Can the government get rid of Mervyn King?

[Menelaus]

I don't know whether the Tories will be any different or not, but three things make me suspect they might be:

1. Cuts. The Tories have publicly recognised the need for cuts and tight budgeting. The Labour party is in denial.

2. Talent. If the Tories have a shortfall of talent, Labour's is worse. Seven of the cabinet had to be brought in from outside parliament - unelected, they were made Lords so they could join the government. That says everything you need to know about what Brown thinks of his 300-odd MPs.

3. Economy. Surely the Tories cannot make as much of a dog's dinner of the economy as Labour have done. Can they?

I'm going to make myself woefully unpopular with this post, and I think that I'll be alienating my core constituency - but before the rush to condemnation, wait up.

The area of government most ripe for cuts is defence, so here's a fairly radical thought program that we could utilise that would severely slash costs across MoD and at the same time not massively impact on defence capability.

Royal Navy

SSBN / Trident - not replaced. At end of life, missiles and warheads SAFELY decommissioned (creating high skill jobs at AWE Aldermaston and in supporting industries) - saves £5bn (per R Garwin to HoC Select Committee)

HMS Queen Elizabeth / HMS Prince of Wales - not built, saves £3.8bn in 2007 money (per That C*** Browne in HoC).

Albion Class - retained as the core of UK defence support (note: NOT expeditionary warfare) activities.

HMS Ocean mothballed and decommissioned, for likely sale to either another NATO country or to a friendly Navy (note: might also be turned into a quasi-civvie freighter).

Type 22 Broadsword Class (Frigate) - scrapped / sold.

Type 23 Duke Class (Frigate) - reduced from 13 to 8 in line with non-expeditionary warfare objectives. Gunboat diplomacy we're not into any more.

Type 42 (Destroyers) - reduced to two (see frigate note above)

Type 45 Daring Class (Destroyers) - currently two built and launched; reduce number on order to four (thus meaning that the number of destroyers remains six).

Current aircraft carrier(s) - scrapped. Anything that flies from Illustrious class can just as easily fly from an Albion class.

SSN - retained.

Survey vessels - retained; given that they can have an educational use and scientific value, increased.

RFA - scrapped. Anything that needs to be shipped can be shipped by the merchant fleet (or what remains thereof).

Army

Guards division - scrapped, entirely

Household division - scrapped, entirely

Cavalry (tanks) - scrapped, entirely

Parachute regiment - scrapped, entirely

Infantry - to be reduced to the level of roulement battalions, using RRS as an example.

Thus there would be a southern English, northern English, Welsh and Scots regiment and that'd be it. All infantry to be trained to be:

• airmobile (e.g., helicopters (see below))
• mechanised (e.g., capable of operating from Warrior AFV)
• foot (e.g., capable of operating on the ground without support)

Artillery - removal of all but highly mobile pieces. No more heavy RA regiments.

Army Air Corps - expanded to include the Chinook, Merlin and Puma helicopters of RAF and RN (Merlin only). AAC to be core of Joint Helicopter Force currently in operation and to be subject to major investment to prevent any more than 5% of the aircraft to be U/S at any time.

Corps:

Royal Engineers - to cease to be expensive infantry and to be used in humanitarian gigs to rebuild water supplies in places like Lesotho (for example)at the cost of the Lesothan government and to rebuild properties in the armed forces Married Quarters (etC) without the use of expensive civilian builders

RAMC (and AMS) - when not on tour to be used in Headley Court, Selly Oak and the to-be-reopened Cambridge Military Hospital in Aldershot; to also rotate every three years into a humanitarian gig (see Royal Engineers, above) and to the NHS and working with service charities in outreach support

Royal Signals - to provide comms but in a much reduced form. Give everyone airwave radios and no more battlefield integrated comms - we're no longer into expeditionary warfare, remember?

REME - to be subsumed into Royal Engineers

AGC - all elements of AGC role to be outsourced and AGC to be scrapped.

Royal Marines - whilst currently part of the Royal Navy to become part of Army and be maintained at strength, with the caveat that they all become parachute trained.

RAF

A300M project for AAR = scrapped.

Hercules life to be extended to include AAR

Nimrod to be reduced in number

Fast air to be reduced to Harriers and Tornado only: Typhoon, whilst exciting, is wildly cash inefficient

Tucano to be sold-and-leased back from manufacturers; same with Hawk

Tucano and Hawk to be used for the funded by governments (note: non UK) training of foreign aircrews

Multi-engine training normally used to train Hercules/C17/Nimrod pilots to be expanded to be a semi-commercial training school.

RAF engineering to be performed by Royal Engineers (see Army, above)

SAR to be retained at strength

Staffing

All MoD civilian staff to be sacked: there's nothing being done at Main Building that couldn't be done by a person who dresses in green.

All pensions at MoD (civilian and military) to be cash-purchase rather than final salary.

Major purge of "star" ranks - e.g., the number of generals, admirals and marshalls not in operational commands is astonishing. Scrap them and by "scrap" I don't mean send them to a training school I mean sack.

Ceremonial

Red Arrows - scrapped (individual aircraft from squadrons can display as individuals, team costs too much)

Red Devils - scrapped (obviously, given that the Paras are going)

Differing dress codes in regiments / companies - scrapped (take from Canadian forces where everyone wears the same)

Strategic

1. Out of Afghanistan
2. Out of Iraq (we're down to a few hundred now, I know)
3. Everyone back to the UK
4. Out of NATO

In short UK armed forces become based on the Japanese model of a self-defence force. We don't do expeditionary warfare, but we protect ourselves. No need to do power projection as per the US: we aren't the US, we don't have the money.

[d000hg]

The one with the PhD in Meja Studies?

You go to a Tesco in a middle-class area, obviously. Even the staff are above-average if they have a degree