Tim Worstall

Tyler notes that defence inflation is higher than normal inflation.
Defence prices rise faster than general inflation both because the earnings of personnel rise faster, and because the price of defence equipment rises much faster.
Addressing just the first of this.
Earnings do, generally, rise faster than inflation. That’s what it means that we’re getting richer. [...]

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Yet another defence review…..and there are those over on the left telling us that the two carriers must be scrapped.
Hmm.
There’s a reason you have two: big ships like that are such complex beasts that you’ve nearly always got one in dock somewhere, being repaired, upgraded, outfitted.
You’d also rather like to make sure that if you’ve [...]

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Much as I hate to agree with Con Coughlin, he’s right here.
For the thing is, we’ve got different military interests.
The French are still deeply involved in the remnants of their African Empire. We are still deeply involved in the defence matters of some of our own Empire remnants. The two interests are rather incompatible.
Sorry, but [...]

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Sounds a little odd:
Britain’s ability to defend itself from attack has been called into question after deep cutbacks to the Armed Forces were announced to pay for the war in Afghanistan.
When unemployment rises we don’t cut unemployment pay in order to keep the budget constant. We wouldn’t insist that a pandemic were paid for by [...]

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Joanne Goody-Orris and her partner Maurice Benton, both 79, from Somerset, began sending packages to serving soldiers two and a half years ago.
Since then they have sent over 6,000 parcels containing everything from treats such as chocolate and crisps to necessities such as wet wipes and thick [...]

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The Shadow Defence Secretary told The Daily Telegraph that ending Britain’s 25,000 strong military presence on the Rhine would be part of a fundamental reorganisation of Nato forces designed to free troops for military operations outside Europe.
I thought we’d already left.
Sounds sensible that we should leave [...]

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The government will this week launch an attempt to deny soldiers crippled in battle full compensation for their injuries.
The MoD is arguing that they should only have to pay compensation for the original injury, not for any complications that might result from treatment, infection, etc.
Please, can we shoot them.
Please?

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Doesn’t the gung-ho posturing of the princes rather undermine the courage of ordinary men and women in the forces?
No, that’s actually what Princes are for.
Yes, the Royal Family are immensely privileged. Yes, they’re rich beyond dreams simply by being members of the lucky sperm club. Yes, we do this so as to have a non-political [...]

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What I don’t understand is why they are wriggling so hard?

Immigration rules introduced in 2004 allowed serving Gurkhas with at least four years’ service to settle in the UK but they did not apply to Gurkhas discharged from the British Army before July 1 1997.
The Government announcement followed a High Court ruling last year that [...]

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And some of their sons wrote about it.
I don’t envy the task, the work that was done, but by buggery I envy those who can write like that.

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French fighter planes were unable to take off after military computers were infected by a computer virus, an intelligence magazine claims.

They were, umm, using Windows and not adding the necessary patches.
Egad!

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Generals oppose toys to be be used by Navy. Astonishing, eh?

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I thought this was well known already?

Williams began to test the Ulfberht blades when a private collector brought one into the Wallace, and found they varied wildly. The tests at the NPL have proved that the inferior swords were forged in northern Europe from locally worked iron. But the genuine ones were made from ingots [...]

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Umm, folks, can we stand down on this story please? Yes, you, you, you, you and you.
I did a little digging yesterday and here’s the state of play.
CS Dura’s widow and children do not have an absolute right to continue to live here. This much is true.
However, it is almost certain that they will be [...]

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So, I think it’s generally agreed (whether rightly or wrongly) that massive defence spending is what brought the US out of the Depression.
We’re told here that we risk a Depression unless we provide a similar fiscal boost. So, what does the Government do?

The Armed Forces yesterday became the first significant victims of government attempts to [...]

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The United States should expect a terrorist attack using nuclear or biological weapons within the next five years, a US study said.

The thing is that this is true.
And also not all that worrying. There has been a terrorist attack with biological weapons in the US in hte last decade….someone started posting anthrax, remember?
Whether it’s worth [...]

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The "pirate mothership" destroyed by the Indian Navy in the Gulf of Aden last week was actually a Thai fishing boat that was itself being hijacked and whose crew was tied up below decks.
The sunken vessel, which was destroyed by INS Tabar, an Indian frigate, on the night of November 18, was the Ekawat Nava [...]

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I went home, hit Google and suddenly realised that I did know a little about Tull after all. I had seen a brief segment of Ian Hislop’s Channel 4 documentary Not Forgotten, which featured Tull in his capacity as one of the first black professional footballers in Britain. However, when I discovered that Tull had [...]

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The number two gallantry medal for actions involving the enemy, behind only the Victoria Cross.
So a Gurkha Corporal is awarded one (along with others) for the following action.

Corporal Mohansingh Tangnami, 29, from the western part of Nepal, was recognised for his steadfastness under enemy fire throughout the tour.
On one patrol, he carried a wounded comrade [...]

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There is a long tradition of the military suppressing news that it considers detrimental to national security by slapping a D-notice on it.
But when the D-notice committee decided that the time was ripe to publish its own official history, nobody imagined that it would fall victim to its own system. The history of the [...]

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