Revelations
emerged today about Nicola Sturgeon’s oft repeated cost of Trident being too
expensive at £160 Billion Pounds revealing her disingenuous calculating methods,
an SNP trait it seems. Embarrassingly for her it was a question asked by one of
her own stooges. SNP MP Steven Paterson yesterday inadvertently exposed her
duplicity when he asked the following question at Westminster “How much do the
government currently estimate the replacement nuclear deterrent weapons will
cost, including the boats themselves, the missiles and the ongoing lifetime
maintenance costs”?
Minister of
State Philip Dunne replied on behalf of the ‘Ministry of Defence and Defence
procurement’ as follows.
“As we made crystal clear in
the SDSR, we have recalculated the cost of manufacturing the four boats, which
we now estimate will be £31 billion, and we have added a £10 billion
contingency. We have no intention at this point of replacing the warheads; the
decision on that will be taken later. Therefore, I urge the hon. Gentleman to
focus on the £31 billion commitment for the submarines, plus the £10 billion
contingency, as the cost that is
relevant today”.
This display of mendacity from Sturgeon does not have any bearing on the moral
argument for or against nuclear weapons, it is however important when we come
to consider her own integrity, highlighting as it does her willingness to leave
out the same financial tests for other military costs, remember she is arguing
about costs here not ethics.
When she and her equally
duplicitous colleagues discuss defence spending do they insist on knowing the
cost over 40 years of maintenance/replacement of RAF Airplanes? Likewise Navy
Ships and Helicopters, what about the cost of Army equipment like Armoured
Vehicles, Tanks, etc. Why does Nicola Sturgeon not apply the 40 year cost test
to them as she does to Nuclear Weapons?. The reason is that she feels the need
to deceive people because her argument on nuclear weapons is unsound, she does
not have enough confidence in the moral argument and has to obfuscate about the
costs to strengthen her position.
As was asked today, would she
furnish us with the costs of 40 years of maintenance for Prestwick Airport? the
bill for Gaelic Language signage across the country over 40 years?, or the
maintenance over 40 years of the various Forth Bridges, they seem to favour
yearly figures for such matters, how long can they get away with such indefensible
‘Janus faced’ behaviour?. Scotland
deserves better.
2 comments:
you are a prime example of why the Labour party is now extinct in Scotland. Talk about dodo's. What is the point in paying for new subs if they aren't to be equipped with new weapons and if they are to be equipped with new weapons then the cost of that over their lifetime is £160 billion. Those are UK govt estimates so it will probably be 3 times as much.
Do you remember the debacle over the cost of the Holyrood buildings commissioned by the labour party? Or the edinburgh trams also commissioned by the labor party. What about the cost to the public purse of PFI, grabbed with both hands by the labour party like a kiddy with a lollipop.
For such a simple uncomplicated ignorant soul you don't half embarrass yourself.
Anonymous said...Wednesday, January 20, 2016 3:04:00 pm
1/ Whether there is any point in paying for new subs with or without weapons is irrelevant to this post. This is about Sturgeon’s lies and lack of integrity.
2/ I did not question whether the cost is £160 Billion over a lifetime, Sturgeon states continuously that they are to cost £160Million but omits the very important information that the cost is in fact over a life time, ‘ergo’ she is a liar. The estimated life of the subs and weapons is 40 years, £4 Billion a year doesn’t sound quite so dramatic does it?.
3/ Your speculation over rising costs is nothing more than the ramblings of someone blinded by their own sectarianism and ignorance, utterly devoid of any evidence or fact.
4/ Your ignorance over PFI is staggering, the SNP’s favoured way of financing projects is the Scottish Futures Trust or SFT as it’s called, this has been exposed as a fraud and con by the SNP on the gullible, it is no different from PFI and just recently the EU confirmed to the SNP that any money borrowed by the Scottish Government under SFT would be subject to the same pay back conditions as those of PFI, PPI etc.
It is rather obvious why you are afraid to identify yourself, you are clearly a buffoon.
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