Glad this is finally being used. It's not dirty, it's not playing politics, it's a bloody fact.
General Election 2017 | Cabinet reshuffle: Hunt re-appointed Health Secretary for record third time
- Thread starter altodevil
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A window into the company you keep, and little more.
I know plenty of voters of all kinds, lifelong tory voters, even a couple of ukippers. I can't imagine and insular world of such strict viewpoints, must be dull as feck.
Steve Hilton ffs.
Understood. Thanks guys.
There is more to the political landscape than than Labour. You retorted with a lot of nonsense from what was an innocent and mild remark. I believe there was a discussion about this sort of mindset among Corbyn loyalists yesterday.
We have four vanguard class submarines built between 1986 and 1998. These are due to be replaced. Every year they remain in operation costs money to extend their lives (some are slightly newer than others).
Each Vanguard Submarine can take up to 16 US made Lockheed Trident II missiles (although the actual operating number might be fewer). Each missile can take up to 12 warheads and each warhead can strike a separate target, possibly hundreds or thousands of miles apart.
16 missiles, 12 warheads is 192 separate targets. Each warhead I believe has around 4 times the power of the Hiroshima bomb (from memory). The warheads and missiles are 100% maintained by the United States, although they do not require US codes to be detonated.
Clearly each Submarine has the power to totally annihilate an enemy state, and that is the point.
Trident is by design, a "second strike" weapon. If you wipe us out, we will wipe you out. The UK Prime Minister gives each submarine commander a letter telling them what to do in the event the UK is wiped out; nothing, join an allied state, if there is one, or retaliate. The UK does not have tactical nuclear weapons (nuclear weapons to be used on the battlefield), so Piers Morgan's suggested that we should Nuke ISIS is stupid (if we needed to, we would ask the US to do it).
In general I believe that Trident makes the use of Nuclear Weapons less likely, just as it is designed to do as Nuclear Deterrent. Deterrent. Noun. a thing that discourages or is intended to discourage someone from doing something.
However there are problems with Trident:
- Are our enemies able to track our submarines?
- Have they hacked them or installed some sort of secret kill-switch?
- All our submarines need to birth every few years. Taking them out whilst docked would be trivial.
- The lack of Nuclear Launch codes makes a warhead going off whilst being maintained, or in another situation, more likely.
- Our missiles and warheads are made by the US. Maybe they too have installed a kill switch, or maybe there is a flaw in the design (see firing the wrong way recently).
- If we elected a Trump/Nixon type figure, would he authorize their use unnecessarily (Deference Secretary Michael Fallon recently spoke about using them).
- Arguably, the biggest threat from Nuclear Weapons isn't from Iran, North Korea or Russian strike... but from a "sum of all fears" scenario where terrorists of rogue national agents simply walk a nuclear weapon into one of our cities. Indeed, realistically, it would actually be stupid for a foreign country to fire nuclear weapons at another country these days. Just walk them in on a lorry....
To add to this, Australia are not part of NATO, have no official protection from the Nuclear Umbrella (unofficially maybe they do), they often supply troops to fight wars in the middle east... And they have not been nuked. Does trident really provide useful protection in the 21st century?
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How is this possible? What bubble do you live in?
I know people voting for every major party in the UK and then some.
What an odd reply. You said all you know is one outlook, I replied I associate daily with friends of all outlooks, disagreeing politically does not mean I don't like someone.
And your response is to tell me their is more than one outlook?
It makes absolutely no sense, at all.
Paraphrased from Neil Kinnock's speech:
If Theresa May wins on Thursday, I warn you not to be ordinary. I warn you not to be young. I warn you not to fall ill. And I warn you not to grow old.
If Theresa May wins on Thursday, I warn you not to be ordinary. I warn you not to be young. I warn you not to fall ill. And I warn you not to grow old.
He is already vulnerable on those points. Tory pollsters are going around houses bringing up the IRA. He needs to strike back. As it stood this terror attack was going to give the Torries an easy win.
The police cuts gives him an angle to throw the soft on terror back at her.
It won't work with everyone but some will accept his argument.
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Guardian: Here are some more lines from Jeremy Corbyn’s inteview with ITV news.
On the issues of policing - the Government has been warned repeatedly about police cuts, and the Police Federation and many others (have said) how 20,000 have gone down over the past seven years.
We’ve said we’d put 10,000 back immediately and also increase the number of security officers that are available, because clearly intelligence is a very important part of this."
As far as I am concerned the police act, as they did on Saturday, as they did in Manchester, in defence of innocent life. That is a reasonable and proportionate response, as happened in Westminster."
