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Conservatives, Old School
Oct. 22nd, 2010 11:09 amWhile the Tea Party and various allied conservative groups in the USA rail about cutting spending, in the United Kingdom, the newly-elected Conservative government there is actually making cuts. Of course, there doing so in a way that I suspect a lot of Tea Partiers wouldn't like - the Brits are cutting defense spending. A lot. Specifically:
1) The Royal Navy's flagship aircraft carrier, Ark Royal, will be decommissioned immediately. The other aircraft carrier, Illustrious, stays, but with the retirement of all Harrier jump-jets, she'll have no fixed-wing capability.
2) They will keep building the two new Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers (too expensive to buy out the contracts), but will only operate one of them at a time. The carriers will both have catapult and arrester gear for the new F-35C (not the jump-jet B version). The first carrier won't be commissioned until around 2020.
3) The Royal Navy will also see 4 frigates decommissioned immediately, and several other belt-tightening measures. The Royal Navy is already numerically smaller then the French Navy (for the first time since 1776, and see how that worked out!) and will be getting smaller still.
4) The RAF will loose people and planes, including a long-range patrol capability and some older utility aircraft.
5) The British Army managed to dodge most of the bullet, but 40% of its tanks will be mothballed and by 2020 the British Army will be out of Germany.
Basically, the current British government has decided that overseas power projection is too expensive. They will be able to support ground operations in places like Afghanistan, where they don't have to fight their way in, but that's about it.
I don't know if I agree with the plan or not, but if you're serious about cost-cutting, these are the kind of decisions you need to make, or at least seriously consider. It's exactly this kind of seriousness that I don't see out of the Tea Party. I also note that American conservatives tend to applaud the election of conservatives in other countries. I assume that they think all conservatives are alike. Apparently not.
1) The Royal Navy's flagship aircraft carrier, Ark Royal, will be decommissioned immediately. The other aircraft carrier, Illustrious, stays, but with the retirement of all Harrier jump-jets, she'll have no fixed-wing capability.
2) They will keep building the two new Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers (too expensive to buy out the contracts), but will only operate one of them at a time. The carriers will both have catapult and arrester gear for the new F-35C (not the jump-jet B version). The first carrier won't be commissioned until around 2020.
3) The Royal Navy will also see 4 frigates decommissioned immediately, and several other belt-tightening measures. The Royal Navy is already numerically smaller then the French Navy (for the first time since 1776, and see how that worked out!) and will be getting smaller still.
4) The RAF will loose people and planes, including a long-range patrol capability and some older utility aircraft.
5) The British Army managed to dodge most of the bullet, but 40% of its tanks will be mothballed and by 2020 the British Army will be out of Germany.
Basically, the current British government has decided that overseas power projection is too expensive. They will be able to support ground operations in places like Afghanistan, where they don't have to fight their way in, but that's about it.
I don't know if I agree with the plan or not, but if you're serious about cost-cutting, these are the kind of decisions you need to make, or at least seriously consider. It's exactly this kind of seriousness that I don't see out of the Tea Party. I also note that American conservatives tend to applaud the election of conservatives in other countries. I assume that they think all conservatives are alike. Apparently not.
