SD67 wrote:This is getting a little silly. It's a 200£ million asset that will last at least 30 years. So the finance cost is about 10-15 million a year given the government borrows at 1%. I'm guessing similar annual operating costs.
It's more than silly, it's absurd. You don't pay for ships on the never-never. The £200 million will need to be found from the MoD equipment budget which is less stretched than it was due to last November's five-year settlement but is still probably significantly overdrawn.
We had a Defence Command Paper produced in March this year which made absolutely no mention of a National Flagship so there's no money in the existing equipment budget. So £200 million on a mid-rank superyacht is £200 million that can't be spent on something else.
Back in March MROSS, something for which there is a legitimate operational requirement, was being hailed and described in the Sunday Times (behind a paywall) as a priority that the Government would be pursuing within weeks. That's gone quiet. Maybe it's morphed into a gin palace for which there's no operational requirement.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new- ... astructure
And we simply have no clue what the operating costs will be so there's no point in guessing.
SD67 wrote:the government spent 125£ million on a "Great Britain" global marketing campaign that lasted less than 12 months and will probably be forgotten soon after.
Are you trying to justify pouring £200 million of the defence budget down the drain by pointing to the fact that there have been greater wastes of money, so what the heck? Really? No, I won't lend you a tenner.
SD67 wrote:And I don't buy the idea that it would have no military/security value ever. Some Diplomatic staff or VIPs need to be evacuated out of a hotspot without being seen to escalate then it might be quite useful.
Ben Wallace was questioned about the National Flagship in Defence Select Committee last week and he made no attempt to justify the money coming from the budget because it would have any defence or security value. He did mumble that it could be used as a training vessel. Other than that nothing. So if you have some insider knowledge please share it with the Secretary of State for Defence.
And if you want to evacuate diplomatic staff in an emergency you send the nearest grey ship or you ask an ally to do it for you. It's as simple as that. You don't send a daft yacht from the other side of the world on the pretext that it won't "escalate" anything. If you need to evacuate diplomats from a hotspot it's already pretty escalated and you're not going to wait for Boris's boat.