Man in a Shed

Letting state pupils down

2010-02-09T15:21:00.004Z

I've just read an article that shows up two things that are very wrong with our country right now.

Somehow we need to be free of the political classes strangle hold on whats available and how taxpayers money should be spent.

Never mind prisoners what about service people keeping their votes ?

2010-02-08T08:23:00.005Z

One of the greatest scandals of the 2005 general election ( apart the straight lies told by Gordon Brown about the impact of Conservative spending plans- but we all know the man knows no shame ) was to see British soldiers defending Iraqi elections when their own government had changed the election rules in a way that made it very difficult for them to vote.

I wonder who benefits from large numbers of service personnel being unable to vote ?

I bet the Labour party knows and is very grateful they couldn't vote.

Today we have the Human Rights people telling us we have to ensure convicted criminals who are serving their sentences to vote, and I'm making no further comment on that here, but I wonder what the position is for over seas personnel this time ?

This time the men and women who know all about Gordon Brown's lies and deceitful budget cuts of helicopter and equipment must be allowed to return the favour and vote.

PS If you need to find out how to register to vote see here, though you might be too late to help get rid of Gordon Brown and his band of dishonest and incompetent parasites.

Leader's repayed expenses

2010-02-04T20:34:00.003Z

Is it just me or is there a clear message here on repayed expenses ?

One party leader is at least 1386% large than the others. Could this be the man who ran the nation's finances into the ditch ? Oh yes ...

H/T to the Lib Dem cynical bar chart dept - but boys notice this one is scaled correctly ....

Will the Bank of England's printing presses be turned off soon ?

2010-02-04T10:30:00.004Z

Rumours are circulating that the Bank of England will soon stop funding the government debt by printing money. ( We'll if you ask them or a Labour Treasury minister they will say the same thing, but with a hole load more guff ).

Anyone want to buy long term UK debt at low interest rates with the prospect of a hung parliament and no clear action to reduce the deficit being undertaken till yet another general election can be held ?

The risks are real as Greece is showing.

This will be interesting ... if you excuse the pun.

Blue bash reflections

2010-02-03T10:17:00.005Z

So I made it home, abandoning the younger a fitter members of the Tory blogging fraternity to their home brew entertainment.

It was good to meet up again with some of the guys from Steve Green's Pint of Badger fuelled afternoon last year. Also to get to know a few more bloggers. ( Just what is so Terrible about Terrible Tory Girl anyway ? )

Blogging's not where it was, and in many ways has gone over the initial wave of interest of a few years ago, as the media and innovators chase twitter, facebook and the semi-detached Conservative home type sites.

I suspect blogging will become the hinterland of political parties electronic presence. Few people can write about politics without becoming more involved and developing their ideas. At the same time networks are developing outside of the control of any party or body ( as Eric Pickels wisely conceeded in his brief talk ). This will continue to give blogging a form of deep long term influence. English Nationalism is perhaps the best example of this. An issue rejected by all the main parties, but a key issue for many of their bloggers.

As the general election warms up bloggers will be engaging with the issues and each other via any means possible. But the key is likely to be the wider interaction on social media - Mum's net type sites etc and the wider population starts tacking an interest for just three weeks. ( Remember how Labour tries to control the local press by getting its party members to try and write "floating voter" letters. The scope for this sort of influence has now vastly increased and we can expect the propaganda war to be relentless. )

The key moment for the blogs themselves will be after the election as the battle for ideas and the soul of the parties ( combined with perhaps two leadership elections ) gets going.

Michael White refused entry

2010-02-02T23:31:00.002Z

Highlight of the evening.

Sent from my HTC

Glories past and inevitable financial decline

2010-02-02T17:06:00.001Z

I'm sitting in the science museum right now. Normally I would be feeling pangs of nostalgia for past British glories, especially in the space section with its model of Black Arrow.

But today its time to feel sorry for the Americans as they start down the same road with Obama cancelling their plans to return to the moon.

Not that he's made the wrong decision. The future does lie with better innovation. But I fear this is the first step in the US having to face up to the financial reality that they are broke. There will be far more pain to come, and our share of it is over due also.

But we can both over come our disastrous financial states. ( The US is at least staging a recovery, the UK is still cursed by Brown's canutist govt. ) We have little to fear and much to gain if we face up to the world as it is, and stop living in Labour's fantasy narrative.

