If ever there was a case for a House of Commons motion of no confidence in the Minister for Defence this, on top of a massive list of other charges, is it.
It seems that the only serious money being invested in our armed forces is for aircraft carriers for which we won't have a suitable aircraft, and eurofighter planes and nuclear submarines for fighting last century's battles. The only "justification" this waste is that the bulk of the expenditure supports jobs in constituencies close to the Prime Minister and the Defence Minister where they need to buy votes from the SNP to stay in government.
If HM opposition wish to use it's newly found strength to hold this government to account this is surely the biggest target in town. Can't be blamed on evil foreign bankers or greedy oil states. It's a "made at home" scandle.
"it will still basically be a converted Comet, which first took to the skies in 1949"
The yanks still have lots of 707 airframes happily doing duty as AWACS and tankers - 1958 vintage at least, so please don't knock what is basically a Comet 4 (rather different from the Comet 1). We have even got a Vulcan back in the air and signed off against civilian safety rules for airshow displays.
Considerable discussion about this on R4 Today, showing that some significant changes to both the aircraft and operating procedures have occurred recently, but there is more that they could do increase safety.
Commenting by HaloScan
