I sincerely hope that all the adverse publicity that the Royal Navy is receiving will help do some good and help rectify some of the problems which have been dogging the senior service for decades. Two weeks ago I wrote that it was a Navy without any sailors, now it hasn’t got any ships either.
This is a case of woeful mis-management by senior admirals and officials at the Ministry of Defence. It is scandalous that despite Britain having the biggest defence budget in Europe, the Royal Navy has only a handful of ships and even a smaller number of serviceable submarines.
Where is the money going because it is obviously not reaching the right places? For years, admirals have been moaning that they have too few ships but the problem is really that the ships they do have are old, underequipped and. in some cases, they don’t work.
Case in point are the Type 45 destroyers which have spent a considerable time of their service career in port fixing defects. Hopefully, decisions will now be taken to rectify the faults. It is a crying shame that the navy which once ruled the waves is stuck in port and not because of bad weather.