Should Corbyn join RailUKforums?

As the most recent Corbyn thread, I figured I would post this in here:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-35337432

Or to highlight the 2 most interesting things that he talked about:

Jeremy Corbyn has suggested the UK could keep its Trident submarine fleet but without carrying nuclear warheads.
The Labour leader told the Andrew Marr show that protecting defence jobs was his "first priority" and there were "options" for doing this while taking a lead in global nuclear "de-escalation".

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and

The UK and Argentina should discuss the future of the Falkland Islands while respecting residents' right to stay

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So not only does he want to get rid of the 'bite' of trident, but wants to do so whilst keeping all the vast majority of the costs, but he also wants to discuss the Falklands, despite the recent unanimous vote in which they decided they wanted to remain a British Territory. I do fear for a massive Conservative majority in 2020.

Domh245 said:

So not only does he want to get rid of the 'bite' of trident, but wants to do so whilst keeping all the vast majority of the costs

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Quite. I'll happily argue the position that Trident is a relic from the cold war that we shouldn't have any more. I could argue the position that Trident is an essential part of our security. But to keep some submarines for no reason other than a "make work" policy is a policy I'd expect from the Monster Raving Loonies.

If you want to employ people, fine, but do it like FDR with the new deal, and get them building infrastructure, or parks, or something tangible.

The solution for Corbyn's trident problem is simply to devolve the decision to the Scottish Parliament. If they want to shut trident down, losing those jobs, that's an SNP policy. Then you give power to the people, and say any coastal town with a port can take it, as long as a referendum of town residents agrees.

but he also wants to discuss the Falklands, despite the recent unanimous vote in which they decided they wanted to remain a British Territory. I do fear for a massive Conservative majority in 2020.

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As long as the discussion is "Stop distracting your population from real economic policies and leave people who have lived there for 250 years alone. Besides the oil is pretty much worthless now."

Although on the other hand, do the Falkland Islanders pay UK tax? It costs a lot of money to defend it. Full independence for the Falklands, and a membership of NATO?

I think what we do is simply agree to tell everyone we went ahead with Trident and just pretend, thus still retaining a deterrent without spending anything.

Oops, probably ought to delete this post or I'll give the game away!

jonmorris0844 said:

I think what we do is simply agree to tell everyone we went ahead with Trident and just pretend, thus still retaining a deterrent without spending anything.

Oops, probably ought to delete this post or I'll give the game away!

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Ah yes, the old Yes Prime Minister:

Sir Humphrey: With Trident we could obliterate the whole of Eastern Europe.
Hacker: I don't want to obliterate the whole of Eastern Europe.
Sir Humphrey: But it's a deterrent.
Hacker: It's a bluff. I probably wouldn't use it.
Sir Humphrey: Yes, but they don't know that you probably wouldn't.
Hacker: They probably do.
Sir Humphrey: Yes, they probably know that you probably wouldn't. But they can't certainly know.
Hacker: They probably certainly know that I probably wouldn't.
Sir Humphrey: Yes, but even though they probably certainly know that you probably wouldn't, they don't certainly know that although you probably wouldn't, there is no probability that you certainly would!

paulweaver said:

But to keep some submarines for no reason other than a "make work" policy is a policy I'd expect from the Monster Raving Loonies.

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Come on its only half a million or so quid per job saved. Think it would be cheaper to keep them on full pay to not build it. :roll:

What would the type of conventional warheads be these days. Incidentally, do Cruise missiles need anything special in submarine launches in the Trident existing fleet.

Paul Sidorczuk said:

What would the type of conventional warheads be these days.

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Fox News.

Jeremy Corbyn has suggested the UK could keep its Trident submarine fleet but without carrying nuclear warheads.

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Are not the submarines themselves getting life expired?

Peter Mugridge said:

Are not the submarines themselves getting life expired?

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Get rid of them too, and just pay everyone to sit at home! Sorted.

(apologies if I've just ruined his next speech)

Paul Sidorczuk said:

What would the type of conventional warheads be these days. Incidentally, do Cruise missiles need anything special in submarine launches in the Trident existing fleet.

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You could probably launch them from the torpedo tubes reasonably easily as that's the way it's done on the attack submarines. But to do so from the Trident missile tubes would require an expensive and complex refit. There are no conventional warheads available for Trident missiles. The US considered it for a while but decided that the risk of mistaking a conventional Trident launch for a nuclear Trident launch was too great.

Peter Mugridge said:

Are not the submarines themselves getting life expired?

