Depressed if we have a Tory goverment.

[torledo]

No but I have seen both Labour and Tory in national government in a 'leading' role !

 

Can I ask a related question - Why do we need Trident at all?

 

dunno. don't really have an opinion one way or t'other.

 

realistically, what concessions will the libdems get in return for supporting lab or con. anything on trident ? i doubt it. electoral reform ? dunno.

 

the point is even if they do get concessions and have influence they would be very much in a 'supporting' role, so in supporting the tories they'd try and influence on not making 6bn [a tiny fraction of govt. spending] 'efficiency savings' this year. There attitudes toward deficit reduction seem more conservative than labours focus for deficit reduction.....i'm not sure they are the progressive party on certain important issues. And the juries out as to what they would actually do for real.

 

or as broc says, the whole coalition thing could fall apart within a few months and we end up who knows where as far as whose making the decisions the country needs to make to get out of the hole we're in.

[broc]

have you seen libdems in local govt. in a 'supporting' role ?

 

if you had you probably wouldn't identify them as a diluter of conservative goals. If anything, they are to the right of labour and more likely to have a conservative influence on the labour party as far as issues such as deficit reduction.

Labour in local government is a very different animal from 'New Labour' at a national level. I regard 'New Labour' as centre-right compared with Labour in local government. Many LibDem policies (at a national level) seem to be centre-left compared to New Labour. At a local level my limited experience of my fathers local council (Libdem majority) is that these positions are reversed, as you suggest.

[andyturpie]

lol ive seen these kind of threads appear on various forums..It usually ends up with someone getting banned for life

[tmcd35]

lol ive seen these kind of threads appear on various forums..It usually ends up with someone getting banned for life

 

Don't worry, we're quiet tollerent here. So long as you agree to march with us at the next BNP rally

[teejay]

A deterrent to what? Under what circumstances would you actually consider firing it? I bet we wouldn't even if were being invaded. I wonder if a better deterrent, especially in this day and age, would be to better equip our armed forces and plough some extra dough into intellegence gavering and anti-terrorism units.

 

Spennding millions on something you're not going to use under any circumstances and justifying it as a 'deterent' is just loonacy! (IMHO).

 

First off, you're making the assumption that any future threats are going to be the same as what we are currently facing, chances are they won't be. The more bases we cover, the better defended we are. If we plough all our resources into equiping the army for anti-terrorism then we leave ourselves weakly defended in other areas. The problem in Afghanistan is that our government along with our allies completely underestimated the threat posed by the Taliban. If they'd taken it seriously and put in the resources, equipment and troop numbers plus didn't get distracted by invading Iraq then the Afghan problem would've been solved years ago.

[torledo]

Errm, yes I do, so would the LibDems and almost any other party except Labour.

 

i hate it when people use the 'would it have been any different ?' argument. IT's pure conjecture, the fact is only one party did it for real. Are we supposed to excuse the record of the incumbent govt. because, well, we're pretty sure it would have ended up the same way whoever was in power....hypothetically.

 

it's nonsense. just as it's nonsense that some people point to very high interest rates of the 80's/90's.....when it's extremely unlikely to reoccur today because of the way the monetary system and CB operations work these days and because of a political switch from monetarism to inflation targetting which happened BEFORE 1997 and new labour .....nothing to do with the color of the rosette in power.

 

then again the some of the people who won't vote for the tories because of the high rates of the ERM era, probably wanted us to join the euro until recently. madness.

[torledo]

Labour in local government is a very different animal from 'New Labour' at a national level. I regard 'New Labour' as centre-right compared with Labour in local government. Many LibDem policies (at a national level) seem to be centre-left compared to New Labour. At a local level my limited experience of my fathers local council (Libdem majority) is that these positions are reversed, as you suggest.

 

but the deficit reduction strategy is a [national] libdem goal. if that's more conservative/right-of-center than what labour are proposing, then it's not something specific to local libdems is it ?

[jamesb]

A deterrent to what? Under what circumstances would you actually consider firing it? I bet we wouldn't even if were being invaded. I wonder if a better deterrent, especially in this day and age, would be to better equip our armed forces and plough some extra dough into intellegence gavering and anti-terrorism units.

 

Spennding millions on something you're not going to use under any circumstances and justifying it as a 'deterent' is just loonacy! (IMHO).

