rover49 wrote:
We want to play big boys, but don't have the money OR the technology to do so on our own.
That is clearly not true given BAE is already one of the worlds largest defence suppliers.
A mate of mine worked on the Astute propulsion design and is currently working on the beginnings of the Trident replacement system and he cannot believe we still build our own nukes, rather than get them off the peg from America, which makes sense financially, but not politically.
Why would firing your mate (as some US worker would be doing his job instead) make economic sense? If we are going to spend public money on a system like Trident we may as well use it to employ British workers.
In any case defence purchases are always political as well as economic so I don't see the value in that argument. Why do you think the US walked away from an European solution for replacement tanker aircraft when the European plane was judged the better solution?
The problem (if there is one) is what national defence secrets does BAE have knowledge of (protected under the official secrets act) that a foreign company would now get access to?
We have privatised most of the productive side of defence manufacturing in the UK and so it leaves it open to takeovers. I do find it a bit odd that such raw market forces can be let loose on things like this. But then I think having most of our power generation companies being foreign owned isn't a good idea either.
