenditure ammounting to somewhere between 1.5 to 2 trillion dollars a year. That level of public expenditure ammounts to a collosal subsidy, and without it would the private sector be mired in an eternal recession?

Are we finally burying capitalism and its excesses?

Cause we have the brains and abilities to do different, to live halfways sustainably and without fighting each other. Precious problem is that we are like a cancerous growth choking what little green shoots appear, with more population.

I agree with writermans description of the military industrial complex as being on the ‘dole’, just as our subsidised farmers are.

If I had to choose between the two, I’d choose the latter, a capacity for self sufficiency is important, farmers are the central part of it.

Wars, knocking down and building up killinbg many people, mostly civilians, in the process, is not very clever, far from it its primitive, inefficient, a waste of collossal energy and not an intelligent solution to a difference of opinion,imho.

The crystalisation of more and more barriers between Have’s and Have Not’s, more ghettorisation, online communicative, as much as in urban sprawl.

Lets save on planning departments, building green energy saving homes would be less ardeous and convaluted to get through.

Trident is a strategic, technological as well as a financial mistake and it should hjave been axed yesterday, al least that would get the MOD out of a debt hole.

Fighting in a situation were we are parcelled into another conflict would be tragic and undesirable.

We have set these parameters into motion, the next thing will be that they come back to bite us, we must wihtdraw from Afghanistan.

We need Trident as Excalibur’s sword:

1. To prove we are King

2. For magical powers to blind China and stop Britain from bleeding when we smash Iran.

There drew he forth the brand Excalibur,

And o’er him, drawing it, the winter moon,

Brightening the skirts of a long cloud, ran forth

And sparkled keen with frost against the hilt:

For all the haft twinkled with diamond sparks,

Myriads of topaz-lights, and jacinth-work

Of subtlest jewellery.

I agree with writerman that there are going to be massive cuts. The cuts today have been carefully manipulated to get us on their side just as the election result was fixed. I believe these cuts and the next have been in preparation for months if not years in case of an economic crash.

Writerman: Brilliant stuff, you are on a roll, sir.

The trouble is that after both of our world wars, we had a manufacturing base from which to rebuild ourselves. A home market with a lot of demand, and an industry that struggled with other more protected industries to meet it.

Look at how Japan’s industry was built up with massive state support. The “Olive tree and the Lexus” by that damned fool Friedman – who is still peddling his fairy tales – is based upon ignorance and falsehoods. The author apparently is totally unaware that Toyota happened to be a power-loom company until massive state subsidy, and home market protection, built it up – as if the Free Market magically gave us a Lexus! “Oh why couldn’t the Arabs concentrate about building a Lexus instead of blowing themselves up”, he bemuses himself while marvelling at the genius of Milton Friedman (no relation).

Now, we have nothing. We have substituted our manufacturing, raw mineral, and heavy industry base for “financial service industry” and defence (weapons) export. The former is a busted flush.

Alfred noted earlier that most UK jobs these days appear to be connected to weapons manufacture. I’ve certainly noticed this, given my personal refusal to take any work along those lines, and the narrowing opportunities thus caused.

Is this what we have become, a country very keen to throw support behind a confused, dying military empire, because it turns up sales of weapons for us during its slow meltdown? Did Thatcher really turn our country to weapons production rather than conventional industry, because those filthy unions in traditional industry held too much sway in society?

Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, allegedly an ex-spy (SIS), is our new Minister of State for Security. Lovely touch. Welcome to the sunny uplands of freedom. Welcome to the Big Society.

Of course, even that stupid phrase is a rip-off from LBJ’s ‘Great Society’. Everything nowadays is an advertising jingle. Original thought is thought not to be cool.

But I think that no matter how much opium is poured down upon society, there will be riots when the cuts about which writerman writes so powerfully hit. And then there will be Dame Pauline Neville-Jones, guarding the keep as she and her like have done for a thousand years. It will not be the foxes who bleed in Tory Britain.

Balls, Milliband-Milliband and the other ex-ministers who NOW have discovered that Iraq was a costly mistake (if it had been cheap, a million-plus dead Iraqis would’ve been fine, then?). They see Arab people as animals. They are racists. They are killers.

No, we are not stupid, Mister Balls, Milliband-Milliband. Your echolalia will not fool us. We will remember your guilt, Mister Balls-Milliband-Milliband. You have blood on your hands. The stigmata will never vanish. You burned the Red Flag and replaced it with blood. Shame on you.

Defence sepending has only been ringfenced prior to a defence review taking place.

It is still possible defence will be cut. It should be cut of course. Ideally that would include a reduced commitment in Afghanstan and not replacing Trident. That is the ideal at least.

