Business as usual for David Cameron and merchants of death

[spindrift]

So what, so do other countries, considering you have a two wrongs make right policy regarding legalising Cannabis because alcohol is legal you seem to be operating double standards.

 

I'll thank you not to make up arguments I've never made. I've said many, many times that alcohol should be far more strictly restricted.

 

The opposite of what you've claimed.

 

Your dishonesty is depressing, but unsurprising.

[davebrmm]

While the Arab uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa continued against regimes armed by UK firms, David Cameron flew to the region with British arms dealers on a trade mission to boost military sales. He hastily added a quick trip to Cairo to show support for the Egyptian uprising by standing shoulder to shoulder with Field Marshall Tantawi, who, as Wikileaks revealed, the US describes as "Mubarak's poodle.

 

you sound like a red brother who got us in the **** to start with

[davebrmm]

Cameron did the same last year:

 

David Cameron's recent trade delegation to India contained six senior British Cabinet members and 50 business leaders, including top arms company bosses from BAE Systems and Rolls-Royce.

 

The signing of a £700 million Hawk jet contract was heralded as a great success by the British media. Apparently it is good for "the country" because privately owned BAE will receive around £500m and privately owned Rolls Royce up to £200m.

 

The deal came just a week after it was revealed that India has more poor people than sub-Saharan Africa. So just how will the headline-grabbing Hawk deal benefit the ordinary people of India, the majority of whom require food security, drinking water and basic health care rather than hugely expensive weapons? And how will it benefit ordinary people in Britain?

 

The simple answer to these questions is "not a great deal." Arms sales in Britain are always portrayed by government and media as good for business, good for Britain and good for jobs. This line is used to help mask or legitimise the not-so-nice practice of selling products for killing. But is it really so good for Britain?

 

The arms sector's contribution to the British economy is minimal, but the industry constitutes a very powerful and effective lobby. BAE receives considerable support from taxpayers. It is in effect a subsidised industry.

 

In 2006, using a report from BASIC, the Oxford Research Group and Saferworld, and updated government figures, it was calculated that the arms trade received about £852m a year in subsidies. Much of this money goes to BAE, a company with a track record of bribery, espionage and arms deals with oppressive regimes, among other dodgy deeds.

Instead of subsidising the arms industry, perhaps the British government could have intervened elsewhere in the economy, for instance by investing in jobs in the renewable energy market. Although every country needs to subsidise industry or upgrade its military hardware, just which sector money goes to and how much becomes a question of priorities.

 

As for India, it has increased its arms spending steadily over the past decade and has been identified as a "priority market" by the British government's arms sales unit. India is also classified by BAE as one of seven "home markets."

 

However, according to the Campaign Against the Arms Trade, the new Hawk deal is controversial because India is part of the so-called "arc of conflict" ranging from Iran through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the borders of India. India is also involved in several internal conflicts, and any arms procured could be used on its own people.

 

CAAT warns that such deals merely crank up regional tensions and the potential for internal oppression, while individuals in the arms trade bag huge profits.

 

At the moment, India has the 10th largest defence budget in the world, 40 per cent of what China spends annually. However, according to the Stockholm Peace Research Institute, India is the world's largest importer of arms and its imports have grown by around 240 per cent since 2000. Over the past year, New Delhi's defence spending increased by 34 per cent.

 

In return for contracts Britain offers support to India's attempt to propel itself towards superpower status. Yet despite the wheeling and dealing of high commerce and the needs and wants of the rich, powerful Indian elites, around 800 million Indians live on less than two dollars a day and undernourishment is twice as high as in sub-Saharan Africa.

 

In Britain, politicians and media alike never tire of highlighting India's rapid economic growth, its potential superpower standing and the country's huge middle class. Predictably, the British government has stated that it is considering cutting aid to the country's poverty-stricken millions, despite the fact that eight Indian states had more poor people than the 26 poorest African countries.