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Yes, replacement should have started in 2024 but this has been pushed back to 2028 and most likely all four Vanguard submarines are going to require additional work to keep them going that long.

More generally it is worth remembering when discussing 'Trident renewal' what we're actually talking about is building a new generation of ballistic missile submarine. The Trident missiles themselves are going to be in service until the early 2040s whilst the warheads should also be capable of being life extended out to that date as well.

It is also worth remembering that when discussing 'jobs' there are also two distinct streams of work involved in this. The first is the jobs involved in the maintenance and operation of the missiles and warheads. Those are primarily the people at the Atomic Weapons Establishment in Aldermaston and Burghfield as well as those at Royal Naval Armament Depot Coulport (where the missiles and warheads are installed on the submarines) and some of those at Faslane itself.

The second stream are those involved in the building and design of submarines of any type which include people in Barrow at the shipyard, a sub-division of Rolls Royce who design and build the reactors as well as dozens of other contractors around the UK.

If you decide to decommission nuclear weapons then the first (and smaller) stream of jobs will be lost over the following decade as the facilities and weapons are decommissioned. But the second would be safe as long as a decision was made to continue to build submarines. That could either be a redesigned ballistic missile submarine (to carry cruise missiles for example) or more attack submarines.

The second stream would only be lost if it was decided to decommission Trident and also to not build any submarines until the Astute class are due for replacement in the 2030s. There's no way the skills and knowledge involved would survive a gap in production of that length. They barely survived a gap of seven or eight years in the mid/late-90s and early-00s and we had to get Electric Boat from the US in to get us back up and running.

From this announcement my gamble is that Corbyn has decided to ditch Trident and nuclear weapons but keep, in the short term, the Vanguard submarines and long term to continue to procure the 'Successor' submarines. Not necessarily a bad thing (though I am pro-Trident so not my preferred option) but only if the 'Successor' submarines are then built to do something like being a cruise missile platform. That would enable him to achieve his goal of ending our position as a nuclear weapon state but keep the jobs involved in submarine construction and maintenance safe.

Regarding jobs the government could divert funds to another sector which could finish up creating more jobs than Trident renewal would have.

Costa Rica has the fastest growing economy in Latin America (and has been for the past 25 years.) One of the main reasons for that is the country have decided to abolish it's army meaning the government have more to spend in other areas. I'm not saying Britain should do that but it puts in to prospective how much of a difference can be made by reducing military spending.

Paul Sidorczuk said:

What would the type of conventional warheads be these days. Incidentally, do Cruise missiles need anything special in submarine launches in the Trident existing fleet.

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I think the attack submarine chaps might get a bit uppity about loosing one of their jobs

I think we need Trident, I know that isn't popular, I know that CERTAINLY isn't popular with my fellow Labour types but it is my view. I feel they play a part in keeping us safe, perhaps more so than ever in the unstable world in which we live.

ainsworth74 said:

From this announcement my gamble is that Corbyn has decided to ditch Trident and nuclear weapons but keep, in the short term, the Vanguard submarines and long term to continue to procure the 'Successor' submarines. Not necessarily a bad thing (though I am pro-Trident so not my preferred option) but only if the 'Successor' submarines are then built to do something like being a cruise missile platform. That would enable him to achieve his goal of ending our position as a nuclear weapon state but keep the jobs involved in submarine construction and maintenance safe.

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I guess an obvious question would then be, what military purpose would these submarines serve without their nuclear warheads? Is there a good strategic reason why having them would still be a good idea? Whether Corbyn's idea is sensible and justifiable or simply amounts to an expensive subsidy for unproductive employment would presumably depend on the answer to that question.

Is it true that when the subs are near life expired, they'll be cascaded to Northern Rail?

DynamicSpirit said:

I guess an obvious question would then be, what military purpose would these submarines serve without their nuclear warheads? Is there a good strategic reason why having them would still be a good idea? Whether Corbyn's idea is sensible and justifiable or simply amounts to an expensive subsidy for unproductive employment would presumably depend on the answer to that question.

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Just keeping them with no changes then really they wouldn't serve much of a military purpose. SSBNs are not really ideally suited to carrying out SSN missions like hunting down other submarines, attacking surface ships, sneaking into places where they shouldn't be and so on.

However they could be modified into cruise missile carrying submarines (SSGNs) and also given better capabilities to support special forces. The US Navy took four of their Ohio class ballistic missile submarines and converted 22 of their 24 missile tubes to carry cruise missiles or storage for special forces equipment and the remaining two tubes into airlocks to allow easier entry and exit.