As a very young man (long ago) I worked for an earthmoving company. I had a vague remit to reduce costs and improve profits. I considered myself rather successful, and was so considered by others. I was very deflated to discover that although I had helped turn a major department into profit, our commercial manager had significantly exceeded that profit simply by buying and selling currency. A large team of people, working hard at real work, but our efforts eclipsed by one man equipped with a pocket calculator and a run of luck. It looks now like an allegory.

Sometimes (in my low moods) I wish that I’d studied economics. Capitalism looks like a ridiculous perpetual motion machine which continues to run so long as someone believes it will, and grinds to a halt when the faith falters. Its equations have solutions selected by a priesthood, and like all priesthoods they choose their solutions as they please.

Public service cuts are not dictated by any sort of logic – they are arbitrarily selected solutions. As other posters have noted, even if one accepts the need for cuts there are more attractive and less harmful choices that could be made. Troops out of everywhere (how many are still in Northern Ireland?) and ban the bloody bombs.

See this Craig?

Parliament Square anti-war protester Brian Haw arrested

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8702526.stm

yes I heard that he had been harrassed. They decided to search the camp with sniffer dogs and he objected.

Put into a restraining position, cuffed, with much weight applied to his athritic joints, he was left without his crutches.

This is obviously a new agenda at play, harrass and arrest for minor reasons, make their lives hell, as much as possible, no differences in approach from these supporters of the war in Iraq then.

I spoke to Brian Haw after attending the Fair Votes protest in Smith Square on Saturday 8th May. There were a few tents there then. Brian Haw was scathing of these new arrivals. He said they were alcoholics and drug users, and that they had been encouraged to camp there to provide an excuse to remove him.

I visited the new camp looking for the ‘Election Meltdown’ people, but was told that they were campaigning elsewhere that day.

Writerman is clear about the 25% cut in the welfare state. Nothing has been announced yet by Cameron because time is needed to mould a plan that attempts to address inevitable protest and moves towards anarchy. Hence the timely aggressive arrest of my good friend Brian Haw.

Remember the money folks that was used to bail out the banks? – the people’s money? – talk is, Cameron and Osborne want an early sale of the governments stake! retrieving the £15bn profit – Why?

Because it leverages people power and beckons calls for the profit to be ‘swallowed up’ by Cameron’s ‘Big Society Bank’ – perhaps Vince can ask some pertinent questions on this rumour – eh – before the whole thing explodes?

Release Brian Haw NOW! – OR EXPECT A MARCH ON PARLIAMENT SQUARE by thousands of good British people who are burdened with the memory of slaughter, lies and obfustication by the ‘military machine wizards’ hell bent, as Glenn perceives, on preventing the ‘military empire’ from dying!

Well I wonder if Dame Pauline Neville-Jones was asked if she’d be prepared to fire on citizens as apparently members of the army have been.

Ruth!

Where did you hear this please?

THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL

Gordon Brown was tasked with setting up a US styled Council in 2007 with a public facing statement that the council would give the British public a clear understanding of the “truly frightening” extent of radical Muslim activity in Britain. The Council would also reverse the ‘ad hoc’ security ‘get-togethers’ of the previous Blair led government and NOW prepare FORMAL notes of the meetings and subsequent decisions.

Brown however had little enthusiasm for the agenda forced on him by Bush/Obama/NSA criticism of Britain’s depressingly low key security agenda having lost the humiliating ‘war’ in Southern Iraq and losing another in Afghanistan. More importantly(in the ears of the elite), was Israel’s bellowing voice that Britain had become an “incubator of extremism and an exporter of terrorism.”

The Council under Brown met just three times, while William Hague stood fuming on the side-lines at Britain’s military and world status decline.

In May this year, 2010 Cameron regenerated the ‘broken’ NSC under the ‘advice’ (or direction) of former JIC chairman Sir Peter Ricketts KCMG.

First thing on the agenda was a plan to restore public confidence in the intelligence agencies eroded by Mr Blair’s case for war in Iraq. Ha!

TO APPEASE THE BRITISH PUBLIC the publication of a new security strategy will follow essentially based on the work of Lord West, a former admiral now serving as security minister, who has been carrying out a wide-ranging review of Britain’s ability to withstand a major terrorist attack. (watch out!!)

Critically the Council must win “hearts and minds” of the British public while in the dark corners of GCHQ and SIS the plan to attack Iran moves forward with Mr Hague plunged immediately into the process of trying to get the UN Security Council to agree new sanctions.

This British government is tasked with building British society to forget Iraq and prepare for the US and/or Israel attack on Iran’s nuclear plants.

YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!

Western civilization was built on militarism.