- Corbyn criticised the government for cutting police numbers - but declined to say that that made Theresa May to some extent responsible for what happened on Saturday night. Asked if he held May “in any way” responsible and if the cuts to the police contributed to the London Bridge atrocity, he replied:
On the issues of policing - the Government has been warned repeatedly about police cuts, and the Police Federation and many others (have said) how 20,000 have gone down over the past seven years.
We’ve said we’d put 10,000 back immediately and also increase the number of security officers that are available, because clearly intelligence is a very important part of this."
- He denied ever opposing police being allowed to operate a “shoot-to-kill” policy when lives are at risk. The Tories have repeated accused Corbyn of opposing “shoot-to-kill”, on the basis of an interview he gave to the BBC in 2015, and May raised this claim again in her speech and Q&A this morning. But Corbyn said that his comments had been taken out of context and that the BBC Trust concluded that the BBC report did not accurately report what he meant. He said:
As far as I am concerned the police act, as they did on Saturday, as they did in Manchester, in defence of innocent life. That is a reasonable and proportionate response, as happened in Westminster."
I'm quite the opposite. All of my friends I have spoken to about politics are voting Labour. Even at work, the few I have heard speak on politics hint at voting Labour. I even looked on the facebook of a lad who I went to school with who was typically anti left wing and vocal with his support of the Tories and this guy is sharing pro Labour stuff to my surprise.
The only people I personally know that are voting Tory are my parents and sister.
There are areas of the country where Labour is practically nonexistent.
Because i don't know any Labour voters i live an insular world of strict viewpoints? No consideration that there are other political persuasions, or that Labour could, quite justifiably, be unpopular locally.
Perfect. Well, I guess he could have randomly mentioned Saudi Arabia mid sentence so they'd be forced to run with it.
Not really, unless he is in Northern Ireland.
Im in Kent, i think Nick is too (maybe).
95% of signs around here are supporting the conservatives (its sickening). But i still know many Labour voters and Green voters and UKIP and Lib Dem voters and no voters
What was the voting results from your consitiency like in 2015 (roughly)
Ok I know Labour voters in Kent. There are areas that are pretty much a straight fight between Leb Dems and Tory though. Some areas in the south west for instance.
Why are we grilling Nick on this exactly? Pretty sure there's been people that say they don't know any Tory voters in here before now, it's not that weird.
I guess so. Maybe you're right.
I know everyone from the left to the far left.
In North Cornwall Labour only got 5% of the vote.
Good post, although I'd say your final question is only asked because allies of ours (and of Australia) maintain their nuclear arsenals. Any nuclear attack on a western-aligned state results in nuclear retaliation, we certainly wouldn't sit back and watch Australia turned from a sun baked wasteland into a radioactive wasteland. I think in the face of a newly aggressive Russia this is exactly the wrong time to be considering getting rid of our nuclear deterrant. In an ideal world there are many, MANY things we would rather spend the money on, but this isn't the time. Things are getting hot again, and nuclear isn't something you can just quickly make again if you suddenly need it.We have four built vanguard class submarines between 1986 and 1998. These are due to be replaced. Every year they remain in operation costs money to extend their lives (some are slightly newer than others).
Each Vanguard Submarine can take up to 16 US made Lockheed Trident II missile (although actual operating number might be less). Each missile can take up to 12 warheads and each warhead can strike a separate target, possibly hundreds or thousands of miles apart.
16 missiles, 12 warheads is 192 separate targets. Each warhead I believe has around 4 times the power of the Hiroshima bomb (from memory). The warheads and missiles are 100% maintained by the United States, although they do not require US codes to be detonated.
Clearly each Submarine has the power to totally annihilate an enemy state, and that is the point.
Trident is by design, a "second strike" weapon. If you wipe us out, we will wipe you out. The UK Prime Minister gives each submarine commander a letter telling them what to do in the event the UK is wiped out; nothing, join an allied state, if there is one, or retaliate. The UK does not have tactical nuclear weapons (nuclear weapons to be used on the battlefield), so Piers Morgan's suggested that we should Nuke ISIS is stupid (if we needed to, we would ask the US to do it).
In general I believe that Trident makes the use of Nuclear Weapons less likely, just as it is designed to do as Nuclear Deterrent. Deterrent. Noun. a thing that discourages or is intended to discourage someone from doing something.
However there are problems with Trident:
Trident costs around 0.1% of GDP. Our Foreign Aid budget is 0.7% and NATO minimum Defense budget is 2%
- Are our enemies able to track our submarines?
