The Defence Secretary yesterday was unable to tell an interviewer how many frigates he has in the Royal Navy. After embarrassing stumbles he said there are 17 frigates and destroyers combined. The Wikipedia answer is to list 7 named frigates and 6 destroyers.
You would have thought he would know these figures as he should have been puzzling for the last month on how to find one destroyer for Cyprus and a destroyer or frigate to lead a NATO exercise. Surely he asked how many there were and asked why they could only free one when he needed two. You would expect he had enough interest in his 13 main surface vessels plus the two aircraft carriers to have talked to officials long before about where they were and what they were doing.
I have asked before how come only one of our fifteen main surface ships could put to sea, and that after a delay. I have had people respond defending the idea that most of the ships most of the time should be undergoing maintenance at home. I disagree. More must be available and more should be on missions flying the flag and offering reassurance to our allies and bases abroad by turning up.
This government has withdrawn the last mineseeker from the Middle East. It decommissioned a frigate stationed in Bahrain shortly before the Iran war. It failed to supervise the maintenance and deployment of ships , allowing too many to undergo leisurely repair. The Defence Secretary has failed comprehensively.
The UK gets far too little force for its substantial spend. The MOD whilst pressing for a bigger budget needs to get a lot sharper at buying equipment, and needs to sort out the excessive numbers of senior officers relative to the numbers of troops and sailors.
March 27, 2026
It sounds pretty shambolic at the MOD. I wonder how it compares to other Ministries? My guess is that most others are just as poorly performing, as evidenced by our daily inyerraction with transport, health etc. MOD’s failures get more prominence in time of war.
So. how many admirals and sailors do we need to run our one working ship? How many bureaucrats to stand behind them? Similar questions need raising about the other armed services, and every other public service.
March 27, 2026
One of the main problems besides being in maintenance is staffing. Our deterrent is having to do up to 200 day patrols instead of 70 days, this has had a dramatic effect on recruitment and retention. Remember these sailors are the cream of the crop and difficult to replace.
Coupled with the fact the idiots in Westminster continue to hound our ex servicemen and women for supposed war crimes, would you want to work for such an outfit.
Our military personnel have been treated abysmaly by successive governments and now they reaping the outcome.
March 27, 2026
This did not happen suddenly when Labour came to power. Though the article does not lay the blame specifically at the Labour Party.
The ineffectiveness of our armed forces and defence suppliers has been known for some time. As others point out, there is a lot of highly paid job creation at play and/or political patronage. The highest ranks now have to chime with the political nostrums of the major parties.
March 27, 2026
Meanwhile, another weekend with closed stock markets is also Trump’s favourite time for major military action.
Next weekend is Good Friday which is sombre day for many of us. The really hardline Israelis may take a perverse pleasure in launching an attack then. Though their biggest opponents in America are often Jewish moderates like Mearsheimer, Sachs and Norman Finklestein.
Trump, who says he is not a Christian and will not go to heaven, apparently has a pastor(a televangelist) -Mark Burns. Burns says Trump has a spiritual obligation to bomb Iran. You could not make this stuff up !
March 27, 2026
@Ian Wragg + 1
The system and the structures attacked and destroyed from within
March 27, 2026
It would seem the government has been shamed into readying another ship. HMS Brocklesby a mine hunter is available for duties in the Gulf.
We are Importing 22% of our electricity today to conserve gas as we only have 2 days storage. Is this what Millistupid means by securing our grid.
March 27, 2026
The lack of conflict readiness of our naval forces is only exceeded by our lack of ministerial awareness of just how unprepared we are.
To compound that lack of awareness with a complete ministerial lack of detailed knowledge, tells us they do not regard ministerial responsibility seriously enough. Do they ever study their brief?
It is just not good enough.
March 27, 2026
Indeed and virtually all other UK government departments are equally useless and totally misdirected.
https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations
24 ministerial departments, local government and the QUANGOS all useless too. They care not what they spend nor what value if anything positive is delivered to the public. So long as they are well paid, well pensioned and get decent perks and expenses they are as happy blocking the roads and putting spanners in the works as they are unblocking them.
