Too long, Too Complicated. Cut

The title of this post, and this blog, is taken from Corelli Barnetts history of the Royal Navy in World War 2. He records that...

"When [Admiral Cunninghams] staff presented him with elaborate...draft orders for a six day exercise he wrote across the draft in red ink: 'Too long, too complicated. Cut.' The staff obediently reduced the orders to fifteen pages... This time Cunningham wrote in the margin: 'I agree with the second sentence of paragraph 29, and little else.' When the staff looked up the paragraph in question they found that the sentence read: 'The fleet will be manoeuvred by the Commander-in-Chief.' And it was - without any written orders at all...entirely by visual signals.

When I first read this it struck a chord and has stayed with me since then. Life is complicated and long winded and exasperating - how refreshing to cut through the 'verbiage' once in awhile. John Rentoul runs a 'banned list' in his Independent column that rails against needless language. His latest addition to the list

A story on Monday about the architect Le Corbusier included this: “But now the level of demand for such works means that even the most mundane items…are fetching thousands of pounds.” “The level of” is one of those terms ending in “of” that amount to little more than preliminary throat-clearing. They can nearly always be struck out. Other examples are “a sense of”, “a series of”, “the introduction of”, “a package of”, “a basket of”, “a raft of”, “a range of” and “the prospect of”.

When writing a story, or a blog post!, it is easy to write as we talk. We naturally include 'umms', 'ahhs' and pauses in our speech. Sometimes it is to give us time to think and occasionally we insert them when not needed because to talk too fast is to seem hasty and ill considered. When translated to paper these pauses and 'umms' become the kind of needless 'verbiage' described above. 


Churchill held that it was harder to write a short speech than a long one (although I cannot find a source for this particular piece of knowledge that resides in my head) and I have always had similar thoughts on writing. This blog post was twice as long before I started revising it...

They are taking our jobs...

Everything is made in China nowadays - we must protect British jobs

This sentiment is a familiar refrain from Labour, the trade unions and even a few paternalistic conservatives. I have been re-reading Lawrence James' 'RAJ - The Making of British India' in preparation for a upcoming trip to the subcontinent and was struck by the following weavers ditty, from 1718, quoted on page 16.

Every jilt of the town, gets a callicoe gown; our own manufactures are out of fashion.

In the sixteenth century, as the East India Company opened up trade with the subcontinent, cheap clothes and textiles flooded the UK market. This put weavers everywhere out of business. 

UK consumers drank cheap tea and paid less for a whole range of imported Indian goods - this meant they had more to spend on other goods and services. Weavers found employment in entirely new sectors of the economy and everyone, including Indian manufacturers, benefited. 

Government intervention to protect domestic industries would have been wrong in 1718 and it is still wrong now. 

Those who don't know history are destined to repeat it - Edmund Burke

Queen Elizabeth for sale?

The original Queen Elizabeth' 15inch guns.

Information Dissemination today carried a long post by Robert Farley on the possible sale of one of the two new QE2 class carriers. His conclusion was that Brazil would be the most likely destination but is sceptical that a sale would actually take place. I share this scepticism and in fact would be amazed if a sale ever goes through (although I would put the RAN above Brazil as the most likely buyer). 

Notwithstanding the lack of fixed wing aircraft for the carrier its utility as a giant helicopter carrier will quickly prove worth maintaining I suspect. HMS Ocean carries around 18 helicopters and with the QE class ships around 3 times bigger it will clearly have a much bigger operational capacity. 

Helicopters are incredibly useful in most situations barring a major surface fleet encounter. They are fantastic sub hunters, useful for 'police' actions like the anti-piracy, anti-terrorism and anti-drugs missions (try putting a small party of marines on a suspected pirate skiff from a fast jet) and can provide radar cover. I have a lot of sympathy with Lewis Page' view that most of the combat capability of a frigate comes from its helicopter so why not create a new class of lightly armed small helicopter carrier that can hunt subs, dominate sea and perform police actions with a small fleet of maybe 3 helicopters.

The aircraft-less QE's utility is even more apparent in the humanitarian missions that large capital ships are often called upon to assist with. Imagine the 'soft-power' potential had QE been sitting off Haiti recently operating a continuous shuttle of supplies with her (40+?) helicopters, providing fresh water and generating power in full view of the world. 

Why not make sure that both carriers can support fast jets and we will then possess the deterrent of a permanently available fleet carrier - when one ship is refitting the aircraft complement can transfer. 

Actually why not simply buy F/A-18's off the shelf and populate both ships? - they just keep getting cheaper. At around £42 million versus maybe £100million for the F-35 the maths is simple and the undoubted loss of individual aircraft capability offset by the ability to put 72 (still highly advanced) airframes anywhere on the planet instead of 36. 

To put this in perspective only 62 UK strike aircraft (Harriers and Tornados) were used for Op Telic in 2003. They operated from 4 different countries.

The flexibility and capability that comes with the Prince of Wales and Queen Elizabeth will be exceeded only by the United States in the next 20 years - to abandon this capability with such vast costs already incurred seems foolish.