How to squander £630 million on UK defence in one week

[AtW]

It doesn't say that the cost for building this in the UK would be £630 mln. The 50% tax return should have been accounted for in the calculations of whoever the mysterious source of this. So the cost of building it in the UK is £1260 mln.

Now that is very unlikely - MOD has got it's own budget and it is not concerned with tax revenues, and even Treasury from what I have seen do not have such clear rules which take into account tax take from giving contract to a local firm.

Basically the desire to get short term cash advantages completely overshadowed long term strategic implications, this is why UK aircraft carriers will be build in France - assuming UK can even afford a single one of them.

[KimberleyChris]

It would have been better not to build the tankers at all.

The Royal Navy is paid for by the British taxpayer, and it is for the defence of BRITAIN. Not for cruising off around the world policing other peoples' waters for them.

We could dispatch a missile to anywhere in North Africa from a ship moored in Devonport Dockyard.

The Navy should be here, tackling drugs imports, illegals and people who are sucking the lifeblood out of our fishing industry, for example.

[AtW]

It would have been better not to build the tankers at all.

Tankers are there to refuel ships and aircraft on them...

[KimberleyChris]

Tankers are there to refuel ships and aircraft on them...

Inspirational words.

If our Navy was in our home waters where it belongs, then they could refuel the ships and helicopters here.

Sorry to go all 'Enoch', but when the Iranian Navy comes steaming up the Channel, then it becomes our problem, but not until then.

[AtW]

If our Navy was in our home waters where it belongs, then they could refuel the ships and helicopters here.

You need proper Navy to operate AWAY from hour home waters you dummy - land defensese and aircraft can successfully defend this country just fine.

The whole point of having expeditonary forces is to make sure the danger is kept away from home for as long as possible, this requires either tankers to refuel machines or lots of cannon fodder to fight enemy in close combat, if the latter was the option you'd get drafted alongside with kapral shaunbhoy and master sergeant Churchill. I'd be in HQ watching your progress

[fullyautomatix]

If it was sourced to a UK company they would have quoted twice the money and since this is the MOD who is footing the bill, the cost would over run by four times and by the time the fecking thing would be ready to be delivered it would be obsolete and sent to the scrapyard. What is the point ? Place order with Korea/China what ever and let them take the risk.

[scooterscot]

Found a public source on the guardian.

Korean firm wins MoD tankers deal | UK news | The Guardian

Shadow defence secretary Jim Murphy said: "This is more bad news for British industry. First we lose out to France over fast jets and now we lose out to South Korea over Royal Navy tankers."

It'll all end in tears.

[KimberleyChris]

You need proper Navy to operate AWAY from hour home waters you dummy - land defensese and aircraft can successfully defend this country just fine.

The whole point of having expeditonary forces is to make sure the danger is kept away from home for as long as possible, this requires either tankers to refuel machines or lots of cannon fodder to fight enemy in close combat, if the latter was the option you'd get drafted alongside with kapral shaunbhoy and master sergeant Churchill. I'd be in HQ watching your progress

Why???? Who are we??

Just look at the UK on a world map. We are a tiny almost bankrupt country on the edge of joining the third world, not a global superpower.

Iran and access to the gulf are a problem for the UAE, Israel and Saudi Arabia. If the USA wants to get involved then fine, that's up to them.

The only foreign problems for the UK are a few remaining red dots on the map, and nobody exactly rushed to help us defend them.

If our shipyards aren't good enough to build our ships, and Typhoon isn't good enough for India, then the Royal Navy is not good enough to cross half the world to come and sort your mess out for you.

[VectraMan]

Now that is very unlikely - MOD has got it's own budget and it is not concerned with tax revenues, and even Treasury from what I have seen do not have such clear rules which take into account tax take from giving contract to a local firm.

I didn't say the MOD. Scooter wasn't quoting the MOD; he was quoting some mysterious financial expert who came up with some kind of estimate based on intangible things like long term investment and jobs. If this expert had completely missed the tax revenues in his calculation, then the rest of what he says can't be very credible.

The greater question here is whether the public sector should be used as a job creation scheme for British workers, or should it be trying to be as efficient as possible with tax payers money. The former might sound good in the newspapers (and in Gordon Brown's head ), but that's what's short-termist thinking.

[BrilloPad]

We don't have anywhere big enough to builder those tankers. Plus the South Korea are building them at a fixed cost well below what the UK based quotes were and that's before the MoD remembered BAE total inability to build anything on time, to budget without finding an excuse to pass cost overrounds back to the MoD for payment.

It is very worrying that we dont have anywhere big enough. I dont like being dependent on johnny foreigner for anything.