This was the lesson of the eighties, taught to us by Mrs Thatcher. It's a great shame it has to be re-learnt.

Sent from my HTC

Is Brown AV plan to buy support from the Lib Dems unconstitutional ?

2010-02-02T12:50:00.001Z

I just wonder if this Parliament can bind the next with a referendum to take place after the current parliament ends ?

If I remember correctly there is a constitutional convention that no Parliament may bind another.

Or do I have this wrong ?

Alternative votes will lead to alternative parties and unintended consequences

2010-02-02T11:30:00.003Z

The only truth we can be sure of is there is nothing Gordon Brown won't do to try to hold onto power.

Attempting to convert Labour to a form of PR just as your 13 years in power is coming to an end will be seen as just the sort of unprincipled opportunism or even cheating that Labour have become synonymous with.

But all the political parties have something to worry about here.

Each party is an alliance of interests who are willing to make compromises for power ( or in the Lib Dem case for getting a few people on the public pay role ).

AV will allow someone to vote for, say a religious party, safe in the knowledge they aren't "wasting their vote" as there second preference will be just as valid and valuable as another person's first. It will allow groups to make their presence felt. Political parties will be able to note where the religious parties votes go - which will vastly improve the negotiating strength of that group. There are plenty of other groups this applies to.

An unintended consequence will be that smaller political parties will become "more popular" - even if they don't win seats. ( And of course the pressure will come to allocate them seats in the style in Scotland and Wales ).

It will be possible to run more than one candidate from the same party in the same ward. Or two parties which are close, but disagree one one point of policy perhaps.

Some of the existing political parties will become unstable. Each of the three main parties could split - perhaps ironically the Liob Dems are the most likely as they are a hopeless compromise between Blairite Social Democrats and Nick Clegg's Tory-Lites.

It could be good for democracy, so whilst I condemn Labour for their usual breath taking cynicism, I don't rule out the idea.

The voters need more influence over the political establishment - which is liberal and over all centre right - when the votes are really conservative and centre right.

Not quite the realignment Brown has in mind though ...

Equality and repression

2010-02-02T07:43:00.006Z

The Pope has entered the debate on Labour's plans for a secular legally enforced religion with prosecution and imprisonment for those who commit heresy against the wisdom of Labour/ the BBC/ the Guardian. ( This is spun, just as blatantly, by the militant secularists who will tolerate no dissent on Equality legislation. )

I'm afraid from a UK point of you he's a bit late - before the vote in the house of Lords would have been better- but better late than never.

But will the Catholic Church recommend anyone-but-Labour for the general election ? Given Labour's enthusiasm for murdering unborn children who are viable human beings you would have thought that this line would already have been crossed.

Sadly as an Anglican, the Church of England's Bishops are almost invisible on this issue of the freedom of religion.

Anyway, a few corrections from what I've heard on the radio this morning.

The Church isn't worried about employing gays or anyone else. It is worried about appointing people who openly proclaim its teachings are wrong to positions of pastoral or doctrinal authority or whom represent the church. The Church better than many other knows that all have sinned and carry on doing so - its those who say this state doesn't matter or exist that worries it.

Now there are those who argue that the current Equality legislation doesn't force this. I heard a member of the hard line British Humanist association talking about just janitors etc. However, since he has no basis for being honest and fears no judgement I go with the advice of of Christian lawyers who warn it does.

What's happening here is the establishment of an arbitrary humanist morality backed by the terror of the state. Its the opposite of what those who have an open mind or a faith should want to see.

Arguments will be made in terms of rights of services etc but some of those people making those arguments have other agendas.

The bottom line is that any Christian or Muslim should think very long and hard before voting Labour.

Labour has become a rabidly anti-Christian organisation whose actions lead to the repression of Christians and needs to be recognised as such.

The deficit should be the prime target

2010-01-31T23:56:00.002Z

Is there a loss of nerve on getting the deficit sorted ?

David Cameron appears to be rowing backwards a little on the cuts on day one line.

He'd better not be. The only argument I'd accept for holding back on action once in office is taking the time to do the job properly. I.E. make the right cuts at the right level and the correct changes, which might take a few months to sort out. The sort of mad axeman stuff the socialists in Greece will soon have forced on them ( just as Labour have int he past by the IMF )will be both brutal, arbitrary and unnecessarily cruel due to the haste they will have to be applied in. There the sort of cuts we will get if the national disaster of Labour getting a fourth term happens.

