Apparently we are winding up to bombing Syria.  The logic being used to persuade parliament is that it is wrong to sub-contract the defence of our country.  Well,forgive me Prime Minister but wasn’t it you that, five years ago, scrapped our 2 aircraft carriers, their fleet of Harrier jets (sold to the USA by the way – so they couldn’t have been that bad) and, pertinently, literally destroyed our independent maritime surveillance and anti-submarine Nimrods?

For the last five years, and until the newly announced P8 Poseidon is combat ready (“by 2020″), we have been sub-contracting our defence of UK waters, with Russian submarines regularly nosing around, to the Dutch, the French and the Americans.  But that’s different isn’t it? Oh, by the way, the twin-engined P8 is less capable than the large four-engined Nimrod would have been and is being bought without any competition.