Add a multi-billion pound GPS system to the list of things the Tories can magically afford in times of austerity
Philip Hammond: He thinks the electorate is composed of idiots. Since 2010, this assumption has been right about enough of us to keep the Tories in office.
I really hope somebody is keeping a list.
The Canary, which published the article quoted below, correctly notes the contradiction between Philip Hammond saying austerity must continue for the wider (poorer) population of the UK and the same man saying the UK government will pay for a multi-billion-pound GPS system duplicating one that is already in place.
It’s just another example of pure Tory waste.
They don’t need to spend billions duplicating the EU system. They’re just too proud to make the necessary alternative arrangement.
They are also too scared of the wrath of Brexiteers, despite the fact that a financial arrangement to take advantage of an existing system makes perfect financial sense.
It’s just further evidence that the government – as well as the population – left its intelligence at the door of the polling station on EU referendum day.
Chancellor Philip Hammond has said the UK will “go it alone” and construct its own GPS system in space if the EU does not grant the country post-Brexit access to its Galileo system. And people have reacted angrily.
Galileo is the European Union’s Global Satellite Navigation System (GNSS), known as the ‘European GPS’. But after Brexit the EU may not allow the UK to access the state-of-the-art technology.
The Galileo system’s cost is £9bn until 2020. By comparison, the system in use by the US cost $12bn to put into orbit, and it requires a $750m investment to run annually.
Source: People are furious at Philip Hammond’s latest multi-billion pound plan | The Canary
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A country the size of the UK doesn’t actually need a GPS system. For a fraction of the cost we could have the Ordnance Survey update their maps – remember those? – more frequently. I smell a political vanity project here.
The rhetoric at one point was “The UK will be independent of Europe but still retain close ties”
Surely paying an annual fee for access to Galileo embodies this very spirit as well as being a damned sight cheaper than investing in a system just for the UK alone that generates zero income and takes years before it can even be used.
Unless of course the UK Taxpayer is expected to not only pay for it’s construction and maintenance but also have to pay a subscription for it’s use (in true Tory style)
And yet the Rightwingers are always saying “there is no magic money tree”.
From the political party of ‘fiscal competence’ no less! The one’s that ‘put more money in your pocket’! The one’s that trashed the economy, organized the ‘Brexit’ fiasco, flog lethal weapons to savage dictators and impoverish the nation with a deceitful, fictitious so-called nuclear deterrent! If we had a half-decent democracy we could consign the whole rotten, scheming, bunch of pretenders to history: for good!
gps as we know it or as i is delivered to devices is a fail, lets get it straight here its the soft ware that is a fail. you can get a position easy and then read a map. why does the usa have an off switch on thish very flawed software
anyone can get os maps to anywhere, i was going to the isle of whight and the GPS said the solyant was a large unknown road. so glad i had a paper map so i could get to the ferry
Well said Mike.