An interesting opinion on whether the current Bill requires the Queens Assent. It appears that there is a good chance that Bercow is wrong in his ruling. It's all in the wording apparently...... https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2019/09/02/proponents-of-the-new-bill-to-stop-no-deal-face-a-significant-d...

Knock off approx £800m to cover inflation, gives roughly £465m new money to each of the three services

the recent CTA between Ireland/UK The CTA isn't recent. It dates from 1923 and has been reconfirmed on many occasions. Free movement of people between the UK and Ireland will remain under UK law and hopefully, under Irish law. I'm not sure where the "rollover" is at the moment, since the ...

[quote="ArmChairCivvy"] the see-saw can be extraordinary/quote] Indeed - volatility is when you really make the money - provided you read it right, of course, which isn't easy for the ordinary investor. It's the guys with the high-frequency trading bots (the sort that cost tens of millions...

The UK is a founder (and current) member of the WTO and also of it's predecessor, GATT. It's all on the WTO website. The UK has it's own individual membership (as do all the EU nations), but assigned authority to the EU (which has it's own membership) while the UK was part of the EU. When we leave, ...

Pseudo wrote:That's only going to be the case if there is a customs arrangement that avoids the need to erect a customs border in order not to fall foul of WTO most favoured nation rules.

WTO rules don't demand a hard border. Nothing to do with the "most favoured nation" stuff.

Can you explain this please? Sorry - normally bond yeilds (i.e interest rate that you receive as a lender) for long-term bonds are greater than for short-term bonds. In a normal (expanding) economy investors expect a greater reward or locking up their money for longer and demand is greater for shor...

I think the UK economy is pretty fragile with eg not much in the way of a manufacturing base any more I think you are misinterpreting the figures. The reason that manufacturing is now a relatively small part of our economy is because of the vast growth in the services sector, not because manufactur...

FWIW I think you're being hopefully optimistic in thinking that there will be minimal GDP change in the event of a hard Brexit. Actually, I'm not being optimistic, quite the opposite. Most serious estimates suggest that, following Brexit, there will be a short-term impact due to initial disruption,...

Well - it's a couple of hundred million extra per annum, over and above inflation, so worth having, particularly with compounding involved. An extra billion or so (in real terms) over 5 years could be put to good effect. Might also act as a "ratchet" commitment to stop the budget shrinking...

And as long as we can get the manpower sorted I would be happy with this outcome. However what I would be pushing for would one extra T26 and 10 type 45 replacement Yes - the manpower issue is probably the most pressing, though it does seem to be improving. From the various comments made by people ...

The point is made

T-Force wrote:Scotland has 80% of the global whisky market and UK claims it's worth £5 billion to the Uk economy

Yet the (Scottish) figures that you posted show that it's only £4.5b

I refer you to my previous answer

Another reason why ordering in modest batches of 2 or 3 hulls at a time is now preferred? Between batches is the right time to "tinker". I think the point is that you should think incrementally, with each batch including improvements as their need becomes obvious Small batches don’t work ...

So, as I said - he didn't actually say it.

What you impute to his statement will depend on what your political perspective is and what you are seeking to prove

will the RN/mod resist the urge to tinker with the initial contract spec after it’s been agreed That's one of the major points of the NSS. Once the contract is agreed, that's it - no changes. Tinkering with the spec has been identified as one of the major reasons for both cost and time overruns, so...

My interest, from a personal and professional perspective, is how someone occupying a senior cabinet position can be so poorly media-trained. You should try watching the Brexit: Behind Closed Doors fly-on-the-wall documentary (the BBC has taken it off, but it's on you-tube) - they all knew they wer...

Can anyone find an actual recording of him saying "nothing to do with a new agenda - it is all about numbers as the government knows they can’t command a majority in the House of Commons, thus they have misled The Queen."? I can't. The closest I can find is him saying is: “And we’ve sudden...

replacing 8 T23 ASW , 6 type 45 and then 5 type 31 with 9 x Type 26 & 8 or more Type 45 replacements Seeing as the current plan is alleged to be 8 x T26, followed by 8 x T45 replacement, along with 5 x T31, all you are suggesting is that there is enough extra money for one additional T26. If al...

the UK has 2 signatories and not 4 Indeed - neither of which is Scotland - GB and Ireland formed the UK. N Ireland most likely as part of Eire Not really supported by the polls at the moment. Last time I looked, it was c. 55-45 in favour of staying part of the Union. There is a lot of wishful think...

Tony Blair handed over his power to Gordon Brown, who was Labour PM for another three years "without a mandate". I believe that 5 out of the last eleven PM's have come into office via that route - so neither unusual, nor controversial. Most of the rest of Europe uses a similar system for ...

Tempest414 wrote:2 ) East of Suez Command made up of

4 x T-31 , 4 x MCM , 1 x Bay , 2 x Wave , 1 x Point

Plus 1 x FLSS?

Littoral Support Ships Drat - beat me to it! Much better name for it. The FLSS requirement went away when Gavin Williamson got sacked. I doubt this had much to do with Williamson. I'm pretty sure that this requirement has been around for some time, in the guise of the Argus replacement. Rather than...

What this sounds like is an "unofficial" drop of a story, just prior to the final decision, to gauge the public/press reaction. Now just wait to see if the story gets picked up by other papers, bbc, etc and whether any MPs, union representatives or other interested parties kick up a fuss....