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My monologue from today’s The Times at One with Andrew Neil @TimesRadio
ROYAL NAVY RIP
While US destroyers duke it out with Iranian navy fast boats over the Strait of Hormuz, we learned yesterday that the Royal Navy’s HMS Iron Duke, a Type 23 frigate, was being withdrawn from active service, despite a recent £100m five-year refit, which suggests that was largely a waste of money.
More important, it underlines the stark reality that we no longer have a functioning navy.
That’s right. The country of Rule Britannia, which once had the most powerful navy in the world, capable of protecting an empire which covered a quarter of the globe, no longer has a navy worthy of the name.
For the factual basis of what I’m about to say, I am indebted to Britsky, who posts important naval data on X and has become the reliable go-to source for information on our disappearing Navy.
HMS Iron Duke joins another ageing Type 23, HMS Richmond, in retirement. Leaving the Royal Navy with just five frigates to monitor Russian submarine activity in the North Atlantic and other Russian activity in the Channel.
Even that doesn’t reveal the full, desperate picture. Of the five frigates still supposedly available for service, one, HMS Kent, has been almost 750 days in refit and is not available for service. HMS Portland and HMS St Albans have also been laid up for some time.
Only HMS Somerset is currently deployed and HMS Sutherland could be, pretty quickly. So the Royal Navy can call on the immediate services of only two of the five frigates we have, all dating from the 1990s.
What about the more powerful Type 45 destroyers? Sad to relate the picture is even bleaker. There are only six. One, HMS Dragon, has been deployed to the East Mediterranean to protect Cyprus, though that took some time.
Another, HMS Daring, has been in refit for 3,260 days and still not available for duty. HMS Defender has been out of action for over 1,000 days, HMS Diamond for just under 700 days. HMS Dauntless is in maintenance. Other than Dragon, out of our six destroyers, only HMS Duncan could be deployed quickly.
What about our hugely expensive, powerful Astute class submarines? Better you don’t ask. We have only five — and only one, HMS Anson, is on active service somewhere in the Indian Ocean.
The other four — Astute, Ambush, Artful and Audacious — have been laid up for a total of 4,000 days. That’s right 4,000 days. HMS Ambush alone has been inactive for 1,400 days. It’s currently laid up on the River Clyde.
So the currently deployable, conventional Royal Navy, excluding the ancient, creaking subs carrying our nuclear deterrent, amounts to two frigates, two destroyers and one sub. That’s not a navy for a maritime nation. That’s a joke.
Yes, we have two big aircraft carriers too. They also seem to spend a lot of time in maintenance, which is where they are at the moment. But both could currently be deployed pretty quickly, which is an improvement. But we don’t have the frigates or destroyers to form a carrier fleet. So they can only be used in concert with better equipped allies.
We might be short of fighting ships. But we’re not short of admirals. We currently have around 30 rear admirals or above, which works out around four per deployable ship. That’s admirals. Not captains.
None, of course, of this bloated top brass has been held accountable for the near disappearance of our naval power. Nor have any Tory politicians who for 14 years presided over our navy’s degradation. Nor is the current Labour government in any apparent hurry to put matters right.
Our airforce and army are in no great shapes either. But it is the state of our non-navy, an integral, vital part of our island history, which is the real national scandal.
And, as is so often the case in modern Britain, nobody is held to account. Nobody forced to carry the can. Nobody making it their mission to put it right. And that is the real national disgrace.
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