Mark “Beaker” Bate

Adding my two cents to what everyone else has already said on this. But something to bear in mind is that there is the funding gap identified by the NAO - £16.9 billion, which is quite a lot. That amount marks the difference between the MoD's equipment plan and the budget it has scheduled. But then there are the commitments made under the SDR. Even a charitable assessment of the SSN-AUKUS commitment would add a lot. The SDR said up to 12, but let's assume 7 to replace Astute. That programme has cost something like £12 billion, yes it's spread out, but properly funding SSN-AUKUS means committing now, pretty much. Or, take the 12 F-35As, that will be close to £1 billion. Then there is the £1 billion for air defence, £6 billion for munitions, and the commitment to procure 7,000 long-range missiles. Potentially another £3.5 - £7 billion. That's just five of the 62 recommendations that the government accepted. It totals something like £20 billion extra. And, don't forget, that every £ of spending deferred costs and additional £1.25. So, this is quite a difficult situation for the government and MoD.

Adding my two cents to what everyone else has already said on this. But something to bear in mind is that there is the funding gap identified by the NAO - £16.9 billion, which is quite a lot. That amount marks the difference between the MoD's equipment plan and the budget it has scheduled. But then there are the commitments made under the SDR. Even a charitable assessment of the SSN-AUKUS commitment would add a lot. The SDR said up to 12, but let's assume 7 to replace Astute. That programme has cost something like £12 billion, yes it's spread out, but properly funding SSN-AUKUS means committing now, pretty much. Or, take the 12 F-35As, that will be close to £1 billion. Then there is the £1 billion for air defence, £6 billion for munitions, and the commitment to procure 7,000 long-range missiles. Potentially another £3.5 - £7 billion. That's just five of the 62 recommendations that the government accepted. It totals something like £20 billion extra. And, don't forget, that every £ of spending deferred costs and additional £1.25. So, this is quite a difficult situation for the government and MoD.

The Trump administration has raided the office of L. Louise Lucas, the Virginia Democrat who led the successful redistricting effort against his gerrymandering.

SECRETARY RUBIO: We’re asking the UN to call on Iran to stop blowing up ships, remove the mines, and allow humanitarian relief. If the international community can’t rally behind this and solve something so straightforward, then I don’t know what the utility of the UN system is.

Eric Trump has released the official logo of the Donald J. Trump International Airport in Palm Beach, Florida.

I love this qualia so much because there is no human parallel. Imagine wanting to kill something so badly that it's ecstatically overwhelming. You can't. It's like trying to imagine what a mantis shrimp sees.

Well, at least leading politicians are talking about frigates... Not sure money could accelerate the current delivery programme significantly, but govt could place the orders to replace the T26 frigates ceded to Norway - giving certainty to supply chain and reassurance to the Navy and allies. Should also fund FADS programme and consider continued low-rate production of Type 31s beyond 5th ship.

The Forties Pipeline System (FPS) This is the pipeline system that carries most of the oil from the North Sea to the UK. It collects the oil from 85 different North Sea oilfields, and flows around 550,000 barrels of oil per day back to the UK mainland. For context, in total the North Sea has around 400 offshore platforms between the UK and Norway, producing and exporting both oil and gas. FPS is a British oil pipeline system. Exploration drilling for North Sea oil is currently banned on the UK Continental Shelf. It has been since the current government came to power. As a result of the drilling ban, the Forties Pipeline System is currently uninvestable according to its owner INEOS. They haven’t invested in its upkeep for 2 years. INEOS have said the pipeline will close by 2035, but without investment maybe as early as 2030, which is now just 3.5 years away. 550,000 barrels / day is equivalent to 38.96 GW of primary energy. This is 10x more energy than the UK’s new Hinkley Point C nuclear power project, which is projected to cost £48 billion for 3.2GW of electrical power. Electrical energy is joule for joule more valuable than chemical energy, but the comparison of scale is real. 38.9 GW is more energy than the entire National Grid carries. The largest energy system in the UK is not the grid it is this underwater pipeline system. With drilling banned, and the North Sea entering a period of forced closure, the Forties Pipeline System is going to close in the not too distant future. Once the pipeline is no longer economical, the entire Central North Sea oil production will collapse with it. This isn’t something that closes down gracefully, the entire Central North Sea basin reaches market through a single pipe. BP recently announced they are selling up their remaining assets and getting out, Exxon, Chevron, etc are all already long gone. Nobody wants their brand near this collapse. The tax rate is 78%, the government wants this national infrastructure to shut down. It will. The German Chancellor recently called their nuclear fleet closure a “Strategic Blunder”, interesting choice of words. But I think it was obviously a blunder to anyone outside their propaganda bubble. Likewise the UK’s North Sea. The German nuclear fleet averaged 10.3 GW of primary energy output over its operational life, which is around 1/4 the primary energy of the Forties Pipeline System. The UK has a few other pipeline systems but this one is by far the largest and the most critical. Now this infrastructure, isn’t supposed to last forever. But when it goes you should have a plan. In the UK nobody talks about this. It’s taboo. A lot of people think “yeah but they won’t let that happen”… well it happened in Germany, and it happened in Japan. A lot of people want it to happen, and a lot of those people are in politics. So what replaces this? Nothing? Is the UK just going to go silently into the night?