How are our toy aircraft carriers getting on?
Nobody has been harder than me for THE (single) mistake I made (appointing Mandelson) says Starmer. Nobody has worked harder than me for “Women and young Girls” says Starmer – but no proper rape gang inquiry and open borders to criminals and low skilled mainly men! Does he even know what a woman is yet? Not “THE” mistake Kier – but hundreds of them has Two Tier done anything right yet?
March 27, 2026
An excellent speech by David Davis on the obviously unsafe convictions (all 15) of Lucy Letby and the mistakes of Cheshire Police and the DPP? When on earth will they find some competent appeal court judges. Six dire one have got it totally wrong already.
March 27, 2026
Only on Aircraft carrier really and not really very many decent aircraft the other one seems to be used for spares!
March 27, 2026
LL:
Wrong.
HMS Queen Elizabeth has been in service for several years now and is in refit. HMS Prince of Wales has recently come back from a deployment to the Far East, and is under maintenance prior to her next deployment. If the government had decided to send her to the Eastern Med it could have been done. But they didn’t.
On her last deployment Prince of Wales was finally able to operate 24 F35Bs. It has taken too long, but we can drop the myth of the “aircraft carrier without aircraft”.
March 27, 2026
John Redwood effectively still shadows the Treasury. Even part-time he knows more than the Chancellor, Treasury, BOE and OBR combined. He proves that almost every day.
We have to assume every other Department is in the same chaos.
Every one we encounter fails us. NHS, HMRC, DWP, Border Control, education, transport, the MOD …
This calls for RADICAL action or we will never recover. Indeed, never survive.
March 27, 2026
It’s just one bookmaker and it’s just one March day – but it’s happened; for the first time in 18 months, Star Sports has staked Labour as most likely to win the next general election.
“Starmer’s Labour party have been in the ascendency in the market for weeks” said its Head of Betting, William Kedjanyi “shortening into 13/8 from 15/8 in the past week to supplant Reform at the front of the betting.” Meanwhile, Reform UK has gone the other way as the party’s odds have drifted from 13/8 to 15/8.
The public are not as thick as the dreadful Nigel Farage and his net stupid flunkey Richard Tice would have us believe. Clearly, they don’t want their British Asian dentist/GP/consultant/etc deported.
Following more loud heckling and abuse during his question at PMQ’s on Wednesday, Farage led his Reform MP’s out of the Commons in a huff – as the rest waved him goodbye
March 27, 2026
If you bothered to check SG you would find that neither Reform nor the Conservatives propose deporting “British Asian dentist/GP/consultant/etc”
March 27, 2026
SG,
Bookmakers need to work on an over round book. If punters lump on one party, they need to ensure they still make a profit at the end of the wager. It does not mean bookmakers have any special insight.
March 27, 2026
Precisely Peter. Bookmakers may set initial odds but then simply adjust them according to how much is wagered on each contender. Remember Brexit – heavily odds-on to remain?
March 27, 2026
During the NATO naval exercise REPMUS/Dynamic Messenger 2025 off the coast of Portugal, Ukrainian forces leading the opposing team delivered a surprising result
A multinational naval group commanded by Ukrainian officers used Magura V7 naval drones to penetrate the defences of NATO “Blue” forces to successfully strike multiple targets, including at least one allied frigate
In one scenario, the simulated attack hit the frigate so many times it would have likely sunk in a real combat situation.
The exercise included five scenarios involving convoy defence, port protection and convoy attacks. In every scenario, the “Red” force led by the Ukrainian planners defeated the defending NATO group
A Ukrainian source commented that the problem wasn’t that “they couldn’t stop us – they couldn’t see us”
The moment became even more surreal when, five minutes after the simulated strike, the NATO side asked “So, are you going to attack us or not?”
This was a powerful demonstration of something the Black Sea war has already proven – Ukraine’s drone warfare is reshaping how naval battles will be fought in the future.
