tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post4994446496049790548..comments2024-03-27T09:14:27.496+00:00Comments on All That Is Solid ...: The Decadence of BAE SystemsPhilhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-17612348738001973962013-11-25T12:39:05.678+00:002013-11-25T12:39:05.678+00:00Three Brazilian warships manufactured this year by...<em>Three Brazilian warships manufactured this year by BAE Systems, two partly and one wholly in Portsmouth. Not bad for a company that cannot compete</em><br /><br />You wouldn't want to rely too hard on that - there are another three swinging around a buoy in Belfast for years because the customer refuses to take delivery with a list of engineering change requests as long as your arm, and I've heard bad things about the three Khareef ships for Oman.<br /><br />Part of the story is that VT used to be rather good at exporting small ships but the (Labour) government allowed BAE to eated them through a long chain of developments I probably need to blog about.<br /><br />Also, as you probably know, the hundreds of years of tradition ended in about 1966 with the last of the admiralty-built Leanders and resumed as recently as 2002 with the ironically named HMS <em>Clyde</em>.Alexhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17153530634675543954noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-513702985433948512013-11-12T10:51:52.972+00:002013-11-12T10:51:52.972+00:00Jolly good show. A sensible response IMO.Jolly good show. A sensible response IMO.Philhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06298147857234479278noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-51329067638868587692013-11-11T12:32:35.358+00:002013-11-11T12:32:35.358+00:00Interesting article, thanks Phil.
Speaking for Po...Interesting article, thanks Phil.<br /><br />Speaking for Portsmouth Socialist Party Branch, we are supporting the BAE workers. We've not declared that they're in the 'wrong jobs.' Indeed both Socialist Party, Socialist Students and SWP comrades were at the 200 strong rally on saturday and both organisations are supporting GMB/Unite members via the Trades Council.<br /><br />Naturally, we're calling for the yard to be taken under public ownership, with BAE technology being deployed for socially useful maritime projects. (So, we're not 'Trotskyists for Aircraft Carriers' either!)<br /><br />There will be a second, and we anticipate larger, demo this saturday (16 Nov 12pm, Trafalgar Gate, Portsmouth Dockyard.)<br /> Ben Normanhttp://www.socialistportsmouth.co.uknoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-41355898628706163422013-11-08T14:53:59.342+00:002013-11-08T14:53:59.342+00:00"Tory MP Caroline Dineage said English jobs w..."Tory MP Caroline Dineage said English jobs were being sacrificed for Scottish jobs as a filip to the Better Together campaign ahead of next autumn's independence referendum"<br /><br />Eh no.Unusually for a statement by a Tory that's very probably true.Pork barrel politics and Defence Procurement are essentially the same thing. <br /><br />The Govan Yard is only still there because of massive political efforts over the years by succesive politicians - John Reid when he was Scottish Secretary to get them MoD ferry work being the most high profile intervention.<br /><br />And in this context (that of consigning one lot of workers to the scrapheap because it's politically expedient to save another group) people should remember the early 90's when there were mass redundancies at Rosyth Naval Dockyard in Fife when the Trident Maintenance contract was, with very little commercial or industrial logic, given to Devonport instead. <br /><br />The then Tory Government had little reason bother with Fife but the SW of England had several Tory/ Lib Dem marginals.<br /><br />That's also the reason that (again) despite being said by a Lib Dem, Alastair Carmichael is also correct to suggest that if Scots decide to vote for Alex Salmonds low corporation tax wonderland next year... the chances of the rUK Government deciding to send humpty dumty billions of pounds worth of MoD money and thousands of high paying jobs abroad ( ie to Glasgow) will be minimal. What minister would want to announce that?Stephennoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4486641877026778105.post-24760502959134019842013-11-07T22:00:58.171+00:002013-11-07T22:00:58.171+00:00This Government hates the Armed Forces, and it mai...This Government hates the Armed Forces, and it maintains Trident as a cover for the fact that this island nation will soon have almost no navy. The Royal Navy was the mightiest in the world long before nuclear weapons were imagined.<br /><br />This Government hates Britain, ending 800 years of shipbuilding in England, 500 of them at the oldest dry dock in the world, the one at Portsmouth.<br /><br />Of course no contracts would go to the Clyde if Scotland became independent. That is a statement of the blatantly obvious. But it ought still to be written into the contracts themselves: that they would be void in that event.<br /><br />Defence procurement is an integral part of defence. Bring it all in-house or, to a BAE restored as the publicly owned monopoly supplier to our own Armed Forces, accompanied by a total ban on the sale of arms abroad and the use of government action to preserve the skills base while diverting its application to other uses.David Lindsayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06839882674758833524noreply@blogger.com