There is, of course, a cost to such a conversion and the design of the replacements would also need altering. Plus we'd need to order a lot more cruise missiles than we currently have in our stockpile.

If Corbyn's idea is just to keep the 4 Vanguards and build 3/4 Successor submarines with no alterations then really it's a waste of money which would be better spent on building more attack submarines. On the other hand if he intends to convert the existing boats and their replacements (and buy enough cruise missiles to make it worthwhile) then it would be a very useful capability to add to the toolbox.

jonmorris0844 said:

Is it true that when the subs are near life expired, they'll be cascaded to Northern Rail?

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It's supposed to be a secret that those will be used for Northern Powerhouse Rail (HS3) until after the next election.

jonmorris0844 said:

Is it true that when the subs are near life expired, they'll be cascaded to Northern Rail?

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Or perhaps we'll have pacers carrying nuclear warheads?

Peter Mugridge said:

Are not the submarines themselves getting life expired?

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I wonder if Adrian Shooter has a yet-to-be-announced "cunning plan" for those particular submarines...:roll::roll:

paulweaver said:

Or perhaps we'll have pacers carrying nuclear warheads?

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Good idea. Nobody would suspect the rusting Pacer in a siding is actually part of our national defence plan!

jonmorris0844 said:

Good idea. Nobody would suspect the rusting Pacer in a siding is actually part of our national defence plan!

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Iran already has rusting 141s sitting in sidings.

When a number of Shadow Cabinet Members resigned from their posts, didn't Jeremy Corbyn wonder why ? Didn't it occur to him that it must be something connected with his leadership and should do the honorable thing and stand down. No. Not at all. This distraction was right up his street giving him the opportunity to promote more of his left wing idealologists, pacifists etc., to the Shadow Cabinet.
A pacifist is deluded as, to succeed, everybody else in the world would have to be one.

PHILIPE said:

When a number of Shadow Cabinet Members resigned from their posts, didn't Jeremy Corbyn wonder why ? Didn't it occur to him that it must be something connected with his leadership and should do the honorable thing and stand down. No. Not at all. This distraction was right up his street giving him the opportunity to promote more of his left wing idealologists, pacifists etc., to the Shadow Cabinet.
A pacifist is deluded as, to succeed, everybody else in the world would have to be one.

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Without getting into the whys and wherefores of Corbyn's policies, which will be decided (and most likely trashed) in 2020, the majority of the labour membership elected him.

If people are resigning, then I'm sure Corbyn thought "why". I suspect he may have thought "they don't match what Labour members want". He didn't quite get a majority of party members, 49.59%, but I suspect had they gone into 2nd and 3rd preferences he would have picked up the extra 1007 votes. Once the trade union members got involved ("affiliated supporters") he wiped the floor.

This was under a system pushed by the Collins Report in 2014, a report that the left of the party didn't like: http://www.leftfutures.org/2014/02/eight-reasons-still-to-vote-against-the-collins-report/

The majority of labour supporters wanted Corbyn. It may be that the majority of the country don't, and he'll lose dramatically. Or he'll win dramatically, as (with the exception of the 2010 coalition), every post-war party that formed a government has had the majority of the country vote for someone against them.

However when you have a massive mandate from the members of your party, why would stepping down be anything other than dishonourable?

In the highly unlikely event Corbyn became PM, even with backing from people like Diane "Hypocritic" Abbot, and even if they flush many of the Blairites out, he'd find out just how little power the government really has, and would rapidly lose support from the public when things aren't fixed immediately, and he'd be replaced by a labour leadership election to avoid a vote of no confidence in the government.

However if the "unnamed general" that announced a coup against Corbyn in the Sunday Times actually exists, I'm glad to see that 91% of the country would not back this coup

An unnamed British army general told the Sunday Times newspaper last month that the Labour leader could face a “munity” from senior military officers, “by whatever means possible, fair or foul”.

But a YouGov poll found that only nine per cent of the population would be sympathetic to a coup if Mr Corbyn became Prime Minister.

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paulweaver said:

Without getting into the whys and wherefores of Corbyn's policies, which will be decided (and most likely trashed) in 2020, the majority of the labour membership elected him.

If people are resigning, then I'm sure Corbyn thought "why". I suspect he may have thought "they don't match what Labour members want". He didn't quite get a majority of party members, 49.59%, but I suspect had they gone into 2nd and 3rd preferences he would have picked up the extra 1007 votes. Once the trade union members got involved ("affiliated supporters") he wiped the floor.