March 27, 2026
Faux surprise surely Mr Redwood. The Left is anti war and the Defence Secretary wants to avoid war at all costs, in line with his leader’s guidance. It may be shocking but hardly surprising that he hasn’t mastered a traditional MOD brief to be properly prepared for war.
March 27, 2026
If you want peace then prepare for war.
March 27, 2026
Any business that has its main pieces of hardware in maintenance for more than 50% is either buying the wrong kit or has so much planned redundancy that they can afford to do it.
Is the Royal Navy and the legions of flag officers fit for purpose?
March 27, 2026
Follow the money!
March 27, 2026
Perhaps given this latest EU Reset would could ask the EU to keep our sea lanes open
March 27, 2026
Can you imagine Amazon having all of their delivery vehicles in for a service and off the road at the same time for weeks or months at a time ?
That is the stark difference between the efficient running of a commercial organisation and a Government one.
March 27, 2026
Even with the ships we have we don’t have enough seamen trained up and naval officers in the main only get the minimum exposure to sea-going duties to qualify them for the next round of promotions it seems – so it really takes an emergency situation like we have to shake things up and we shouldn’t grumble but just get on with it – it wouldn’t be the first time we were caught unprepared.
For those who lauded President Trump over the years as being the answer to our economic woes I’m glad that that matter is finally settled – the truth always shines through.
March 27, 2026
But our decisive Prime Minister has confidence in our Royal Navy. Despite President Trump relaxing the sanctions on Russian oil and gas on order to make up for the stuff stuck in the Gulf, Rodney has ordered the interception of Russian tankers. As these are being escorted by Russian warships, here comes WWIII.
March 27, 2026
This episode does seem to highlight how poorly spent our taxes are.
No analysis of what we get for the money just endless calls for more to be spent on pet causes.
Surely comprehensive spending reviews are ground up interrogations of how our money will be spent (including head count and productivity) and not just percentage increase requests.
March 27, 2026
The overall impression of the Public sector, including the MOD, is one of a bloated, inefficient, leaderless mess. There seems to be no culling process to weed out the useless or idle and indeed every incentive to keep your head down and mouth shut. This is clearly a problem that our political classes have either failed to fix or simply shied away from. I am sure there are good people there but what incentives do they have to rock any boats, especially under this Government.
In the Private sector, the approach would probably be redundancy programme, together eith an infusion of new managers. However, I doubt that is affordable, so the next best thing would be an enforced hiring freeze combined with a total rethink of the incentives for senior and middle management. Of course the people leading such a programme would need to understand the causes of the problems in order to do this effectively…and much of it is linked to poor policies, excessive regulation and constantly changing objectives I suspect.
March 27, 2026
Difficult to beat this summary just posted by Andrew Neil on X:-
The current state of the Royal Navy:
2 aircraft carriers — neither operational.
6 Type 45 destroyers (our most powerful battleships) — one operational (in Cyprus).
7 Type 23 frigates (less powerful, much older) — three operational
5 Astute class nuke-powered subs — one operational (in Arabian Sea?).
Surely those responsible for this appalling state of unreadiness (a national embarrassment if ever there was one)— political, civilian and military — should be fired/charged.
Their incompetence has effectively left us without a navy.
Quite an achievement for an ancient island nation.
March 27, 2026
+1 and it is not just the Navy that lets our defences down!
March 27, 2026
Richard:
One aircraft carrier is operational. The government chose not to deploy HMS Prince of Wales.
March 27, 2026
Suppose that our military is in fact a job-creation scheme, not an organisation for defending the country. Then everything makes sense. Money is spent on far more senior officers than will be needed, far more MOD bureaucrats than would be needed to do a proper job, and huge amounts of money are spent on high-tech kit produced by the military-industrial complex. This requires a lot to be spent on maintenance, and therefore people kept in work most of the time maintaining the kit, and upgrading it. Combat-readiness doesn’t come into it. Then a minister doesn’t really need to know about availability of units, only where huge amounts of money need to be shovelled next, e.g. on AI schemes, robot fighters, DEI training, and of course on Ukraine. As so often with this country now, when I shift my perspective and stop assuming that the government is working traditionally in the national interest, things fall into place and I understand what’s going on.
