Governments of every political persuasion have overspent on defence contracts for decades if not longer. The MOD has been seen as a soft touch by private contractors for as long as I can remember, and has been utterly unable to run defence contracts competently or anywhere near close to budget.

A failure to modernise, invest and innovate over many decades

I'm really sorry for anyone losing their job at any time and I wish you all luck in finding something new.

I would say that there will be many more casualties over the next few years as the coalition actually try to do something to sort out the mess that successive governments (yes, including Thatcher) have put this country in. I'm worried it's too late for the western world.

"Property-related borrowing and lending between financial institutions helped the collected debt of households, businesses and government balloon from roughly twice gross domestic product (GDP) in 1987 to around 5.4 times by 2009, when total debt stood at £7.5 trillion, according to the report.

Despite government austerity measures, the firm's latest economic outlook sees the UK's debt to GDP ratio sticking near historic highs as borrowing hits £10.2 trillion by 2015.

But if the economy does not perform as well as expected, one plausible alternative scenario could still see the debt burden soar as high as 5.8 times of GDP, the report said."

from [url=http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/economics/8118467/UKs-total-debt-forecast-to-hit-10-trillion-by-2015.htmllink[/url

We constantly hear how the country is trillions in debt, looking at the news the whole of Europe seems to be in a worse state than us, Africa is in debt too add to that the US is massively in debt. The banks are running at the point of breaking and the stock exchanges are crashing daily...

Quick question, who is this money owed too? If nearly all countries and financial institutions are broke someone must be coining it in, who??

[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8530150.stmlink[/url
quite an interesting article

Well unless the definition has changed, or i have missunderstood it all these years, ( it is the amount by which a government, company, or individual's spending exceeds its income via taxes etc over a particular period of time. It may also be called deficit or deficit spending.
In fact The UK now has the third largest budget deficit in Europe, according to the recently published EU’s official league table.
In Labours case this was because, Clearly spending was too high(or taxes to low, god forbid). which is what i said in my post however, i do stand to be corrected if i'm wrong.

Wonga.com??

Your figures are wrong, so wrong, the budget deficit has never approached £1 trillion, the 2010 figures show a deficit of £148 billions, around 1/7th of £1 trillion. That figure takes into account money to bail out the banks that caused the mess. Look at the spreadsheet and you'll see that Labour actually reduced the deficit that the previous administration left them and prior to 2008 a deficit of 44% of GDP was easily manageable

Quote cod'ead="cod'ead"Your figures are wrong, so wrong, the budget deficit has never approached £1 trillion, the 2010 figures show a deficit of £148 billions, around 1/7th of £1 trillion. That figure takes into account money to bail out the banks that caused the mess. Look at the spreadsheet and you'll see that Labour actually reduced the deficit that the previous administration left them and prior to 2008 a deficit of 44% of GDP was easily manageable'" My appologies, i should have said the national debt stands at almost 1 trillion, in fact i think its stated as actualy higher than that, ill have to look it up. Anyway with regards the the actual budget deficit, i believe it currently stands around 154 billion but is still rising and represents around 10% of GDP. which is only slightly lower than Greece which is currently running at about 10.5% of GDP but higher than Spain or Portugal whos deficits are running at about 9.1 and 9.2% of GDP, whichever way you look at it, we are in a bit of a financial mess at the moment and must hope for some growth in the economy which is the only way the current trend can be reversed imo . You may find this interesting . www.debtbombshell.com/

Quote cod'ead="cod'ead"Your figures are wrong, so wrong, the budget deficit has never approached £1 trillion, the 2010 figures show a deficit of £148 billions, around 1/7th of £1 trillion. That figure takes into account money to bail out the banks that caused the mess. Look at the spreadsheet and you'll see that Labour actually reduced the deficit that the previous administration left them and prior to 2008 a deficit of 44% of GDP was easily manageable'" My appologies, i should have said the national debt stands at almost 1 trillion, in fact i think its stated as actualy higher than that, ill have to look it up. Anyway with regards the the actual budget deficit, i believe it currently stands around 154 billion but is still rising and represents around 10% of GDP. which is only slightly lower than Greece which is currently running at about 10.5% of GDP but higher than Spain or Portugal whos deficits are running at about 9.1 and 9.2% of GDP, whichever way you look at it, we are in a bit of a financial mess at the moment and must hope for some growth in the economy which is the only way the current trend can be reversed imo . You may find this interesting . www.debtbombshell.com/

Appreciate the thoughts (well positive ones anyway) I've been there 27 years the company has been good to me over that time. But having work taken from Brough to act as a stop gap to our factories in Lancashire takes some stomaching. The product is still a world leading capability, it requires the skills of craftsmen to make and the majority of those affected are hard working, proud and high skilled workers. So if you can't say anything positive or put aside your personal agendas it might just be better to say nowt. My thoughts are with my friends, colleagues and their families because whatever you may think this is a tough time for all and the end of a part of the fabric of peoples livesand the community. We are proud of what we have achieved and will face the future with dignity.

www.theage.com.au/business/bhp-t ... 1kxbt.html Check this out , Australia has little real unemployment and are short of skilled workers.

www.theage.com.au/business/bhp-t ... 1kxbt.html Check this out , Australia has little real unemployment and are short of skilled workers.

Well, putting aside your two wild assumptions on my politcal views and my opinion on current ecomonic issues, but of which are wrong, it doesn't change the fact that your statement was sentationalist. This country is, nor has recently been even remotely close to been bankrupt, not under the previous or current goverments.