This was under a system pushed by the Collins Report in 2014, a report that the left of the party didn't like: http://www.leftfutures.org/2014/02/eight-reasons-still-to-vote-against-the-collins-report/

The majority of labour supporters wanted Corbyn. It may be that the majority of the country don't, and he'll lose dramatically. Or he'll win dramatically, as (with the exception of the 2010 coalition), every post-war party that formed a government has had the majority of the country vote for someone against them.

However when you have a massive mandate from the members of your party, why would stepping down be anything other than dishonourable?

In the highly unlikely event Corbyn became PM, even with backing from people like Diane "Hypocritic" Abbot, and even if they flush many of the Blairites out, he'd find out just how little power the government really has, and would rapidly lose support from the public when things aren't fixed immediately, and he'd be replaced by a labour leadership election to avoid a vote of no confidence in the government.

However if the "unnamed general" that announced a coup against Corbyn in the Sunday Times actually exists, I'm glad to see that 91% of the country would not back this coup

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Many people in the military have been in it since they left education and don't really understand the outside world (Much like we don't understand theirs). In my line of work if I got a bonus for every time I heard "If I was on civvy street/in a council house etc. etc. this would have been sorted by now" I wouldn't have to go to work. They are massively wrong but I am not allowed to tell them this.

paulweaver said:

However if the "unnamed general" that announced a coup against Corbyn in the Sunday Times actually exists, I'm glad to see that 91% of the country would not back this coup

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And why would anyone take notice of a YouGov poll, these people have already proved they are incapable of judging public feeling. How many actual people did they poll ?, a couple of hundred under 30s again ? Their figures are worthless and could be 9%, 19% or 90%

Should we also take any interest in a newspaper that can't even spell mutiny ?

PHILIPE said:

When a number of Shadow Cabinet Members resigned from their posts, didn't Jeremy Corbyn wonder why ? Didn't it occur to him that it must be something connected with his leadership and should do the honorable thing and stand down. No. Not at all. This distraction was right up his street giving him the opportunity to promote more of his left wing idealologists, pacifists etc., to the Shadow Cabinet.
A pacifist is deluded as, to succeed, everybody else in the world would have to be one.

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I actually feel a bit sorry for the Labour Party, they used to have some credibility with some reasonable policies and made a good opposition party. Corbyn seems hell bent on inflicting his left wing ideology on the party.

And I used to think Ed Milliband was a leftie!

ExRes said:

And why would anyone take notice of a YouGov poll, these people have already proved they are incapable of judging public feeling. How many actual people did they poll ?, a couple of hundred under 30s again ? Their figures are worthless and could be 9%, 19% or 90%

Should we also take any interest in a newspaper that can't even spell mutiny ?

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Although it's in a quote, maybe it's accurate?

Oh how I miss the days of editing. Or spell checks.

I assume you're saying that the majority of the population would back a military coup against a democratically elected government? Interesting.
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devon_metro said:

I actually feel a bit sorry for the Labour Party, they used to have some credibility with some reasonable policies and made a good opposition party. Corbyn seems hell bent on inflicting his left wing ideology on the party.

And I used to think Ed Milliband was a leftie!

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They have the leader they wanted, Corbyn wasn't exactly dishonest about his views, one of the few things I admire about him. You feel sorry for them getting the leader they want?

paulweaver said:

They have the leader they wanted, Corbyn wasn't exactly dishonest about his views, one of the few things I admire about him. You feel sorry for them getting the leader they want?

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Indeed so. The Conservative Party will hope that Corbyn stays as leader, as was the case with Miliband, as being reflective of a leader of the Labour Party, when the time for the next General Election arrives.

Was it not the enquiry and its recently published details that were commissioned by the Labour Party that stated the one of the matters that militated against their return to power at the last General Election was the perceived weakness of the then leader of the Labour Party by the electorate.

Things can't be all bad when Corbyn's Labour are winning council seats in Thanet.
Wasn't the Ukip leader a big noise down in Kent?
Though Corbyn doesn't seems to travel well.
Corbynistas winning in Kent but losing in Hamilton.
Looks as though Scotland has went independent politically.

paulweaver said:

I assume you're saying that the majority of the population would back a military coup against a democratically elected government? Interesting.

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You assume incorrectly then, my point, which was blazingly obvious, was that polls are invariably wrong and mean nothing whatsoever

St Rollox said:

Things can't be all bad when Corbyn's Labour are winning council seats in Thanet.
Wasn't the Ukip leader a big noise down in Kent?
Though Corbyn doesn't seems to travel well.
Corbynistas winning in Kent but losing in Hamilton.
Looks as though Scotland has went independent politically.

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I think it has gone independent politically.