But lets be clear - a reduced state has to come very soon, and it will be a good thing for most people.

Why salt cell will just make things worse - as socialism always does

2010-01-30T14:50:00.004Z

When its been freezing for a few days and gritting makes the headlines the govt offers its excuse that its taken national command of the grit and salt supplies - to send it where its most needed.

But like so many other acts of socialism this one is ultimately counter productive.

Local councils have to decide how large salt stocks to carry, and this will relate to their budgets and council tax rates. If they gamble on a warm winter ( a BBQ winter to be cruel to the ~~climate change propaganda office~~ met office ) then they may win votes and thanks, If they lose then the govt helps them out.

But if they buy in diligent stocks then they definitely lose with the BBQ winter, and also lose if the winter is harsh as the salt will be taken from them by govt.

Hence the tactical decision taken for short term headlines is a strategic disaster.

We can see the same mechanism working where the govt punishes people who make provision for themselves in life.

The real 2010 question is about Iran not Iraq

2010-01-29T23:51:00.003Z

Mr Blair had a carefully prepared set of words ready to change the terms of the debate to use at the Chilcot Inquiry today.

One of them was to ask the question of where we would be today if we hadn't have removed Saddam Hussain.

Here's part of the answer - we would have been ready and able, with the moral authority and military will and capability along with the US - to deal with Iran.

The problem with Tony Blair's calling wolf in 2003 is that no one will trust a British Prime Minister when he/she makes the same claim for a generation. As such we are vastly weakened and our enemies know it.

The country has been put in very real danger by a country that has major Nuclear ambitions.

That's the true "2010" answer Mr Blair.

What Blair says and what the BBC hears

2010-01-29T17:42:00.002Z

On the same news programme this evening I heard it reported that Tony Blair said something on the lines of :

"I did not pressure Goldsmith to change his mind"

The BBC reports in its news headline that Blair said pressure was no bought to bear on Goldsmith to change his mind.

Of course the two aren't the same.

Blair uses his lawyers grasp of words to say something you think means one thing, but in fact is very precise and does not.

So for example Blair could have had someone else lean on Goldsmith or have known someone else was doing it - and still been truthful in the words he used.

This is the problem with Labour - they live in a world of illusions and deceit and they can't help themselves.

I believed in Blair ....

2010-01-29T08:15:00.005Z

I believed in Blair over Iraq.

I was in the far east when he published his dossier for the general population. ( I was against its publication as I could remember how carefully Conservative and other Labour Prime Minister's had protected intelligence material. Its seemed a bit reckless, perhaps even with the safety of the country's own operatives, but since it went into the public domain I downloaded into my hotel room in South Korea. )

In almost every other aspect I had always been an opponent of Blair. I warned people in 1997 after may what Labour would do to politics, freedom of religion and the economy - at that time no one wanted to listen, but I have been shown right on every point.

But still a Prime Minister of the United Kingdom would not mislead parliament on the matter of going to war and the inevitable death of thousands - would he ?

Colin Powell believed British intelligence on Uranium exports and mobile WMD labs, so much that he destroyed his reputation in front of the UN with it.

After all it wasn't just Blair, or Labour, but the civil servants and intelligence services also.

You could be opposed to war in principle - and many were - but no one believed no WMD would be found ! ( Well except the Tunisian Engineers who had worked in Iraq I met a few weeks before the invasion who assured me there were no such things. )

I've just heard David Blunkett on radio 4 this morning suggesting that Blair was justified because he believed in the war, indeed he almost went as far as self-sanctification.

In many ways this is to be expected of Labour politicians who grew up as socialist flat earthers denying the changes Margret Thatcher had to bring about and saving the country from the sort of mystery Labour has just pushed us back into.

But it also shows this New Labour fault line that if you believe in your narrative really hard it becomes true.

Its doesn't and hundreds of thousands of people died.

Blair's conversion to Catholicism cynically after he left office, shows that he's not a straight forward or honest man. But he may be a troubled one. He looks haunted, and maybe that's why he was sneaking into Westminster Abbey when some of the bones of that young French girl were being paraded and the Catholic church had started handing out indulgences again.

