The Poolie Bunker

Can you ex Matlots explain this to me?

Total ships on the grey funnel line is 15
two aircraft carriers, six Type 45 destroyers, and seven Type 23 frigates.
Admittedly there will be a few underwater boats operated by those pasty looking fellas. Nine subs in service I believe.

Total Admirals = 34
Full, Vice and Rear included.

The Tories cut defence spending by £9.4 billion Labour it have increased by a minuscule amount taken from foreign aid.
The majority of the armed forces is joke with more admirals and generals than ever, it’s institutionalised like all government departments, old boys club.
HMS Dragon is currently in a Mediterranean port for a short maintenance period to address a minor technical issue with its onboard water systems, its 17 years old and must be nearly obsolete now. We are now building 8 frigates expected to be completed in the mid 2030s therefore vessels like Dragon will have to remain in service until then.

It’s bad, in fact it’s feciking shocking..we are down to below the bare bones with Six type 45 destroyers and seven type 23 frigates.
The type 45’s are delicate things and have had their problems, most are alongside in Portsmouth under maintenance or awaiting it…the Type 23’s are past their sell by date and again half of them are in foe refit or maintenance.
Before the collapse of the Warsaw Pact in the late 80’s, we had in comparison 48 frigates and 24 destroyers…now that’s what I call cuts to defence.
Tory’s being the biggest offenders with cuts from 1980 onwards..in fact Notts cuts in the early 80’s including the Falklands guard ship probably encouraged the Falklands War by sending out the wrong message.

Maybe they’re working shifts 6-2, 2-10 and nights
We can feel safe as those gold rings and scrambled egg warriors are on the job….even the carriers were butchered under Cameron, backing down on the design by the Yanks interfering.

Not just a Tory thing this decline though. Successive governments have done nothing (barring reaction to Afghanistan and Ukraine conflicts) in terms of sustaining let alone improving our defensive capabilities.
We're now totally reliant on NATO and the US with an Army that wouldn't fill Wembley stadium, a Navy which is laughably short of ships and crews - most not even in a state of readiness, and a much depleted air force. And, like most government departments they're all top heavy in management roles (are we still allowed to say "too many chiefs and not enough Indians"?).
Embarrassing for an island nation that once did rule the waves, had an air force that won the Battle of Britain, and had an army that was respected and feared world wide. Like it or not, some of Trump's jibes have been on the money, quite literally.

For once I agree with Snowy we should have been rebuilding our armed forces, look at how many skills and jobs it would have created. We are miles behind and it will take years to rebuild our military forces, the U.K. sat back thinking everything was hungry dory.

times and circumstances change. are our armed forces smaller than other equivelant countries with a similar size of coastline and population. if the answer is a yes then our armed forces should be increased but if not why should money be spent on the vanity of this country still being a big player on the world stage.

Don't they have to cut the Type 45s in half to replace the engines? Sure that I read something along those lines. 'How effing stupid' was my reaction then - and still is.

They’ve been a constant source of concern from day one.

After the fall of the Warsaw Pact the dummies thought it was bonanza spending time with the defence budget and become hooked on it. The Tories have always been the worst offenders going back to the fifties……admittedly Labour have made mistakes….. but not on the same level as the Tory’s.
If you want peace, prepare for war.

They don’t care about skills and jobs Jamie…..it’s all about the money, get it cheaper somewhere else should be their motto.

It's the naivety of successive governments believing that cheaper will always be available to import, strangely as soon as our industries died their respective product or commodities became way more expensive to import.
The knock on effect on jobs and hence tax income is huge but ignored. Criminal.

I recall a man being interviewed earlier in the year and said at the turn of the millenium there were over twenty British manufacturers of screwdrivers, now there are none..a microcosm of British manufacturing.
What do we actually sell abroad anymore …?

It might not be quite as bad as he was making out Snowy. Had a quick trawl on't internet and got this:

How many Tool Manufacturing businesses were there in the UK in 2025?
There were 896 Tool Manufacturing businesses in the UK as of 2025, a decrease of -3.2% from 2024.
Obviously, they won't all be turning out screwdrivers

Back to the Ministry of Defence, last year there were nearly 62,000 civil servants working in the MOD - not far short of half the number of service personnel in the army, navy and air force.
Even worse, "The MOD does not set fixed attendance quotas, but many staff follow a hybrid model, working remotely (i.e. from home!) for part of the week"

Good job those on the actual front line don’t operate that way …although, give it time in this crazy world.
Regarding the screwdriver manufacturers. even 20 as a percentage of 896 for a single item tool in such a wide variety of products sounds reasonable with such a basic product.

A couple of years ago I visited Valparaiso in Chile and saw the most awesome sight of much of the Chilean navy at anchor - one of the locals pointed out a number of the vessels (I can't recall their new names), three of which were Type 23 frigates (HMS Norfolk, HMS Marlborough, HMS Grafton). The local also explained that they were about to buy HMS Argyll - possibly for spares. Apparently our 'beyond use by date' Frigates have been updated with new sonar and armaments.

And you then read that MOD civil servants all but out number active military personnel and one must ask what are these parasites doing. Subject to having folk to crew them (yes, another problem) those ships could still be ours - rather have an old'un than nowt.

According to Google,
The UK's top exports in 2025–2026 are dominated by high-value machinery, pharmaceutical products, cars, and, increasingly, sustainable energy technology, totaling over £873 billion in goods and services. Key exports include mechanical generators, aircraft parts, crude oil, and financial or professional services.
I dispute the crude oil as the U.K. doesn’t own any offshore installations.

Making the basic tools still employs people, but the emphasis is always om groovy high tech bollocks and the rest can be discarded…..l