 

People are continually fed the message that eye-catching business deals, whether armaments or otherwise, are good for "the country," implying that trickle-down economic policy works. It's part of the neoliberal agenda. Around 70 per cent of Indians might argue otherwise, as would many in Britain and the US, given that during the years of economic growth real wages actually fell in those countries.

 

"The country" is the ordinary men and women in the street. Business deals that are sold to the public as being good for "the country" aren't necessarily good for the country. While some in India regard the future in terms of space programmes, prestigious sports events or lucrative transactions that benefit India's developing military-industrial complex, it's the quality of life for the masses that really counts, not headline-hogging deals and projects that benefit the relative few.

 

are you a labour councillor? you talk ******** like them

[donkey]

are you a labour councillor? you talk ******** like them

 

The Labour Party massively subsidised the arms industry, and provided it with £squillions in public money by invading Iraq.

 

By ignoring the topic of the thread but calling other contributors reds etc. without even quoting what it is they have said which you believe makes them communists, you are really coming across a cantankerous moron who knows sod all about anything.

[ECCOnoob]

Maybe Cameron is trying to stop more job losses within companies such as BAE systems? Perhaps, just perhaps

 

You know like trying to keep pitching Britain as an exporter in arms along with the 22 various other trade representatives to try and flog what little uk manufacturing and export we have. Do you want everything to be took over by the far east???

 

Maybe... just maybe...... he might have more of a clue as to how things work than me and you. Arms are a business and a product we make just like any other thing. Would you be having such a silly melodramatic rant if he was travelling with his trade envoys to do a multi-billion pound pitch on teddy bears??

 

'merchants of death' ah diddums

[donkey]

Maybe Cameron is trying to stop more job losses within companies such as BAE systems? Perhaps, just perhaps

 

You know like trying to keep pitching Britain as an exporter in arms along with the 22 various other trade representatives to try and flog what little uk manufacturing and export we have. Do you want everything to be took over by the far east???

 

Maybe... just maybe...... he might have more of a clue as to how things work than me and you. Arms are a business and a product we make just like any other thing. Would you be having such a silly melodramatic rant if he was travelling with his trade envoys to do a multi-billion pound pitch on teddy bears??

 

'merchants of death' ah diddums

 

 

Well done for repeating Cameron's spin verbatim, while clearly having either not read or not understood the numerous posts giving information which strongly contradicts this version of events.

 

It must take a lot of vision and imagination to listen to the things politicians tell you and then repeat them as if

 

A: They are your own thoughts and

B: They are true.

[ECCOnoob]

Nothing to do with Cameron's spin.

 

I have worked in both civil service and now the corporate world. That's business. Its how it works. Its what my company does along with every other company. If you want to make deals and get companies interested in what you are selling you have to induldge in gladhanding, showing off, fancy meetings and networking, pitches and sometimes when necessary resort to blatent blagging and using your power/influence or the influence of contacts you know to get a foot in the door and if possible the best deal

 

Its all well and good being all fair and square but in the business world that does sod all. Every business does it and he is representing UK PLC. If he doesn't push as hard as he can he will be criticised and we will lose the little trade we have. You think that would be a good thing?

[donkey]

Nothing to do with Cameron's spin.

 

I have worked in both civil service and now the corporate world. That's business. Its how it works. Its what my company does along with every other company. If you want to make deals and get companies interested in what you are selling you have to induldge in gladhanding, showing off, fancy meetings and networking, pitches and sometimes when necessary resort to blatent blagging and using your power/influence or the influence of contacts you know to get a foot in the door and if possible the best deal

 

Its all well and good being all fair and square but in the business world that does sod all. Every business does it and he is representing UK PLC. If he doesn't push as hard as he can he will be criticised and we will lose the little trade we have. You think that would be a good thing?

 

The only things he is 'pushing hard' to promote are the arms industry and financial sector. This is more about old boys networks and the influence of lobbyists than a genuine push to promote British industry.