 

As an interesting point - a large part of the reason Trident is a very effective deterent is because unlike land-based missiles it is much harder to target or saboutage. A large part of this is due to the secrecy, and the fact that mobile subs are harder to find than big missile silos.

 

So, the harder your deterent is to find and target, the better it is, and the less likely to actually be fired.

 

Carrying on from that, for a mere £1 000 000 I can design and build a perfect deterent which will be impossible for our enemies to find and destroy. So long as it never needs to be used, it will function perfectly. If it does need to be used we'll all be dead anyway, but I'll have had £1 000 000 and our defense budget will have been nicely slashed.

[torledo]

lol ive seen these kind of threads appear on various forums..It usually ends up with someone getting banned for life

 

it's only politics [and a bit of economics]. it's like one of those exam quesitons where there is no right or wrong answer....just interpretations and opinions.

 

this thread won't get out of control.....everyone will get bored before it get's to that stage.

[tmcd35]

First off, you're making the assumption that any future threats are going to be the same as what we are currently facing, chances are they won't be. The more bases we cover, the better defended we are. If we plough all our resources into equiping the army for anti-terrorism then we leave ourselves weakly defended in other areas. The problem in Afghanistan is that our government along with our allies completely underestimated the threat posed by the Taliban. If they'd taken it seriously and put in the resources, equipment and troop numbers plus didn't get distracted by invading Iraq then the Afghan problem would've been solved years ago.

 

Possibly, but like a good politico - you didn't actually answer the question Under what circumstances would you put your finger on the big red button and say to your self 'you know what, this is the right thing to do'.

 

Because of their very nature most civilised nations are pretty much agreed that there is no plausable circumstance where such mass genocide can be considered in any way the moral thing to do. It's only a detterrent so long as your enemys actually believe you would possibly uses. Really, I don't think we ever would. So it'd not a detterrent, just a huge waste of tax payers money.

[kevbaz]

*delete me*

[broc]

i hate it when people use the 'would it have been any different ?' argument. IT's pure conjecture, the fact is only one party did it for real. Are we supposed to excuse the record of the incumbent govt. because, well, we're pretty sure it would have ended up the same way whoever was in power....hypothetically.

 

it's nonsense. just as it's nonsense that some people point to very high interest rates of the 80's/90's.....when it's extremely unlikely to reoccur today because of the way the monetary system and CB operations work these days and because of a political switch from monetarism to inflation targetting which happened BEFORE 1997 and new labour .....nothing to do with the color of the rosette in power.

 

then again the some of the people who won't vote for the tories because of the high rates of the ERM era, probably wanted us to join the euro until recently. madness.

 

I agree with you; however it's a shame that opposition politicians (of all persuasions) spend so much time blaming the Govt in power for all the problems facing the country, with short memories when it comes to remembering how things didn't always work for them the last time they were in power.....

Edited May 5, 2010 by broc

[broc]

but the deficit reduction strategy is a [national] libdem goal. if that's more conservative/right-of-center than what labour are proposing, then it's not something specific to local libdems is it ?

Haven't the LibDems at least said they will hold off the cuts (like Labour) until the economy can take it?

[teejay]

Possibly, but like a good politico - you didn't actually answer the question Under what circumstances would you put your finger on the big red button and say to your self 'you know what, this is the right thing to do'.

 

Because of their very nature most civilised nations are pretty much agreed that there is no plausable circumstance where such mass genocide can be considered in any way the moral thing to do. It's only a detterrent so long as your enemys actually believe you would possibly uses. Really, I don't think we ever would. So it'd not a detterrent, just a huge waste of tax payers money.

 

Quite simply, if someone attacks us with nuclear weapons. If you think that threat isn't a future possibility, then I would strongly disagree with you as I beleive there is a bigger possibility of this happening in the future than in the cold war.

[maark]

The problem in Afghanistan is that our government along with our allies completely underestimated the threat posed by the Taliban. If they'd taken it seriously and put in the resources, equipment and troop numbers plus didn't get distracted by invading Iraq then the Afghan problem would've been solved years ago.

I don't think so - from wikipedia:

Between December 25, 1979 and February 15, 1989, a total of 620,000 soldiers served with the forces in Afghanistan (though there were only 80,000-104,000 serving at one time): 525,000 in the Army, 90,000 with border troops and other KGB sub-units, 5,000 in independent formations of MVD Internal Troops, and police forces. A further 21,000 personnel were with the Soviet troop contingent over the same period doing various white collar and blue collar jobs.