March 27, 2026
The irony the MOD staffing numbers are greater than the number of personnel available to put on the frontline in any conflict including directly defending the UK and its people
That suggests that the MOD has become an out of control monster that Parliament refuses to manage and hold to account
March 27, 2026
So now two Tier wants to put Sir Sadiq Kahn, a truly vile, evil, disingenuous and totally disastrous Mayor of London into the Lords. It should make Sir Kier even less popular if that is possible!
March 27, 2026
John Healey The Defence Secretary speaking yesterday on the UK’s defence capability…
He continued: “We have the resources, we have the alliance in place to be able to defend Britain and we do that with allies and we do that with Nato.”
So in real speak this UK Parliament, the government and himself has its fingers crossed that in the UK or its interests are attacked someone somewhere will come to our aid.
What is the point of this Government, our 650MPs and a Parliament when their first duty of keeping us safe and secure is that it will find benevolent people elsewhere to full-fill Parliaments duties.
March 27, 2026
In my day, during the last century, the Royal Navy regularly cycled Dockyard refits. There was always a frigate/destroyer based in the Med and Persian Gulf at Bahrain. I joined one of them there, having flown out with the rest of the replacement crew. Having spent around six months on station, we sailed back to Pompey and then to Rosyth for a refit. Our replacement was already at Bahrain. Dockyard refits were every 2-3 years In those days, unless urgent, We had highly trained engineers on board to handle all of the maintenance. However, the big jobs like removing RADAR aerials and major hull repairs had to be done in the dock. At all times, several warships were operational on station or on call to sail with 24 hrs notice.
My, how times have changed! Unfortunately, not for the better, it appears.
13 ships and not one available for deployment in 24 hours. What has gone so terribly wrong at the Admiralty?
March 27, 2026
As an aside on included in the same media release
“Treasury officials were also concerned that giving more money to defence would force them into spending cuts elsewhere, or else leave Rachel Reeves with no choice but another tax raid in her next Budget.”
The Unions, the Blob, those feeling unable or unwilling to work come before County and the people paying the bills. The PM 2TK’s ‘Plan’ in action
March 27, 2026
Parliaments spending priority writ ‘large’
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/03/26/benefits-cheat-housebound-anxiety-caught-surfing-mexico/
Unable to work
“told the DWP she was “unable to make short journeys alone”, “would have a panic attack if she went out alone” and “didn’t like loud noise”.
“The mother of one made the claim based on mental health issues including PTSD, emotionally unstable personality disorder and depression.”
The chancellor has just increased payments to this sector of society, completely out of control
March 27, 2026
Why would these Secretaries of State worry too much about details?
We are constantly told that it is the Civil Servants that run the departments and no doubt John Healey will be ejected when Starmer gets replaced. Meanwhile it’s a steady little sinecure paying well with good future prospects with a defence company if he is no longer an MP due to his insight into the department and basically he just has to mumble his way around interviews and say almost nothing.
Starmer proved at PMQs that they all want to pass the buck to somebody else unless it gets to a numbskull like Miliband who instils his fanaticism into his brief.
March 27, 2026
We financial support the world but can’t support our own country it’s safety or it’s people
there are better boats on our canals
which we may need again soon to transport goods around the country
WELL except a so called minority group which have received 50 million pound while councils are going bankrupt
March 27, 2026
This car crash interview exposed the crass incompetence Defence Secretary Healey. Clearly a failure of readiness within the Navy/MoD given the obvious escalation of tension in the Middle East. The MoD is unfit for purpose so why didn’t the Defence Secretary order an urgent review when taking office? With only 15 surface vessels why are there 134 Admiral’s and Flag Officers in the Navy costing taxpayers millions? Government priorities are focused on welfare, illegal immigrants, EU and Chagos giveaways, rather than overseeing an effective and efficient military capable of defending our country. None of this is helped by having a Defence Secretary completely out of his depth!
