Paul Butterworth

@HMS_GlasgowRN What is VAD?!?! #acronyms #TLAs

Training continues as the build progresses Ships Company continues their Duty Watch training as Glasgow moves closer to VAD 💪🏼🫡

@HMSLedbury @AWenham1 Sqn Cdr

Looking steely we think! We had a special guest on board yesterday. Can anyone see what flag we are flying from the starboard yardarm to show this? Thanks again to @AWenham1

The March Seapost is here! 💌 🏔️ #24PeaksChallenge 🛳️ #StraitofHormuz insights from our CEO in @tradewindsnews 👨‍✈️ Hero Captain Tae Young Lee 🎓 @ShippingButters at UKSA cadet graduation ♀ #InternationalWomensDay 🧠 #NeurodiversityCelebrationWeek & more 👇 theseafarerscharity.org/news/seapost-m…

As #Chair of @Seafarers_KGFS wonderful to attend the uplifting Memorial Service for one of our Vice Presidents, @RoyalNavy Admiral of the Fleet Sir Benjamin Bathurst GCB. A life well lived. BZ @RMBandService.

Superb! 🤗 🏉 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

@pinstripedline Read his biography by Peter Hoare. 👍🏻

Fascinating candid honesty from CINCFLEET Admiral Jock Slater to the 1st Sea Lord (Admiral Oswald) in 1991 about how cynical sailors were over "smaller but better" noting "we have yet to declare what will be better"...

@TerryTume @DrChrisParry Have you not seen how the Batch 3 P2000s were armed when I was driving one in Cyprus, 20yrs ago?! #UOR

@DrChrisParry P2000’s are not even armed. Apart from a couple in Scotland lol

But with seriously armed warships not cabin cruisers.

@UKDefJournal And why Beehive? Because HMS BEEHIVE was the Coastal Forces base near Felixstowe in WW2. @RoyalNavy’s modern day Coastal Forces Squadron (CFS) returning to its small boats’ heritage and tactics. 👏🏻

The Royal Navy is preparing to acquire a fleet of 20 uncrewed surface vessels under a programme known as Project Beehive. Click image for more. ukdefencejournal.org.uk/britain-to-buy…

Good luck @HMSDragon

@fredbeare @JChimirie66677 @GBullstein Fred, regrettably, no it is not. There was a parliamentary vote and the Govt was defeated.

@JChimirie66677 @GBullstein Seeing as Mad Ed wasnt in government in 2013 he couldnt have blocked anything This post is wrong

The Man Who Lost an Election Is Now Running Britain's Defence Policy When Britain's response to the Iran crisis was decided, the voice that prevailed in the Cabinet room was not the Prime Minister's. It was not the Defence Secretary's. It was Ed Miliband's. The Energy Secretary. The man whose brief is electricity prices and net zero targets. The man who lost Labour the 2015 election. The man who in 2013 blocked military action against Bashar al-Assad after Assad used chemical weapons on his own people, a decision he has since said he does not regret. At a National Security Council meeting on Friday, before a single American bomb had fallen on Iran, Miliband led the argument against any British involvement. He presented what sources described to The Spectator as a petulant, pacifist, legalistic and very political case. Rachel Reeves and Yvette Cooper backed him. Starmer agreed. John Healey, the Defence Secretary, the one man in that room whose job it is to think about precisely these questions, was on the other side. He was outvoted. The Energy Secretary beat the Defence Secretary, and the Prime Minister sided with the wrong man. Starmer reversed that decision less than 48 hours later, not because of new intelligence, not because of new legal advice, not because of strategic reassessment. Because Iran hit a British base. The original position was not Starmer's judgment. It was Miliband's judgment, which Starmer borrowed and then discarded the moment it became untenable. A Prime Minister who can be led into the wrong decision by his Energy Secretary and led out of it by a drone strike is not governing. He is reacting. And still the incompetence compounded. When Starmer announced he was sending HMS Dragon to defend Cyprus, he was announcing a ship sitting in dry dock in Portsmouth that will not arrive for a fortnight. HMS Duncan was ready to sail. He chose the wrong ship, announced it as decisive action, and the reality emerged days later. At every stage of this crisis, from the initial refusal, to the delayed reversal, to the wrong warship sent too late, the pattern has been identical. Calculation where decisiveness was needed. Process where judgment was required. A Prime Minister deferring to whoever was last in the room. The Syria precedent matters because it shows this is not a one-off failure of judgment. In 2013 Miliband blocked action against a regime using chemical weapons. Assad survived, Iran's influence in Syria deepened, Hezbollah was strengthened, and the refugee crisis that followed destabilised Europe in ways that are still being felt to this day. Now the same man, applying the same instincts, has been allowed to shape Britain's response to the same regime's nuclear ambitions. If the Syria decision was a mistake, and history suggests it was, then handing Miliband a second veto over Western action against Iran is not caution. It is institutional memory failure on a grand scale. Trump said Starmer was not Winston Churchill and that he ruins relationships. He is right on both counts. But the more alarming truth buried in this week's reporting is simpler. Britain's response to a live war in the Middle East, with British bases under attack and British citizens stranded across the Gulf, was shaped by the man who brought us Ed Stone and bacon sandwiches. That is not political satire. It is the state of Britain's national security in 2026. "In 2013 Miliband blocked action against a regime using chemical weapons. Assad survived, Iran's influence in Syria deepened, Hezbollah was strengthened, and the refugee crisis that followed destabilised Europe for a decade."

