ShipSpotting.com Forum
Shipspotters all over the world => Shipping News and information => Topic started by: Steve Wright on January 08, 2007, 10:15:56 PM
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If anyone has an interest in the Royal Navy, please add your names to this official petition against the destruction of our once mighty Navy by this Labour Government. Napoleon and Hitler may have failed in the past but, Tony Blair has so far, succeded.
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/savethenavy/
Cheers
Steve Wright
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Thanks for bringing this to our attention.
It is disgusting that the Royal Navy should be treated this way.
Not wanting to be disparaging to our european neighbours but if Tony Blair is thinking that France and Germany and other near NATO countries will stand by us in the event of war he should think again. I'm just glad that the American's around. They're the only country who have really stood by us.
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I'm with you there.......Uncle Sam is always with us and they have one fantastic, powerful Navy which I believe, they are increasing the size of their fleet. If only our politicians had the same outlook!!!
Cheers
Steve
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Steve,
I don't think we should have politics here but, as you raised it:
This shrinking of the RN and the other services began under a Tory government.
See "Options for change" (1991) and "Front line first" (1994).
It was under these plans that Rosyth suffered what may be happening to Pompey.
One lot is the same as the other.
Kelvin
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I think it's a most worthy cause !! The sooner TB realises that his consituancy, as well as the rest of the Country, are fed up & p****d off with the depletion of the UK armed forces, the better !!
How can you justify mothballing half of the RN fleet when it is operating at a bare minimum in the first place ?
22 ships to protect the UK's interest is pants !!!
If anyone has thought of voting BNP, Mr Blair is now giving you the opportunity to go ahead and show your colours ! Whether you like it or not !!!!!!!!!
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Kelvin
I know pretty well most politicians are as bad as each other but, Labour have gone too far this time. The Tories in options for change were downsizing (even though I don't agree as we need a large fleet to protect our interests) due to the end of the cold war. Wasn't it Labour who cancelled CVA 01 back in the 60's? They just seem to despise our armed forces. I'm not too up on the army, so to speak but, the amount of Bases that the RAF have lost/ are about to loose aswell is shocking. It just doesn't make sense. I shall not go into where all of our hard earned taxes are going!!!
Steve
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I'm a merchant seaman by trade and spent some 30 years at sea. Why is this is important - do you need to know that? No - but you do need to know that under the original Royal charter awarded to the Navy their primary role was stated as to 'protect the merchant fleet'. The role of protection of the country from insurgents comes way down the list of duties.
We no longer have a merchant fleet of any size and so politicians, of any persuasion, can argue for cost cutting and downsizing with relative impunity. In short, we have so few merchant vessels registered under the British flag that they could probably get away with two frigates and one squad of bootnecks.
Another observation which many people, even within the RN, did not realise was that under 'Options for change' the First Sea Lord wanted to cut a side from the triangle of command rather than cutting out a layer (I was a civilian working with the RN at the time). This would have had the effect of maintaining effective chain of command and also of maintaining the correct of proportion (or number) of bodies in the correct rank or rate. Sadly he was over-ruled on this by General Staff and we ended up with a number of thin layers being removed which, within 2 years, saw the RN without any qualified navigators, precious few WO1's and even fewer reliable killicks - So it's not always the politicians to blame!
Nick
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I do agree that the further reduction in the RN is a bad idea and have signed the petition.
But no more politics please.
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Duly signed.
As a moderator of this forum, I have to echo what Alan (Eurag) has said and ask that no more politics get discussed or aired here - even if I do agree with the sentiments on show! Any further posts with political content will be edited or deleted (sorry!).
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No more Politics from me......sorry guys, but it just angers me.
Back to a bit of Photography!!!
Regards
Steve
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Might want to have a look at this website also.
http://www.uknda.org/index.php