Posted on 10/19/2010 1:58:33 PM PDT by george76
David Cameron has pledged that Britain would remain a "front rank" military power as he sought to reassure service personnel over cuts to the defence budget.
The Prime Minister admitted that some "difficult" decisions had been made in preparation for the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) as he addressed staff at the operations headquarters for the armed forces.
The Prime Minister is set to announce that the Royal Navy's flagship HMS Ark Royal and her fleet of Harrier jets are to be scrapped immediately when he unveils the SDSR later.
One Harrier jet pilot, Royal Navy Lieutenant Commander Kris Ward, 37, said: "I am a Harrier pilot and I have flown 140 odd missions in Afghanistan, and I am now potentially facing unemployment. How am I supposed to feel about that, please, sir?"
Mr Cameron thanked Lt Cdr Ward for "everything" he had done for his country.
(Excerpt) Read more at uk.news.yahoo.com ...
of the British Isles.
Lady Thatcher admitted to hospital
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/21/20101019/tuk-lady-thatcher-admitted-to-hospital-6323e80.html
Not with an ever growing welfare state it won’t.
With a growing percentage of the population that believes it is their right to apply for and be granted public assistance to support their ever growing family regardless of the expense to the tax paying public. Eventually the back of the tax payer will be broken and the system will collapse.
You can not have guns and butter in limitless amounts.
The British are done. There are only what? 50 Million of them. Nice run they had though.
If they wise up and elect a conservative government that embraces capitalist economics and welfare reform they can reverse course.
No doubt they will suffer the pangs of reform such as the French are enduring. But it is that or be irrelevent and eventually become truly Britanistan.
rue, Britannia
Yep, we are done.
Just as we were done in 1815, 1914, 1940, 1979 and 1982.
You were done in 1956, actually.
There will always be an England!
Sorry, but the Brits gave up on having a world class military in the 70’s.
They barely managed to scrape by in the Falklands, after being topped off by the U.S. and by using what was left of their deteriorating equipment. Sad indeed for a country that once ruled the waves in every ocean on earth. But the Nanny State must be paid.
Yeah, but just look at what the got back in return...
Never mind. We're on the same track.
I saw recently that the Royal Navy now has fewer ships than the Japanese “self defense force”.
Of course, our Navy apparently has fewer ships than at any time since 1916.
Scary.
Yeah, and who stabbed us in the back?.....
The same might soon be said of the USA.
Good and bad as encapsulated in the poem I posted. But they weren't invaded in WWI or WWII and until they gave up on it, they had a thriving world trade, well after the end of colonialism.
All I can say is that they’re lucky they still have the English Channel.
I was just trying to say Great Britain got nothing back in return for their massive nanny state - nothing at all. As you said, "the Nanny State must be paid" until it consumes all, leaving a hollow shell of a once-great nation.
You didn’t have any more Caribbean Islands to give us, sorry.
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