Inept Cameron in u-Turn

[Gromit]

[i] Labour got it "badly wrong" said the Prime Minister.

He was in the House of Commons. It was October 2010. The government had just published its long-awaited Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR).

David Cameron was referring to the decision by the previous government to purchase jump jets for the UK's new aircraft carriers.

The version of the Joint Strike Fighter is called the F35-B.

The government announced it was instead going to buy the F35-C jets which claimed the SDSR, "will allow our carrier to operate in tandem with the US and French navies, and for American and French aircraft to operate from our carrier." The alternative jets said the review also have "a longer range and [are able] to carry more weapons."

So far so good.


PM David Cameron to make a u-turn on aircraft carrier jets Credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst
However, these jets do not take-off and land vertically so the Queen Elizabeth aircraft carriers currently under construction needed to be fitted with "catapults" to propel them into the air and "traps" to catch them when they land.

At the time the cost to retrospectively fit the "cats and traps" to the carriers was estimated to be around £400 million and it would delay the in-service date of the ships until 2020.Fast forward to Thursday May 10 2012.

The Defence Secretary will today tell the House of Commons that, er, the jets Labour ordered are actually the best ones.

Yes the fuel tanks are smaller. Yes, there is less room to carry weapons. And no, they cannot operate with the French and American military. But the cost to refit the carriers had spiralled to as much as £2 billion. And the delays might have pushed back the carriers until 2023.

So back to Plan A then. The plan upon which David Cameron and then Defence Secretary Liam Fox had poured scorn.

Who got it "badly wrong"? [i]

http://www.itv.com/ne...-jets-prime-minister/

Ah well, only £50million down the drain.

http://www.dailymail....tml?ito=feeds-newsxml

[buildersmate]

It was wrong of Mr Cameron to try to score political points over this before, just as it's wrong for you to try and settle the score:
"Ah well, only £50million down the drain."

If you or David Cameron are the slightest bit interested in the way MOD procurement then: -
The organisation develops a six phase procurement plan, the first part of which involves developing a range of options. The preferred option (and non-prefeered) pass through an initial gate business case process which includes technical appraisals as well as involvement by the Treasury in assessing the economic business case. Because these projects never involve buying something straight off the shelf, industry partners are involved in providing proposed solutions and their outline costs. One of the main issues in the costings is the price of risk - these are the 'unknowns' and there are sophisticated models used to cost these risks. As the solution develops, the risks either come to bear or are mitigated. Sometimes risks are mis-estimated or aspects to risk are not even considered - so costs can escalate.
The £50m you refer to has not been poured down the drain - it has partly been spend on labour costs with potential suppliers in the UK and has thus supported badly-needed UK jobs. I'd have thought you might have considered that important. But the work have have to be redone for the new solution so a cost to the Exchequer.

[Nosha123]

Nicely put Buildersmate!! ;-)

[bazwillrun]

£50million !

Pffft, thats mere chicken feed compared to the money every year wasted on overseas aid, and the money thrown into the eu bottomless pit

[Gromit]

Baz,

Yes it is a piddling amount. To see on eating jis own words - priceless.

[Quizmonster]

I'm not surprised, Gromit. I think the Cameron u-turns in two years now number in the forties. Labour also warned them that the Tory plan to sort the economy out would lead to a double-dip recession and what is it that we're in now? Oh, yeah...a double-dip recession!
I saw the Defence Secretary telling the Commons about the aircraft today, explaining how very wise it is - when you find you've got things wrong - to rethink and change your plans. I have no quarrel with that concept; however, I am forced to wonder how it is that - when Labour did any such thing - it was invariably moronic! The dumbos behind him were, of course, 'Hear, Hearing' sagely!
Pathetic.

[nannybooby]

Well I would ratherr him than the other lot and God forbid Tony Blair g back into politics

[pdq1]

They most be the most inept government in living memory.

First we had the woods sale fiasco
Then the £32bn for the HS2
Then the Osborne budget fiasco
And now we have the change of choice of planes.

Not forgetting the change to the NHS.

You get the feeling they are making up policies so they differ from those that Labour proposed rather than sit down and discuss any merits of what they are intending.

They are behaving just like a load of amateurs and its costing us a packet.

[bazwillrun]

@Gromit

What, youd rather they carried on blindly than admit to a mistake
They should be praised for realising the problems and instigating the change.

[bazwillrun]

"They most be the most inept government in living memory. "

Cast your minds back a couple of years to the last Labour lot that got us into most of the problems we now have.

"Labour also warned them that the Tory plan to sort the economy out would lead to a double-dip recession "

Who better than to give tha warning than the very people who did the most to cause the economic situation in the first place.

[Quizmonster]

Baz, since you quote from it, it's clear that you did read my earlier response above. I also said in it that making a u-turn is perfectly sensible in most circumstances. On a journey, if you realise you take the wrong exit from a roundabout, you grasp the first opportunity to do a u-turn in order to go back and put things right, don't you?
However, what the Tories are constantly doing is, in effect, dismissing the information from the passenger in the car who's TELLING them that they need the fourth exit, not the third and then looking like plonkers when they have to turn back.
As regards who "caused the economic situation in the first place", what about the massive contribution to that created by the casino-bankers, the Tory paymasters? Gordon Brown did not force Lehman Brothers to go down, did he? Nor did he persuade Northern Rock to buy American sub-prime mortgage debt or Fred the Shred to vastly overreach himself.
A u-turn that someone grasps for himself is sensible; a u-turn that he grasps only AFTER ignoring advice that he is wrong is silly.

[Quizmonster]

Line 3 above should have 'took', not 'take'.