- Have they hacked them or installed some sort of secret kill-switch?
- All our submarines need to birth every few years. Taking them out whilst docked would be trivial.
- The lack of Nuclear Launch codes makes a warhead going off whilst being maintained, or in another situation, more likely.
- Our missiles and warheads are made by the US. Maybe they too have installed a kill switch, or maybe there is a flaw in the design (see firing the wrong way recently).
- If we elected a Trump/Nixon type figure, would he authorize their use unnecessarily (Deference Secretary Michael Fallon recently spoke about using them).
- Arguably, the biggest threat from Nuclear Weapons isn't from Iran, North Korea or Russian strike... but from a "sum of all fears" scenario where terrorists of rogue national agents simply walk a nuclear weapon into one of our cities. Indeed, realistically, it would actually be stupid for a foreign country to fire nuclear weapons at another country these days. Just walk them in on a lorry....
To add to this, Australia are not part of NATO, have no official protection from the Nuclear Umbrella (unofficially maybe they do), they often supply troops to fight wars in the middle east... And they have not been nuked. Does trident really provide useful protection in the 21st century?
Of course, it's just a coincidence that Jeremy Corbyn is known to be an Arsenal fan...
'We Are Not Afraid' 'Face of Fear' 
North London actually, although i'm keeping my eye out for an apartment which could be elsewhere in the capital. An aunt did used to be a very diligent Labour councillor, although i've not seen her in some months so don't know her position this time. There are some Lib Dems and UKIP most likely, just not much in the way of Labour.
Two of defining policy areas for my parents are transport and healthcare. The causes of which haven't necessarily originated with Corbyn himself, rather the wider party.
If i ultimately vote Tory it'll be down to three things in particular: Brexit, the economy, local politics.
Indeed. I think our Nuclear Deterrent treads the line of being barely adequate though (although so barely adequate it's difficult to cut). Its not hard to envision a scenario where we lose access to it.
And that's where the argument falls flat. We dont live in a bubble. We aren't North Korea. Our Nuclear Deterrent forms protection only when combined with that of our NATO colleagues, primarily the USA. Our Generals and Commanders arent sitting around a table going "right, imagine the US dont exist for a moment"....
What the Nuclear Detterent does or should do, is make global Nuclear Warfare less likely. It pushes the Nuclear balance towards the "no-win" scenario in a safe way. But sadly the public never debate the merits of that. It's all "would you nuke ISIS or not?!"
There are arguments to be made for and against renewing Trident, but I'm not sure "Australia hasn't been nuked and they don't even have nuclear weapons" is the most compelling.
Where abouts do you live Nick?
The Conservative incumbent got around 50% of vote share as i recall. I didn't vote for him on that occasion, but Heidi Allen seems to like him and i respect her above many current MPs.
Indeed. There's also a real conversation that needs to be had about Britain's position in the world. It's fashionable for people to say 'We're a small country, we should accept that', but our oversized diplomatic prestige and place on the security council provides a lot of benefits for the country both economic and political. Getting rid of our nukes almost certainly means losing a lot of influence and in the long term, money. If that's what people decide we should do then fine, but it should be discussed as a whole package and the consequences clearly put forward.
The biggest argument against it is that it is highly likely that by the time our subs are actually built, underwater drone tech will be at the point they can be tracked and destroyed at will.
"Highly likely" is a huge exaggeration.
Just don't say that to any military/trident/submarine experts as they'll laugh in your face.It's funny watching each side exploit what happened over the weekend and then be outraged at the other side exploiting what happened over the weekend.
Social media full of lefties and right-wingers complaining that exploiting the attack is outrageous and instead insist the real issue is cuts in police numbers/the other side being soft on terrorism.
Social media full of lefties and right-wingers complaining that exploiting the attack is outrageous and instead insist the real issue is cuts in police numbers/the other side being soft on terrorism.
Erm, do you know about some underwater tech development that we dont?
I dont know. Everyone is building and developing marine and submarine drones.
That's not something ive thought about, but there is probably the real prospect of thousands of these drones looking for nuclear submarines.
Not sure highly likely is thay far off
I'm all for tearing Theresa May to shreds in whatever form it takes.
http://www.alphr.com/the-future/1003587/the-submarine-drones-that-could-depower-tridentErm, do you know about some underwater tech development that we dont?
https://www.rt.com/news/359648-underwater-drone-nuclear-subs/
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-adv-underwater-drones-20160722-snap-story.html
Last one is least relevant