March 27, 2026
Who would want to go to war when years after the government take you to court for obeying order from their leaders
March 27, 2026
“The Defence Secretary has failed comprehensively.”
For decades, ALL Governments have failed the British people. The standard of our politicians is woeful.
Until we rally voters to turn out and utilise their ability to change the direction this country is going in, things will only get worse to the point where it will be irrecoverable. This is why sectarian voting is winning because they organise their voters and our politicians kowtow to these minorities, giving them more rights and power to gain their support.
March 27, 2026
We have read elsewhere this week that the Italians get far more bangs for the bucks they spend than we do and I bet they are not the only ones!
Unfortunately everything about UK defence has been in a miserable state since Blair’s time.
The carriers were only ordered by Brown as a job creation scheme for Scotland, although, given our history with the Falklands, I thought they were a good idea. The defence budget has been deeply cut by all successive governments, resulting in our disastrous current position. Starmer is not allowing Reeves to increase the budget even though it is doing immense damage to our standing in the world.
The carriers have had teething problems, but any complex machine does, and warships are much more complicated than most. I have been a guest aboard HMS PoW and have been all over the ship and talked to crew from the Captain down to new crew straight out of training. All without exception were enthusiastic supporters of the ship and its abilities. I was mightily impressed.
Less so the Destroyer programme. This has been a perfect example of how not to go about it !
Originally the case was made for 18 ships but only 12 were agreed. That was then reduced to 6.
When they were built, it was discovered that the power plants were insufficient to run the ships and they would grind to a halt when maximum power was called for to run the electonics and propulsion at the same time.
A drastic solution ws called for ; all six ships would be cut open and the two electric generators removed and replaced with three larger units. This was supposed to take 12 months for each, but so far only three have been completed and of the other three, all were undergoing maintenance at the same time ! All six will not be completed and fully serviceabe until around 2032. In the meantime, we cannot fulfil our obligations to NATO, or send one of our Carriers to sea without the protection of Frigates and Destroyers provided by NATO partners.
Neither Labour or the Conservatives have a plan to restore our armed forces to be able to do their jobs.
March 27, 2026
Absolutely, but then the whole Government is failing and all departments, they have been since Major.
We are only now seeing the catastrophic results of years and years of failed socialist ideas in government.
Our democracy as a whole is failing, which, for to succeed, requires two elements, first and educated and informed electorate and second honest elected officials who act with integrity in the peoples interest as opposed to there own. We have the first sadly were sadly lacking the second and our democracy fails as a result. Brexit is the clearest recent example of that, people did not get what they voted for!
March 27, 2026
And we thought the Home Office was a shambles….. obviously the rot extends far beyond that. Out complacent civil service needs root and branch reform, starting with the issuance of a shed-load of P45s to the time-servers at the head of each department.
March 27, 2026
So we taxpayers spend £60bn pa on defence, yet it seems in effect we have no navy as there is barely a single ship which can be put to sea. We have an airforce, although fewer combat planes eg than Sweden, which has 1/6 our population and about 1/10 our defence budget. The army is minute and apparently only a small part of it can be deployed. In some exercise a couple of years ago US defence analysts estimated that in a major war the UK would run out of ammunition in days. We have our (US-dependent) nukes of course. But when they last got trialled it seems they didn’t work. Procurement has become a byword for incompetence which would be comical if it wasn’t so serious.
In the private sector people get sent to gaol for much less than this level of waste and incompetence. Some major inquiry (please not a ‘judge-led’ lawyers’ bonanza like all other UK inquiries of recent years) into which individuals – ministers, civil servants, perhaps senior officers – have so failed our Country. I suggest Dominic Cummings as the chairman if he can be persuaded. Let them be subject to some modern & humanitarian equivalent of the exemplary punishment meted out to Admiral Byng for his failings in the C18th.