The problem with Blair has not been faith - though he broke faith with the nation and the sacred duties of his office - but the lack of scepticism, doubt and humility. Perhaps if he'd been a real protestant he'd have been more aware of those failings and more humble.

I certainly should never have trusted Tony Blair, and nor should anyone else. I wasn't scpetical enough.

The gap between the cans and cannots has grown unacceptably big

2010-01-27T13:02:00.002Z

This morning Man in a Shed would like to reveal the results of a survey he commissioned himself about 10 seconds ago into government which has revealed some shocking results:

The gap between those who can run a successful government and those who have demonstrated they cannot is now at unacceptably high levels.

It is now clear that Labour cannot do the following:

Tell the truth about taking the country to war and hold a proper inquiry right after it ( but the Conservatives could ).
Run the economy - the appalling 0.1% growth figures after staggering amounts of debt have been run up to support it show this. Labour's failure to identify the structural deficiet and bubble they were running will have desperate consequences for all in society for decades to come.
Run an education system. Instead they try to fix the results by even trying to tell employers who to employ. Perhaps they shouldn't have destroyed standards in education with their worse than useless initiatives.
Run a government - there are queues of civil servants now waiting to dump on the disorganised chaos that is caused by the shallow talent pool Labour fishes for minister and leaders in.

But I know a man who Cam ....

Oops - HMRC might be charging lots of extra tax

2010-01-25T19:20:00.004Z

In one of those "computer mistakes" ( which are really human error - at best ) for which government is justly famed, could cost about £1000 /yr for those people who don't check in detail.

Just like HMRC's decision not to ask for Tax returns from those earning less than £100k /yr I'm going to guess HMRC does well out of this also.

Its a new tax - a tax on ignorance.

PS I'm guessing I'm not the only one to wonder if a link between Gordon Brown's insane debt fuelled destruction of the country, his need for ready cash to keep fooling the voters before the general election, and this mistake might be linked ....

So where did my tax money go ?

2010-01-23T15:24:00.005Z

Another year, another set of tax returns submitted. ( I do it a week early to allow some time for winding up my brother who will be thumping keyboards as servers crash on the 31st Jan ).

But where does the money go ?

Part of the answer looks like being provided by this very easy to use web site Where does My Money Go ?

It appears to be in development - but for all you Barnett Formula fans out there it has plenty of ammunition on it. Have a play here. At present I know nothing about the source of the data etc, so proceed with caution, but the idea looks good and the site works well.

I often think politics could do with more quantitative explanations to the voters, and this is a great way of starting to do it.

H/T to Eddie @freedomscaresme

A word on stats

2010-01-23T10:49:00.004Z

http://www.phdcomics.com/comics/archive.php?comicid=1271

Needless to say it applies in the UK also. Jorge Cham writes one of the best niche cartoons out for University Graduate students - if you want to know what working in research is really like, go over and check out his work.

Why the Lib Dems are wrong on marriage and why it matters

2010-01-22T11:41:00.000Z

There is a knee jerk reaction in the liberal political class, and its groupies, of attacking anything that comes out of the Conservative party on the structure of our society.

So naked political opportunism means they attempt to join the dots between "Back to basics" and recognising marriage in the tax system ( marriage is of course discriminated against in the benefits system ).

We use tax to encourage and change peoples behaviour all the time, and all parties agree with this approach.

Marriage has spectacular benefits for society ( and there is every reason to believe that civil partnerships will also ). The long term, until death do us part, commitment provides better health ( and lower NHS costs ), free care for the sick and elderly (savings to the NHS and benefits and local council services - for example my Grandfather looked after my dying Grandmother for years before he finally had to allow her to be put into a home ), and vastly better child rearing with better outcomes by an order of magnitude.

It is a Judo/Christian principle to let people share in the benefits their work and actions bring. And encouraging marriage also improves the strength and cohesion of our society.

Some of the strongest parts of our society are Muslim, Sikh and Hindu families - almost all I would hazard to guess married. Are the Lib Dems really wanting to discriminate against those pillars of our society ?

The arguments used against the proposal to recognise and share the benefits marriage brings to society through the tax system are the usual debating tricks of using wild examples which allow table thumping and self righteous claims of being unfair. ( See Nick Clegg doing his fake indignation routine on the cheating husband. )

That is of course good politics, and we know the Lib Dems excel at politics. However its bad for society, the country and especially the life chances of the children who it will damage.

