Millions cast their vote as UK heads to the polls in general election

[Boiler 48,893]

I came across this which I thought was interesting, now the one thing I do know is that things never quite work out how those who lay out such scenarios expect.

 

My grandparents were bombed out, I remember the IRA attacks obviously ona much smaller scale and a very different time. Anyway it is not just the UK, look at what is happening in Ireland currently. Historically the UK has had to import food well from the Victorian period but now we can add energy and most other things so it is a much more fragile system, the recent situation in the ME has shown that, I know people who will be lying back from London in a few weeks and I semi jokingly mentioned they need to keep an eye on Jet fuel availability.

 

 

[TBoneTX 49,584]

14 hours ago, Boiler said:

I know people who will be lying back from London

1.  Better be sure they're truthful.

2.  Oh, no... Boiler himself has been infected with NB Disease!

[Dashinka 26,664]

The headline is misleading as I believe it is the UK government, and its policies through the years that is making a mockery of the Royal Navy.  Russia is just taking advantage of it.

 

Russia's 'shadow fleet' makes mockery of UK naval power

 

Few things provoke British politicians into fits of rage more than mention of Russia’s "shadow fleet." Yet last week’s impotent tracking of Russian tankers in the English Channel illustrates that Britain doesn’t have the means to do much about it.

 

On 9 April, two Russian "shadow" oil tankers were escorted through the channel by a Russian navy frigate armed with all manner of weapons, including anti-ship missiles. In response, the Royal Navy could only muster an auxiliary fuel tanker to follow it helplessly. The Daily Telegraph reported on this heroic operation from the deck of a 40-foot fishing boat following in the tanker’s wake.

 

A regular pattern is forming in which the Royal Navy deploys vessels that are overmatched by better armed Russian naval escorts.

 

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/iran-war-gas-prices/

[Boiler 48,893]

This has been decades in the making, the social services budget now exceeds income tax what do you expect?

[Dashinka 26,664]

1 hour ago, Boiler said:

This has been decades in the making, the social services budget now exceeds income tax what do you expect?

But the 2012 Summer Olympics told us that UK social services are the bomb!

 

[Boiler 48,893]

Blown up, mind you look at Germany etc etc.

 

But this is a UK thread.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/apr/14/starmer-accused-of-corrosive-complacency-about-defence-by-ex-head-of-nato

 

Not sure how this made it in the Guardian but excellent stuff.

 

Quote

 

Robertson, a former defence secretary who led Nato from 1999 to 2003, will also accuse “non-military experts in the Treasury” of “vandalism”. “We cannot defend Britain with an ever-expanding welfare budget,” he said in an interview with the Financial Times.

He will say in his speech: “We are underprepared. We are underinsured. We are under attack. We are not safe … Britain’s national security and safety is in peril.”

Barrons said: “There’s an enormous gap between where we have to be to keep the country safe in the world we now live in, and where we actually are.”

Asked how he responded to Pete Hegseth, the US defence secretary, mocking the Royal Navy last week, Barrons said: “I hung my head in sorrow, but I couldn’t argue with him because although the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force and the army are, in their bones, outstanding institutions, they are simply too small and too undernourished to deal with the world that we now live in. And the review says this.”