Funny how an MP can come out slagging off BAe Systems for being caught out on dodgy financial practices.
Today Fylde Tory Michael Jack MP spunked a salvo into the face of BAe after they reportedly paid off the US Department of Transport to the tune of £250m for misleading them about payments made in relation to obtaining arms contracts. It sounds like they were trying to cover up their dodgy actions and have settled out of court so that we never find out about what really happened.
This is the point Mr Jack has raised, and Liberal Democrat soothsayer Vince Cable has also stepped in, screaming that nobody has been held accountable.
All very hypocritical really, isn’t it?
There is quite a synergy between the actions of BAe and that of MPs: both are corrupt and both have tried to stage a cover up. In fact BAe have succeeded in hiding it and have effectively got off scot-free, just like all the MPs that were caught ripping off expenses and now stand to get a large golden goodbye because they were neither sacked nor locked up.
Apparently “lessons will be learned”. We’ve heard that somewhere before.
I wonder how often Mr Jack was ‘reminded’ by BAe Systems that they are a major employer in his constituency?
Nothing quite like the threat of job losses to ensure the support of a constituency MP when you go shopping for Government money in exchange for the third-rate gash that you supply to the UK’s armed forces…
Typhoon? Built for a war we will never fight and is clumsily adapted to fit future theatres.
F-35 Lightning II? Obama won’t let us have the source code for the on-board software and we still don’t know quite what we’re going to do with them, if anything at all.
Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carriers? Over-priced, delayed and gas-powered. Design blueprints have been shared with the perfidious French. Lord help us…
Bowman radio system? Doesn’t work. Ditched for a much cheaper Israeli system – and it works!
Nimrod MR4 upgrade? Previously known as ‘Nimrod 2000′, until it was realised that 2000 was a very, very optmistic delivery date. Again, over-priced, over-budget and still using the ancient Comet airframe from the 1940s. Our 9 MR4s cost £400m EACH – far more than the P8-Poseidon aircraft that the US has taken delivery of at a cost of about £180m each (Boeing make the combat systems for both aircraft, so there’s no superiority argument there). Then ask yourself… Do we still need to be hunting submarines in the Atlantic?
Type 45 destroyer? It’ll sit unarmed for many years, because the pan-European Sea Viper defence system it was meant to be armed with has failed in its tests. We could have armed them with the tried-and-tested Aegis system, but the only reason we went along with Sea Viper was because of ‘British Jobs’ – that excuse went out of the window when BAe Systems got rid of the British workers on the Sea Viper programme.
So, in order to keep an army of overpaid defence workers in a job whilst churning out crap, our armed forces forfeit capability by having to buy the crap from them – when it’s finally been manufactured and delivered.
On the Fylde Coast we have an overly sentimental attachment to the defence industry – understandably, because a decent number of people work in it. But we’re also very sentimental about our armed forces. At present, the two conflict. My conscience tells me to side with the people putting their lives on the line and get them the right equipment, even if it’s at the expense of people losing their jobs.
Our armed forces exist to defend our territories and our interests – it’s not a massive job creation scheme.
I disagree John, better to build Aircraft Carrier with British workers rather than pay them to sit at home.
As regards the bribes from BAe, welcome to planet reality. Currently the Chinese are buying up the mineral rights of Africa, I’m sure no “interesting” deals are being done there. The Chinese have the right approach, if it’s in their interest, it gets done.
So with regard to MPs expenses we should have just sat back and said “welcome to planet reality” ?
Clearly, I don’t agree with that!
The Chinese can get away with anything because they are bankrolling all the failing Western economies, and part of the reason for that is too much public spending.
I have no problems with bribing a foreign government if it means we get the defence contract.
Where as corruption by our governing class is a different matter due to the money we lose.
I’m sure over the years to come the bigger corruption scandal won’t be MP’s expenses but the amount of money we have lost with PFI’s.
And on the subject of the carrier, why don’t we just evolve into communist USSR and have everyone paid to work for the Government rather than just a few shipbuilders?
We’re in a position now where a majority of people are subsidised by the state in some way, whether it’s through benefits, bribes (sorry, ‘tax credits’) or direct and indirect employment.
Money is directed towards those who can bang their drum the loudest in public.
Well, to be fair, I haven’t said that the FAC shouldn’t be built by British workers.
It rather depends on what you think the primary purpose of the aircraft carrier is: is it for defence, or is it for giving people something to do? It can’t be both.
My preferred motive when it comes to defence procurement is that our armed forces are provided with the appropriate resources, of the best quality at value for money. I don’t want us to be sending our armed forces out with inappropriate junk that’s cost us a fortune.
Another way of looking at it is that if we spend on bloated defence projects that provide work for, say, 200 workers over five years, it takes away the opportunity elsewhere.
I believe the best equipment can be made here, the alternative is to out source everything and who is to say foreign equipment will be any better?
Well, it’s what the people that have to use it think.
The fact is the best equipment isn’t made here.
From what I’ve seen of the pottery industry, I would take British made over foreign tat anyday. You pay more but you get what you pay for.
There is also the question of trust when it comes to buying from overseas just look at this fiasco: http://www.defencemanagement.com/news_story.asp?id=11566
But that’s pottery… A world away from defence systems!
And I’m not convinced that the pot industry is sucking on the tit of the British taxpayer, ergo it has an incentive to churn out decent quality stuff or else nobody wants to buy it (see British car manufacturing for further info).
The F-35 programme isn’t wholly foreign – it got our buy-in because BAe Systems are part of the consortium building the aircraft.
We now have the worst of both worlds because we’re unofficially committed to buying the aircraft, whilst not being given the level of support that was originally negotiated for the programme. If we were just customers, we could quite easily walk away from it all if Obama didn’t want to give us access to the source code – we’d be in a much better position.
There’s no reason why the best equipment can be made here, but as it happens, we lag behind by treating the defence industry like Soviet shoe manufacturing. We shouldn’t just give our armed forces resources simply because it has a Union flag on it and a handful of people are kept financially afloat because they haven’t retrained as something more productive and useful.
I have no problem with BAe bribing people abroad to buy their equipment. It’s the foreign government’s look-out and whilst the Americans pretend to be so pious they’d do (and have done) exactly the same thing. That is planet reality – when you can’t control the other countries, there is nothing you can do.
Michael Jack of course is standing down so he doesn’t seem to care as much about the jobs at BAe – which in Fylde is one of few big employers that we have and if it goes we would have enormous unemployment statistics.
He was also a relative expenses hero – though he did have to pay back for a large American fridge/freezer and he had Italian lessons at the taxpayers expense (privately arranged in his own House of Commons Office). If anyone can think why he would need Italian for his job, his region (surely Arabic would be more useful for BAe), his committee memberships (http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/michael_jack/fylde#topics) then answers on a postcard.
If anyone thinks he might need it though when he retires to the villa in Tuscany he owns then you must be wrong as he is now on the committees set up to deal with the tawdry behaviour of other MPs.
I’ve no problem with foreign governments being bribed, either… It’s when it happens on our home turf, with our money at risk in return, that it becomes a problem.
And whilst unemployment is depressing, I’d far rather not see stories like this: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article6894003.ece