@ShortPaulUK @Mark4Hitchin @afneil Thank you! 🙏

@ShippingButters @Mark4Hitchin @afneil Every day I see something where the poster truly knows what they’re talking about. Thanks. Good luck Dragon.

I thought HMS Duncan was the one ready to go? When will HMS Dragon go?

@navalhistorian @NavyLookout @AWenham1 She’s currently in C lock and moves to the UHAF (Upper Harbour Ammunitioning Facility) in 2hrs time. Then to Victory Jetty. #OSINT

@NavyLookout You mentioned Dragon is in dry dock & I think @AWenham1 suggested she was due out today? Any sign that she's flooded up &/or out yet?

@Mark4Hitchin @afneil Not strictly true; she did a work up in Dec, will embark training staff to brush up intensively on drills for the week’s passage. For when she goes, open source most accurate info is KHM Portsmouth planned harbour movements. Anyone watching that knew 36 hrs ago it was DRAGON.

@afneil HMS Dragon has just come out of maintenance, it needs sea trials before it can be deployed.

@pinstripedline And plenty of time for FOST to embark and work them up on passage! #Training

It is barely 48hrs since Akrotiri was attacked - important to realise that military activity occurs at normal speed, not 'twitter speed'. There are many things that must be done, plans made, ministerial approval sought and given. It is not as easy as saying 'make it so'.

@TBrit90 Anyone who bothers to look at OSINT, in this case KHM Portsmouth planned harbour movements, would have known 2 days ago that HMS DRAGON was the one to be pinged to go. Fair winds, following seas and keep it safe.

Better late than never. Wonder why Dragon instead of Duncan?

@BruceAFinch @DouglasCarswell DSACEUR for a few more days and 2 x RM 4* I think, Bruce.

@DouglasCarswell It doesn’t have any full Admirals in active service

The Royal Navy currently has 3 full Admirals, 10 Vice Admirals, 25 Rear Admirals. Which is roughly 2 for every major surface combat ship

@hmssevern And it looks like you’re having lots of practice finding those cheeky transits!!!

@hmssevern Portland Breakwater. Suggest you use PBL! 😉 Or more correctly, Bill of Portland Light (as ‘PBL’ is not on the chart)

Back on track! Transits are one of the best additions to a fix that you can get. All it needs is another bearing or radar range. But where is today’s transit? And for bonus points can you recommend a good second FP to finish the fix?

@NavyLookout Appointed to Northwood initially as Deputy Commander Fleet (DCF) the post was retitled Deputy C-in-C Fleet during his tenure. When he departed, handing over to VAdm J Band, Cdre Fabian Hiscock was also leaving Fleet HQ and they hosted a ‘Fabian Free’ leaving party drinks. RIP.

Obituary: Vice-Admiral Sir Fabian Malbon - commanded HMS Torquay, HMS Brave, HMS Invincible and was director of Tomorrow’s Personnel Management System (TOPMAST) programme (2001-02) telegraph.co.uk/obituaries/202…

@matelotjonah @OnthisdayRN Fantastic!

@ShippingButters @OnthisdayRN The Skip Inn was the onsite all ranks function room. JRs and SRs had their own bars in the accommodation. Local pub was the Derby Arms or the Eagle & Child. Met my wife at a Skip Inn Bop. She was on a bus load of Nurses from Blackpool Victoria Hospital. Happy times!

Sailors tending the Radio Transmitters at HMS Inskip near Blackpool. The site decommissioned in 1995 but still operates under a contract model. The site was originally the wartime airfield HMS Nightjar. Anyone travelling to Blackpool can identify the site via the radio masts.