Serious question

[Phil Sayers]

I have seen talk in the papers that Devonport might be up for the chop.

Personally if it did happen I would be disgusted as defence should be the first priority of any government and the armed forces have already been cut to the bone. While I largely agree with the cuts being made elsewhere in government (or rather the need to make them) I think the military should be excused as their budget is already under huge pressure at the same time as they are being asked to do more and more. Unfortunately the Treasury have made plain they don't agree.

That being the case if Devonport was scrapped (or perhaps more likely significantly reduced in importance) what impact would it have on Plymouth? I suspect nowhere near as much as the same decision thirty years ago would have had but I really don't know.

 

[Red the Paper]

Very little short term impact IMO Phil. Plymouth is now on a Distribution Town (Blue Collar) in truth with very few big businesses setting up head offices or the like. The workforce is relatively unskilled and people aren't moving there to progress their careers. Culturally it is eons behind Exeter, Bristol, Southampton, London etc and is looked upon as a carbuncle.

Plymouth is in major decline with little hope of regeneration. Single parents, violent crime, drug related crime and unemployment are on the rise with very little chance of a reversal of trends.

Unsurprisingly, the same fortunes are befalling its football team.

 

[Stuffy]

It's enough to make you weep what the last government has done to our armed forces in spite of volunteering them for just about every armed comflict on the planet; and now for the Tories could add further to their misery. It's so wrong and unfair.

A friends son is a Artificer with HM Submarines at Devonport. He tells a tale of maintenance and repair work that had formerly been carried out by vessels crew, has now been contracted out to civilian firms.

If the navy goes, they go.

 

[whiptonace]

Thats what they are all about,get public money into privateers pockets.

 

[Archie Green]

Thats what they are all about,get public money into privateers pockets.

The torys have always lined there own and their friends pockets one way or another. Thatcher might have gone but its same old same old Torys.

 

[Stuffy]

The torys have always lined there own and their friends pockets one way or another. Thatcher might have gone but its same old same old Torys.

That's as maybe... however on this occasion the villain of the piece was Labours then Defence Minister David Ingram who said in march 2002 that up 750 dockyard jobs must go and another 3,000 would be switched to private dockyard companies at Pompey, the Clyde and Guz.

 

[WXF]

I hope defence takes a bigger cut than any other department.

 

[mfcrocker]

I hope defence takes a bigger cut than any other department.

If I didn't chime in to agree with this they'd take away my Bleeding Heart Leftie Club card

 

[Poultice]

I hope defence takes a bigger cut than any other department.

Are you mad ?

We get in a couple of strikers who look likely and you want to wreck it by selling Matty T?

 

[mfcrocker]

Are you mad ?

We get in a couple of strikers who look likely and you want to wreck it by selling Matty T?

Made I larf