“Well Mark2Plym. The allowance they actually get is not just for being at sea, it is actually for being away from home, due to the constraints that brings to there families. I assure you that with the present defence cuts, that the Royal Navy will not just waste money in view of the whole of London. The Royal Navy are already struggling, so i am sure paying there sailors more than what they would have to pay them is at the very bottom of the list!”

“If servicemen are being treated so badly how come when HMS Ocean is moored in London for the Games all the crew will be paid sea time allowance, I wish I could stay in London have my digs paid for with food as well and get paid for being at sea. Nearly as good as being on a submarine!”

“Obviously! Major General The Argentianswould have learned the lesson from the last episode. That instead of six exocet rockets from France a couple of dozen would be more than sufficient to blow our fleet out of the water long before arrival. Its not rocket science.”

“Our defence policy today is a nonsense. What young man in his right mind would even consider joining the military. Having said that my grandson took some persuading not to. I joined in the early 60's and made a career of it. It was tougher then but servicemen were well thought of wherever they went in the world and the British public respected them too. Today it's like any other job. There's no guarantee that your initial engagement time would be extended when the time comes, so therefore it offers no job security. Servicemen today are treated abysmally by the Government and if there is to be a military at all in the future, National Service will have to be reinstated because young men will not join voluntarily.
Perhaps we should scrap the forces entirely as we are no longer a force to be reckoned with and bring all our boys back from those foreign fields where their presence isn't wanted or appreciated. The money wasted to fund the defence budget could be put to better use elsewhere I'm sure.
I come from a patriotic family with strong military ties but even I wouldn't want to be a part of the military today.”

“The whole issue is based on the aircraft carriers. The navy wanted them at any cost - and that cost was the rest of the navy”

“Major General Thompson is spot on with his statement the Government really ought to get its head out of its backside and pay attention - we have less than 18 ships left and not all of those are operational right now. No aircraft carrier cover which can be essential - by the time we get the two ridiculously over sized carriers they are building there will not be enough people left to crew them nor will there be any aircraft to fly from them as currently we have neither. The two aircraft carriers they are currently building are just massive wastes of public money way too big. The country would be better off building a couple of smaller invincible size carriers and redesigning and producing a new harrier replacement. The two super carriers are the biggest financial mistake of all time and will probably cost 10s of billions pounds over budget and never put to sea or fly a plane.
The Major General ought to be applauded for letting the people know the situation we are in and just how bad our ability to Defend our interests have become.
If holdong on to the Falklands is to do with oil and exploiting it then the UK Government ought to be talking to the Argentines about a joint venture where by we extract the stuff and they process it and jointly export it that would be the sensible win, win scenario but of course thats too simple and would require democracy something we no longer poccess.”