Its time to honour marriage again in our society and to value it and share its benefits.

The NHS does best with Conservative style reforms

2010-01-20T10:51:00.005Z

We live in a society which has a short memory.

When Labour came into power in 1997 it was on the back of the smear that you had 24hrs to save the NHS ( who can forget that sickening blackmailing PPB with the taxi driver and a father and ill daughter ? ).

Blair and Brown laid into market reforms in the NHS.

They got into power promising to dismantle evil Tory reforms.

And they did - but then Blair noticed something. All the tax payers funded cash being hossed into the NHS ( mostly on salary increases, and as we now know finaced by a debt bubble ) wasn't producing anything. So he started to set up the same structures he'd been denoucing earlier. The NHS went in a very tight, and very expensive circle. ( Much like when Labour destroyed Conservative School reforms only to do the same thing with a different name with Academies ).

However thanks to devolution, which dismantled the NHS into 4 NHS's ( A Scottish, Welsh, Irish and ... well Labour can never manage the word English .. ones ), the celts got off to their own devolved wonderlands before some of the reforms had been re-implemented.

So now we can compare the performance of bloody minded socialist provision against the few reforms Gordon Brown didn't block on his "anything to make me prime minister" sulk over the first ten years of New Labour.

And its not pretty. In short the English NHS wins hands down. There's a lot of socialist and celtic spluttering going on to try and hide this in the media today, but just like the fact that overall NHS productivity has decreased under Labour, the facts can't be hidden.

Just because the budget for the English NHS is ring fenced - doesn't mean that the Conservatives shouldn't get better results for tax payers money with more reform and save and improve many more lives into the bargain.

Thats why if your intrested in the health of the people of England and the English NHS you should vote Conservative. And if your in one of the devolved unreformed socialist luddite parts of the country you might like to think about it also.

Its the only moral choice.

Update: See Alan Cochrane on the performance of the Scottish NHS vs its English equivalents.

How did Labour screw up so badly on computer systems - the answers simple

2010-01-19T10:46:00.004Z

Today there are articles asking how Labour managed to blow tens of billions of pounds on dysfunctional computer and IT projects.

The answers are simple, and all the more depressing for it:

The consultants saw New Labour coming. Some firms that had been banished from government by the Conservative administration saw New Labour as their way back.
Labour minister wanted to believe in their own narrative and mission to modernise. They were guilty of wishful thinking. As such a sales by the IT industry were easy.
The government lacked the skills to manage these contracts and kept interfering.
They lacked any actual knowledge or experience of these types of projects. Anyone who has studies software engineering knows that most public software projects fail - indeed the vast majority.
And last, but not least, someone else was paying ( the poor tax payer ).

Wallander and death of my father

2010-01-18T13:21:00.005Z

I don't usually do reflective posts, but I'm going to indulge myself a little today. ( Usual service back tomorrow no doubt. )

Boris Johnson is wrong today in the Telegraph as to why the English adaptation of Wallander is so compelling, and its not a sort of sang froid about Scandinavians being as bad as the rest of us.

We can see Kurt Wallander drowning slowly through out both series. Friends dying, betrayal, fractious family relations all bringing the tide in in a way you assume will certainly drown Kurt.

This week saw the death of his father. He doesn't take the time, and with the exceptions of one or two work colleagues, no one else is going to give it to him ( certainly not what's left of his family ).

No one knows what the death of a father is really like, until they have experienced it. Yesterdays episode played that part brilliantly. ( I remember a Sunday school teacher of mine telling us that, and how annoyed he was by the superficial reassurances from people who had no such similar experience. He was spot on. )

Its Kenneth Branagh's portrayal of Wallander slowly bleeding humanity that's so appealing, and I suspect for those men over a certain age the empathy they feel for it. ( See girls your always asking us to open up and talk about our feelings, now you see why staying quiet was always a good idea.)

Just maybe its self indulgent, but when the reasons for stoicism are eroded by the years and events its quite understandable.

I haven't read the books, or seen the Swedish series, so I don't know where this is all going - but its a journey many hooked viewers will take with Kenneth Branagh.

PS I didn't say how this all relates to my own father, but that in part is the point.

Dad died almost 10 years ago.

Marriage benefits everyone - so why does Labour hate it so much ?

2010-01-17T12:13:00.006Z

Marriage makes loads of sense from the point of view of the wider community.

