''and who will make up any ridiculous porkies she feels she needs to about the number of jobs at stake (official figures released under FOI legislation put it at 500-600 direct jobs, Baillie's burbled on the record about anything between 9,000 jobs and 13,000 and counting, and never clarifies where she gets these figures or what they're actually measuring - Faslane services a whole lot more than Trident''
the problem with using 'direct jobs', which we saw during indyref, was that its not unlike suggesting that if Heathrow lost its operating licence, the only people who would lose their jobs would be the air crews and the air traffic controllers. this is predicated on the somewhat couragous notion that some 73 million people would still visit Heathrow to park, eat, drink, have the luggage checked, buy tat and then go to another airport to actually fly.
the focus of HMNB Clyde is the bombers. the other things - all of the RN's conventionally armed subs, the RNAD at Coulport, the MCM squadron, the security, the 4,000 babcock workers - all are based at Faslane because thats where the the bombers are. if the bombers go to Haverford West, or Devonport, or Barrow-in-Furness, then all of those things will go with them.
the other subs are based with the bombers because we do not have enough subs to justify two operating bases and they assist with the security of the bombers, the MCM Sqn is based at Faslane because it is also responsible for the security of the bombers, the Royal Marines are at Faslane to protect the nukes, the RNAD is at Coulport to house the nukes and the conventional weapons - again, the RN's arsenal isn't big enough to justify more than one AD, so if the nukes go south, all the rest goes south as well.
if the bombers are required to go south, then the only thing left will be the Glasgow University RNU, and an HQ looking after reservist training for Scotland, NI and Northern England.
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