Well shipbuilding gigs in Glasgow and Fife (and some in Barrow, crazee town, hello Barrow!) are safe but the cost is they are engaged in building warships named to glorify the Royals. Such is the priority of our imperial hangover establishment, not only are we the world’s biggest arms dealer we will only ensure livelihoods by blackmailing people into working for the war machine and in a regressive PR move naming them in honour of the Royal family. Thank-you the Labour government. The unions? Well a job is better than nothing but they should also work to find contracts that are not part of the military industrial base, which let’s face it all the guff about ‘peacekeeping’ and rescuing kittens out of trees (in the ocean?) only slightly obscures what the Royal Navy does- protect the capital interests of the UK establishment and its US masters, so workers somewhere else in the world can enjoy being oppressed. Still Des Browne can report to HQ they have secured the party vote for a few more years in those towns, or so he hopes.
A £3.2bn deal which will secure more than 4,500 Scottish shipbuilding jobs has been hailed as “a dream come true” by unions.The Ministry of Defence has signed the orders to build the UK’s biggest ever aircraft carriers. More than half of the 280-metre-long HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales will be built at yards in Govan in Glasgow and Rosyth in Fife. The contracts will create or secure 3,000 jobs at Govan, 1,600 at Rosyth, 1,200 in Portsmouth and 400 in Barrow in Furness.
5 July, 2008 at 10:31 pm
4500 Scottish jobs as part of a long-term solar and wind power expansion would have been more productive.
Oh well.
6 July, 2008 at 5:54 pm
Seems our past is too hard a habit to break and billions on the military is never seen as money wasted, renewable energy though, where’s the imperial Britannia rules the waves glory in that?