Let it be said I have great respect for Alan West who formally commanded HMS Ardent, a Type 21 frigate lost in the acclaimed Falklands war. I also take this opportunity to remember Lt. Brian Murphy, an artificer apprentice who served at HMS Fisgard near Plymouth.

He was killed, alongside his Flight Commander, Lt Cdr John Sephton DSC, as the gallant ship’s company fought off multiple Argentine air attacks attempting to dislodge the British landing forces on D-Day. His body was not recovered, and he lies buried at sea, in Falkland Sound, close to the island shores where he felt so much at home.

“They shall not grow old as we that are left grow old. Age shall not weary them nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them”

The US State Department Spokesman said Monday that the White House has received a copy of Iran’s official letter to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for nuclear fuel swap brought up in Tehran, Turkey and Brazil joint statement.

US State Department Spokesman Philip Crowley told reporters, “The IAEA has provided the United States with a copy of Iran’s letter and has requested our views.”

He added, “We are consulting with our partners and expect to respond to the IAEA very soon.”

MOSCOW – Iran’s Moscow ambassador is warning that new U.N. sanctions could force his country to reconsider a recent uranium-swap proposal that supporters see as a way around the impasse over Iran’s nuclear program.

Iran, Brazil and Turkey signed an agreement in Tehran this month under which Iran would ship out low-enriched uranium and receive nuclear fuel rods in exchange. The plan could reduce Iran’s capacity to enrich uranium to weapons grade.

But some countries, including the U.S., say the plan is inadequate and new sanctions are needed.

Interfax news agency on Tuesday quotes Iranian Ambassador Seyed Mahmoud-Reza Sajjadi as saying the new sanctions would show that international negotiators are “nursing evil plans” and would “compel us to review the Tehran agreements.”

Courtesy – INA

The Chairman of the Scottish Conservative Party is Andrew Fulton, reportedly also an ex-SIS officer. He’s also a director of SIS arms dealers, Hakluyt. He’s also a senior figure in the British American Business Council.

He was ‘outed’ at the Lockerbie trial when he’d gone there as part of an ‘independent’ academic monitoring legal team. He was a Professor of Law at Glasgow Uni for a little while – though quite what his credentials for such a job was never made clear.

He, Meta Ramsey (allegedly an ex-SIS officer) who is now a Labour peer, Donald Dewar, George Foulkes (the Labour precursor equivalent of Liam Fox; if you look carefully, you will see nukes in their eyes) and John Smith all went to Glasgow Uni in the 1960s -good pals and definitely not Yippies.

John Smith’s widow, reportedly, is also a director of Haklyut.

Writerman is spot-on.

David Laws: Former investment banker. He was vice president of JP Morgan from 1987 to 1992, and then managing director and head of US Dollar and Sterling Treasuries at Barclays de Zoete Wedd. He retired from the City of London at the age of 28 with a personal fortune.

Putting the cat in charge of mouse welfare.

Spot-on also Suhayl – good vision!

Reuters

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6460FC20100507

German subs

http://www.upi.com/Business_News/Security-Industry/2010/01/18/Israel-seeks-to-buy-6th-German-sub/UPI-24941263836811/

I take your point anon. on David Laws who said these words:

We won’t deliver Liberal Democrat policies by accepting a few minor posts, or even a politically neutered senior post, in someone else’s government.

The Liberal Democrats will only deliver a more liberal Britain through winning votes in the country and influence in parliament – not through accepting empty offers and poison pills masquerading as ripe fruit.

Be very careful in this cost-cutting race Mr Laws, the man behind you is IDS and he will refuse to accept the baton claiming your the one who dropped it; supported of course by the choral voice of fellow blue badged runners united when the chips go down!

Thanks George – I hope it was George for the important link to German built Israeli owned submarines.

I am dismayed at the messages coming from Cairo that Egypt would allow passage thru the Suez Canal for nuclear armed Israeli subs. Yes! *nuclear armed* because already Israel have a nuclear fit for cruise missiles.

I have already advised Iran on this capability – designed to circumvent an S-300 anti-missile system.

Day 1. Toryld Government, BBC Today Programme.

Headline. New Financial Crash in Eurozone.

Headline. Open Schools to Private Control.

Headline. Islam Must Be Modified in Western Societies.

Wanna fight?

Craig’s argunment depends on there being no barbarians at the gates to defend us from & there being no barbarians within the gates running university courses that rather than educate exist to impose politically correct lies & fund government parasites. I agree with him that there is no credible conventional military threat that the armed forces have any role in preventing (there is a very limited military threat from barbarians we have invited to live here but that is a police matter).

“I have already advised Iran on this capability – designed to circumvent an S-300 anti-missile system.”

Oh my Gawwwd!