 

Recently, the last British train manufacturer went out of business at the same time as a fat contract for train carriages went to a German firm. Being interviewed on Newesnight, the Tory minister concerned at first claimed he was merely abiding by EU law. When it was pointed out that German and French railways favoured their own manufacturers' the minister was forced to change his story and concede that he could have awarded the contract to a British manufacturer, bnut claimed the deal had been done under Labour. He completely changed his story half way throughh the interview. On being pushed as to why he wasn't using the same loopholes to promote British manufacturing as those being exploited by France and Germany, he retreated into meaningless rhetoric.

 

This is what is happening all the time. These deals are often done for the political advantage of individuals and parties, rather than the interests of the country.

 

In the case of arms sales, firstly, the research for the development of weapons is often paid through tax, making the manufacturers effectively subsidised, and secondly, why use public money to pay for the development of arms before selling them on to powers which may one day use them against us, and all for the profit of private individuals/ because these particular private individuals have all the right connections, basically.

[ECCOnoob]

Bombardier have not gone out of business.... they are very much still operating - all they have done is cut some workforce. So what?

They lost a contract because their product simply was not good enough compared to the rivals. That was just bad business nothing to do with the government. Would you have been happy with a substandard product just because you can claim you gave it to a british firm?? Drive a british made car do you? british made tv? computer? clothing?.

 

In any case, giving it to siemens has created additional UK jobs to the figure bombardier claim they have to shell. Hardly a great loss on the economy there.

 

Oh and whilst were on the subject.....

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jul/05/viewpoint-manufacturing-job-bombardier-siemens

 

They are about as british as McDonalds.

 

As for Cameron keeping his friends with these 'protected' 'old boys club' arms and banking organisations. Have you watched the news?

 

BAE systems have just cut 3000 jobs. Many of those workers weren't on minimum wage.

 

If he protects the banks so much how come RBS cut 20,000 jobs, HSBC are threatening to cut 30,000 jobs, barclays threatening another 3000.

 

Lets not forget that we recently became majority shareholder in not one but two of the biggest banking corporations in the UK. Yes us. Our taxes into the banks. State ownerhip i.e. us. We can now sell them back when they make a profit or if the deal goes through all have a few shares for ourselves and we can all make some coin. I dont see much of a problem with that.

[davebrmm]

The Prime Minister moved on to Kuwait but his defence minister, Gerald Howarth, went with the arms dealers to the defence expo. On sale were examples of the UK's finest weaponry – CS gas shotgun cartridges, sniper rifles, bomb-making parts as well as the big stuff such as BAE's lethal howitzer. But while in Kuwait, Cameron was caught on the hop when asked by a reporter why the UK was still selling arms to the emirate, prompting him to snap: "I simply don't understand how you can't understand how democracies have a right to defend themselves," adding that anyone not holding that view was at "odds with reality".

 

Well, the reality caught up with him when TV footage coming out of Libya showed Colonel Gaddafi's security men crushing protests in Tripoli using British-made armoured personnel carriers. The manufacturer has been identified as Leicestershire-based NMS International, which has sold 10 of the vehicles to Libya. One director claimed the vehicles are "big armoured buses" used to carry up to 42 police officers, and not designed for hostility. It also emerged that NMS has been training Libyan police. The UK has now sold military bits worth £30m to the country, taking the total to about £100m since ex-PM Tony Blair brought Gaddafi back in from the cold.

 

Apart from the sickening knowledge that UK-made equipment is being used by Gaddafi to slaughter his own people, the fact that we started selling again to this ruthless tyrant shows the hypocrisy of the rules which guide our defence exports.

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/comment/margareta-pagano/margareta-pagano-cameron-shoots-himself-in-the-ukarmed-foot-2226621.html

 

Making and selling arms is big business. Worth about £7.5bn in exports, the industry employs around 300,000 people – many of them highly talented engineers and technicians; it's a cash-up-front business, high-margin and counter-cyclical. But actually this is tiny, representing only about 1.5 per cent of all exports.

 

 

 

Imagine if the resources which the Government put behind it where given to alternative technologies, those which could help wean us off the oil and gas that make us so dependent on the Gulf?

 

smart arse