New Fleet Replenishment Ships

[vic mcclymont]

From The Defence Journal.

Ben Wallace, Secretary for Defence has announced that the new Replenishment ships are to be classified as warships, which stops any foreign builder bidding for the contract.
Vic

[happy daze john in oz]

How does calling them 'Warships' make the difference as to who builds them?

Though I agree building them in UK is the correct way to go.

[Ivan Cloherty]

Under EEC rules no member has to tender out building naval vessels, all other ship requirements have to be published in EEC Journals showing Tenders available for members, so the cheapest normally gets the job, but they are only the cheapest because they are normally subsidised by that company's Govt, but that is illegal, but it is an open secret that France, Spain and Italy these secret subsidies are rife under another name. The Australian navy has found out to its cost that the Spanish vessels they purchased will cost nearly as much to put right as they initially paid for them.

[vic mcclymont]

You forgot Germany, Ivan.
Vic

[happy daze john in oz]

But if UK is out of EU then I would consider the rules have changed!

[Ivan Cloherty]

But if UK is out of EU then I would consider the rules have changed!

John we are still in the transition period until midnight on 31st December 2020, so the rules still apply

[Tony Taylor]

Many member states have bent the rules or ignored them to suit their own ends.
When Thatcher was spouting that there was no demand for ships there was about 25 or so in Germany, all building, but with hidden subsidies from their government

[Paul Johnson]

Yes, but she changed her tune when she was desperate for ships in the Falklands, a few months prior she was trying to reduce the Navy. If the Argentines had had a little patience and sense and waited six months there was a chance we would not have had an aircraft carrier, what with the Defence Review, where would we have been then?
But of course she garnered all the accolades, taking no blame for her governments short sightedness in defence reduction: there are still people that applaud her for her defence of the Falklands, if she had not made it blatantly obvious to the world that the U.K. was absolving itself of international affairs possibly the Argentines would not have chanced their arm. For that callousness and idiocy many hundreds of brave people lost their lives.
Cheers, Paul.

[Ivan Cloherty]

#8, Paul every Government since the war has been culpable in the demise of our Merchant Navy through their collective inaction on an island's first line of defence and commercial survival, the blame cannot be laid at any one door or at any one person. The lack of common sense, history and awareness of geographical location of our island nation in our politicians never ceases to amaze.

[Paul Johnson]

Hi Ivan,
I could not agree more, but the signs were there for anyone to see; in 1980 Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, Nicholas Ridley went to the Falklands to try to persuade the Islanders to lease the Islands to the Argentines, Thatcher was Prime Minister. The captain of H.M.S. Endurance repeatedly warned the Defence Ministry of the attitude of the Argentines; in 1981 the Minister was planning to scrap our only presence in the South Atlantic, H.M.S Endurance. After saying that the government would look kindly on any from Hong Kong who wished a British Passport when China reclaimed that territory, Thatcher refused to give one to Falkland Islanders; it seems a tad ironic that now that has been addressed.
My main point Ivan is that if you wanted to persuade the Argentines to act you could not have done more by showing them that you did not give a cuss about the Islanders. But of course the fact that the Conservative government was, at the time, deeply unpopular, trailing the SDP, had nothing to do with it!! Oh! Surprise surprise, the Islanders had full British citizenship restored, it had been reduced, in 1983.
Forgive me for being cynical, but the major winner after all of this was Thatcher; and so it is at her door that any opprobrium must be laid.
Cheers, Paul.