 

The total irrecoverable personnel losses of the Soviet Armed Forces, frontier, and internal security troops came to 14,453

[localzuk]

Quite simply, if someone attacks us with nuclear weapons. If you think that threat isn't a future possibility, then I would strongly disagree with you as I beleive there is a bigger possibility of this happening in the future than in the cold war.

 

No country would use nukes against the UK - the only groups that would use them would be terrorists, and rogue states. Both of which can be dealt with via non-nuclear deterrent means (better anti-terrorism training, equipment etc..., and better missile defence systems, not to mention the fact that we have the capability to sit a non-nuclear sub off the coast of a country and take out dozens of sites within minutes via standard heavy explosive weapons. Why do we need nukes again?

[srochford]

They all say they will do this that and the other and then nothing.

 

This just isn't true!

 

It may be that they don't do what you want but to suggest that governments "do nothing" suggests you've take no notice of what's happened in the country during your entire life!

 

I'll leave others to list things done by this government (good and bad) or by the last government (good and bad) but governments pretty much never "do nothing"!

[Dos_Box]

Also we get a seat at the 'big table' at the UN.

[teejay]

I don't think so - from wikipedia:

Between December 25, 1979 and February 15, 1989, a total of 620,000 soldiers served with the forces in Afghanistan (though there were only 80,000-104,000 serving at one time): 525,000 in the Army, 90,000 with border troops and other KGB sub-units, 5,000 in independent formations of MVD Internal Troops, and police forces. A further 21,000 personnel were with the Soviet troop contingent over the same period doing various white collar and blue collar jobs.

 

The total irrecoverable personnel losses of the Soviet Armed Forces, frontier, and internal security troops came to 14,453

 

Yes, which shows perfectly my point, the Russians didn't commit enough troops (80-104,000 at a time) and got their arses kicked. The other difference is that then the Taliban were being supported, funded and trained by western governments.

[localzuk]

Also we get a seat at the 'big table' at the UN.

 

The UK is a permanent member of the UN Security Council...

[maark]

so we commit 200,000 or more to afghanistan for what reason? I think it is a smokescreen for creating a buffer zone to the oil from russia.

Only reason for trident is to get the seat at the UN - why can't UK re-invent itself as forward looking nation on the scandanavian model - invest in green technologies etc instead of trying to live up to past glories that we cannot aford any more.

[teejay]

No country would use nukes against the UK - the only groups that would use them would be terrorists, and rogue states. Both of which can be dealt with via non-nuclear deterrent means (better anti-terrorism training, equipment etc..., and better missile defence systems, not to mention the fact that we have the capability to sit a non-nuclear sub off the coast of a country and take out dozens of sites within minutes via standard heavy explosive weapons. Why do we need nukes again?

 

Again, you are assuming a world in the future the same as the current one, Trident is a defence system to last 20 years plus. Also, the reason no country would use nukes against the UK is because we have a nuclear deterent, remove that and we are the kicking boy for any nuclear state.

[tmcd35]

@maark - you had me right up till 'invest in green technologies', oh-hum!

 

Also, the reason no country would use nukes against the UK is because we have a nuclear deterent, remove that and we are the kicking boy for any nuclear state.

 

Scare mongering! And total hog-wash!

 

The reason no country would use nukes against the UK is because we are a member of NATO. A treaty thay would effectively bring half the world armed forces bearing down on your neck without the need of a single nuke being fired in retaliation. Firing a nuke against a NATO member would be suicide. Saddam was only threatening WDM's and look where that got him!

Edited May 5, 2010 by tmcd35

[teejay]

so we commit 200,000 or more to afghanistan for what reason? I think it is a smokescreen for creating a buffer zone to the oil from russia.

Only reason for trident is to get the seat at the UN - why can't UK re-invent itself as forward looking nation on the scandanavian model - invest in green technologies etc instead of trying to live up to past glories that we cannot aford any more.

 

I agree that we shouldn't have gone into Afghanistan in the first place, there were other ways of doing it. However, as we decided to go in there, then you have to commit an army and resources capable of winning, which we didn't and still haven't done.

[fafster]

I'll be going LibDem. They speaketh more sense.