March 27, 2026
That was a truly pathetic performance by the Defence Secretary. We have so few frigates that he should be able to name them all. To claim we have 17 is pure disinformation, as it includes ships which are building and will not be available for years. By the time they are, the current ships will have retired anyway. The Type 23 frigates had a design life of 18 years, and have been pushed past 30. They simply cannot last more than a few years, and huge amounts of money will have to be spent just to keep them in service. It is an utter shambles.
The other thing the Defence Secretary dissembles over is our anti-missile defence. The plain fact is we have none. None whatsoever. If Iran sent a ballistic missile to London, we could not shoot it down. No matter how much the Defence Secretary waffles on, that is the truth.
March 27, 2026
Iran can’t “send a ballistic missile to London”. That’s why Healey’s ignorant waffling doesn’t matter anyway.
The real threat comes from the damage being caused to our economy by this war. Not that *could* be caused, but *already being* caused. Starmer, Reeves, Healey etc. don’t want to talk about that, of course – because they’re impotent to deal with it.
March 27, 2026
Good morning.
OK then. How many aircraft and of what types does the RAF have ? And no cheating. Do it off the top of your head.
Very few except those with a need to know would be able to answer. To be fair, I do not expect any MP to know the how much of what there is. What I do expect them to know, is how much of it is relevant to our needs and whether or not we can afford it ?
Reply Most MPs would need to look up those figures but the Defence Secretary should be supervising where we put our ships and planes and what they do. When we have so few frigates he should be asking why none of them were able to go to sea.
March 27, 2026
Yes, I’m worried that the MOD needs sorting out and we need to start spending more on defence. But right now I believe the most dangerous man in the UK is our SoS for the department of Energy Security & Net Zero because he makes the decisions regarding our energy security, makes secret deals with China and is daily sabotaging our energy, causing de-industrialisation and destroying our ability to manufacture the weapons we are going to need. Then the PM for encouraging the invasion of young, fighting age men with alien beliefs, cultures and practices into our country with the offer of free accommodation, free living expenses and the freedom to roam our streets unhindered together with what appears to be submission to both China and the EU. He didn’t even vote at the UN against reparations for slavery.
March 27, 2026
Seems like a case of too many chiefs and not enough (lower ranks ed). Very worrying as they don’t seem to have a clue what they are doing in our national interest and the security of the realm.
March 27, 2026
Briefly, it seemed our Defence Secretary was a competent Minister. But that radio interview was embarrassing, if Healey does not know how many Frigates we have, what has he been doing in office? Does he have a clue how many combat aircraft we have? Does he know how many soldiers we can put in the front line, and how long we can sustain and support them? What is he doing about the UK’s air defences? Should he not resign for such incompetence?
We know the PM, Chancellor, Foreign Secretary, Justice Minister and DPM, and Energy Secretary are incompetent; now we have to add the Defence Secretary to that list. Doubtless our PM thinks defence decisions are nothing to do with him and all down to John Healey! What an absolute shambles!
March 27, 2026
We also only have –
143 fighter jets (eurofighter & F35)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_United_Kingdom_military_aircraft
148 tanks (2027)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_equipment_of_the_British_Army
63 commissioned ships (Dec 2025) active status unknown
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_Royal_Navy_ships
March 27, 2026
The MoD employs 55,000 civil servants. What are they all doing ?
March 27, 2026
They are demanding more money…..
March 27, 2026
The ‘Plan’ wreak all systems, structures, etc. possible in the shortest time possible. To secure the next election?
https://order-order.com/2026/03/27/starmer-rams-lords-with-labour-cronies-as-he-exceeds-ten-years-of-tory-appointments/
Starmer has already appointed more peers than any of the previous four prime ministers – and he’s barely two years into his premiership. That means Starmer has already made more new peers than Sunak, Truss, Johnson and May put together.
March 27, 2026
There are people in government friends of Israel who given half a chance would freely drag us into the Iran war. There are also others who sold their soul a long time ago and have no choice but to fall into line.