Married partners ( and perhaps civil partners also - though time will need to pass to prove this ) look after each other, to a point way beyond what normal friendships would normally provide. This saves the state a fortune.

Children do well out of marriage, and if children do well then all the cost of failure to wider society never materialise.

Instead of promoting, supporting and ecouraging marriage why do Labour hate it so much ? After all supporting marriage is a no brainer for society.

Let me suggest three reasons:

Like a vampire Labour feasts off social breakdown and deprivation. Marriage is one of the key structures in society that stops the damage they need to create to justify a wider role for the state.
It fits into their desperate campaign to portray the Conservatives as being for the few not the many. If ten of thousands of children have to have their life chances ruined and destroyed then its a small price to pay for a few more Labour votes.
It fits with the aggressive secularist and humanist agenda of most of Labour's leading figures who hate Christianity, as its a rival religion to their statist socialism.

It also shows the true level of threat that Labour presents to our society - which is just as serious and dangerous as the spectacular damage they have done to our economy.

Military manoeuvres

2010-01-17T12:13:00.000Z

Full marks to the Army today for getting its political strike in with Max Hasting's article in the Speccie this week.

They are deploying the - we need the stuff to fight Afghanistan / Iraq counter insurgency wars and therefore its the fast jet jockeys and highly expensive cold war Naval types who should be cut.

The RAF and Army's cross hairs are firmly targeted on the two new carriers.
The RAF wants to kill of the Fleet Air Arm.
The Army wants to kill of the RAF. ( Too much time waiting for clapped out transport Tristars to be repaired and having no helicopters souring the mood a bit ).
And no doubt the Army will make another bid for the Royal Marines, as it would be rude not to.
The Lib Dems and Labour unilateralists want to surrender world influence to the US by giving up a functioning Nuclear deterrent, though of course they think they're aiming for something else.
And everyone does a lot of wishful thinking about Trident.

Looks like chaos to me.

What we should remember is that each war over the past few decade has required a different aspect of the military.

The Falklands - The Navy
First Gulf War - The RAF and the pig iron dinosaurs of an Armoured brigade.
The Iraq was - RAF, Navy (popping of cruise missiles ) and infantry.
The current insurgencies - The infantry supported by air mobile elements, and with highly expensive delivery of high explosives on mud huts by the RAF .

We need to think long and hard about what our defence needs really are and make choices. Cuts across the board will just lead to us failing at everything.

We will always need the Army, but maybe not armoured brigades.
We need air defence - the Russians are flying super sonic nuclear capable aircraft to within spitting distance of our cost and being only detected when they fly away ( this is very very serious and hasn't got the attention it deserves ).
And thanks to Labour campaign to destroy our traditional culture by mass immigration we can't feed ourselves any more, so we rely on food from over seas and fuel as well - and to guarantee those we'll need a blue water Navy.

Its a mess, and one the Army must not be allowed to exploit for selfish reasons the public support for the troops under fire. In the end we are about the defence of the realm - not inter service rivalry.

There have to be cuts of course - so here are my ideas.

Set a near term withdrawal from Afghanistan. Yes deadlines are bad, but we can't carry on and need to recognise that fact.
The RAF is over manned - the Israeli airforce manages on far lower manning levels, and they are fighting wars all the time. P45's for many of the guys in light blue - sorry, but at least you all have transferable skills.
A larger reserve - allowing mobilization in short term, but not requiring the same standing resources. And a corresponding smaller size of regular forces.
Avoid selling of bases just to raise cash. We need to be ready for war - not running a few airshows, and in war assets will get damaged.
Cancel the carriers and either lease from the US ( who have their own budget problems and will probably play along ) or replace with smaller carriers again. ( Not ideal - but with drones etc coming in over the next decade this may be smarter than it looks).
Build new tactical Nukes. Labour abolished them ( but being New Labour kept quiet about it ). One way to deter people like the Argentines is to have them guessing if their airfields might get nuked if they push us too far. Deterrence pays very dividends in prevented conflict.
Missiles/Drones are a good idea. We need far more of them. In the Arab Israeli wars the success of missiles has been vastly under reported, and have fought one of the best militaries in the world to a stand still on more than one occasion. They aren't as flash as fighter jets or tanks - but they are deadly and effective. These come at the expense of the manned equivalents - that means less aircraft, pilots and tanks.