On Sat, Feb 24, 2007 at 06:10:51PM -0000, Brian Watson wrote:

Only for WW2 - "we" are keeping very quiet about the owings for WW1.

Payment *and interest* was suspended, with the agreement of the US,
pending re-negotiation of the terms. Those negotiations have yet to
take place. I believe that the total owed (yay no interest!) is now
approximately the same as what the civil service spends each day on tea
bags.

--
David Cantrell | Enforcer, South London Linguistic Massive

All principles of gravity are negated by fear
-- Cartoon Law V

In message
David Hansen wrote:

On Mon, 26 Feb 2007 09:40:59 +0000 someone who may be Graeme Wall
wrote this:-

I am making the "mistake" of talking about the subject under
discussion, "a dirty biological bomb in London".

Ah, your subject under discussion, not everyone elses.

Nice try. However, it is the subject which was put at the start of
this little bit of the thread by another poster.



This thread is about 'secret' tube trains under Londom and what they may heve
been meant for. Which all comes out of the early cold war planning which is
what we were discussing.

Incidentally there is no such thing as a dirty biological bomb, in London or
elsewhere. It is a natural contradiction in terms.

--
Graeme Wall
This address is not read, substitute trains for rail.
Transport Miscellany at http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail/index.html

In article ,
Graeme Wall wrote:

You are making the mistake of talking about the present day, the policy was
in place throughout the 50s 60s and 70s. And they weren't planning on
stopping the whole population of London, they were talking about the weak,
radiation sick survivors of one or more multi-megaton blasts over the London
area.

I still think it was an un-workable idea in practice for the reason I
gave - even if under Martial Law a shoot to kill policy was introduced
(how would they excuse it to the rest of the country: "putting all these
poor people out of their misery ?) and even if people were a lot more
compliant to authority back then.

But as uk.rec.subt knows, most of the official policies to deal with
the civilian population during and after nuclear war would have been
useless if it had actually come to pass.

Nick
--
http://www.leverton.org/ ... So express yourself

In message
(Nick Leverton) wrote:

In article ,
Graeme Wall wrote:

You are making the mistake of talking about the present day, the policy
was in place throughout the 50s 60s and 70s. And they weren't planning
on stopping the whole population of London, they were talking about the
weak, radiation sick survivors of one or more multi-megaton blasts over
the London area.

I still think it was an un-workable idea in practice for the reason I
gave - even if under Martial Law a shoot to kill policy was introduced
(how would they excuse it to the rest of the country: "putting all these
poor people out of their misery ?) and even if people were a lot more
compliant to authority back then.

Most of the governemnts ideas for post-nuclear attack operation were
un-workable, see Protect and Survive, however that is what the plans were.

They wouldn't be bothered about what the rest of country thought, under
martial law, what you say goes, at the point of a gun if necessary. And
quite what would be left of the rest of the country in the event of an attack
in the scale they were expecting? Birmingham, Manchester, Glasgow,
Edinburgh, Leed-Bradford all had similar plans. The smaller towns and cities
didn't need them, a 1 megaton bomb detonated 200ft above the Bargate in
Southampton wouldn't have left anything of a city to survive from for
instance. 5 megatons would have dealt with places like Derby and Nottingham


But as uk.rec.subt knows, most of the official policies to deal with
the civilian population during and after nuclear war would have been
useless if it had actually come to pass.


I said that as well :-)



--
Graeme Wall
This address is not read, substitute trains for rail.
Transport Miscellany at http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail/index.html

In uk.railway asdf twisted the electrons to say:
Independence is an absolute state. Something is either independent, or
it's not. It's not possible to be 50% independent. Phrases like "A is
more independent than B" don't make sense (although you could
correctly say that "A is closer to independence than B").

I depend on my local bike shop for the supply of spare parts for my
bicycle. According to your logic, I don't have independent travel
facilities since the use of my bicycle is controlled by said local bike
shop.
--
These opinions might not even be mine ...
Let alone connected with my employer ...

"Graeme Wall" wrote

And
quite what would be left of the rest of the country in the event of an
attack
in the scale they were expecting?

Especially as the USSR was planning a scale of attack massively above the
one the planners somewhat idealistically hoped for...

In message
"Andrew Clark" wrote:


"Graeme Wall" wrote

And quite what would be left of the rest of the country in the event of
an attack in the scale they were expecting?

Especially as the USSR was planning a scale of attack massively above the
one the planners somewhat idealistically hoped for...



Alledgedly. Both sides claimed to be able to do things that subsequently
turned out not to be the case.

But even if the attack had only been on the scale anticipated, the post
attack plans were hopelessly inadequate. On the other hand there was no
realistic way adequate plans could have been made, we didn't have the
knowledge, technology or money to implement anything remotely resembling a
realistic plan.

--
Graeme Wall
This address is not read, substitute trains for rail.
Transport Miscellany at http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail/index.html

On 26/2/07 11:25, "David Hansen" wrote:

I am making the "mistake" of talking about the subject under
discussion, "a dirty biological bomb in London".

Ah, your subject under discussion, not everyone elses.

Nice try. However, it is the subject which was put at the start of
this little bit of the thread by another poster.

Er... The subject is still "Secret Tube Trains under London?"

On Mon, 26 Feb 2007, Graeme Wall wrote:

In message
David Hansen wrote:

On Mon, 26 Feb 2007 09:40:59 +0000 someone who may be Graeme Wall
wrote this:-

I am making the "mistake" of talking about the subject under
discussion, "a dirty biological bomb in London".

Ah, your subject under discussion, not everyone elses.

Nice try. However, it is the subject which was put at the start of
this little bit of the thread by another poster.

Incidentally there is no such thing as a dirty biological bomb, in London or
elsewhere. It is a natural contradiction in terms.

Surely it's actually a tautology? There's no such thing as a *clean*
biological bomb!

tom

--
They didn't have any answers - they just wanted weed and entitlement.

On Mon, 26 Feb 2007, asdf wrote:

On 25 Feb 2007 12:53:28 GMT, Alistair Gunn wrote:

I don't ask you to believe it, be gullible if you want.

Well, if you want to believe that 100% independence (which I'll
certainly grant the UK deterrent isn't 100% independent) is logically
equivalent to 100% lack of independence that's up to you ...

Independence is an absolute state. Something is either independent, or
it's not. It's not possible to be 50% independent. Phrases like "A is
more independent than B" don't make sense (although you could correctly
say that "A is closer to independence than B").

What? No. Idiotic.

tom

--
They didn't have any answers - they just wanted weed and entitlement.