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[STEMO]

As part of the interview, Charlie Stayt kept pressing Boris on how the UK would be involved if the US decided to take military action against N Korea. Why? What's it got to do with us? I wonder if the French defence minister is being asked the same question? Or the Spanish, German, Italian.
Apart from supporting them at the UN and in political statements, what could we actually do? And why would we want to do anything?

[Terbs]

Common denominators here, Steve.
BBC....anti Brexit, Boris....pro Brexit  So anti Boris BBC quiz him on anything that could make him come out
with something controversial, which will in the course of time,  will be fine tuned to ridicule him and Brexit.
Korea is a good staging post

[Sir Tigger KC]

He said Corbyn is a Mugwump!     

Does anyone here in the real world know hat a Mugwump is?   

[Mister Rog]

Seems to me that a lot of interviewers see their job as just to put people on the spot almost regardless of topic. They earn brownie points for being controversial and so they can say "but you said . . . . " as some stage in the future. Also imagine the resulting headline "Britain Supports War Against North Korea".

Stupid question at this stage.

[LC0112G]

As part of the interview, Charlie Stayt kept pressing Boris on how the UK would be involved if the US decided to take military action against N Korea. Why? What's it got to do with us? I wonder if the French defence minister is being asked the same question? Or the Spanish, German, Italian.
Apart from supporting them at the UN and in political statements, what could we actually do? And why would we want to do anything?

We have cruise missile equipped subs (assuming any are serviceable). Any attack on N Korea is highly likely to include targets for cruise missiles.

The US are unlikely to get anything involving military force approved by the UN - China and Russia will veto it. So the US will be exploring the options for unilateral "self-defence" style action if they can't get NK to behave. They may well want to involve other countries in a coalition, and frankly we've been the US's #1 buddy in that sort of thing for as long as I can remember. If they're going to ask anyone you can bet we'll be high on their list this time - after South Korea and along with Japan and Australia.

It's a perfectly valid question for a journalist to ask the foreign secretary if, and under what conditions, we would/could be involved in direct military action. Of course, no-one expects a politician to give a straight answer to such a hypothetical question. And if it's not a hypothetical question, a politician would be foolish to answer the question prior to first strike.

[LC0112G]

Oh, and another thing for the conspiracy theorists...

The US have 58 KC-10 tanker aircraft. These are the biggest refuellers the USAF have, and are based on the civilian DC-10, and can off-load roughly double the fuel that the much smaller KC-135 can. They're all US based, and during normal times they're used to ferry cargo around the world and to support the transit of fighter jets to/from Europe, the Middle East and the Far East. However, whenever a military action is imminent, KC-10's gather at nearby bases to support fighter and bomber operations. During the 1986 raid on Libya, over 20 of them were deployed to RAF Mildenhall and RAF Fairford.

In the past month there have been a number of high profile fighter deployments to/through Europe - including F-15's, F-22's and F-35's. KC-10's have been very noticeable by their absence, to such an extent that several of these deployments have been delayed by lack of available tankers. You would normally expect one KC-10 per 4-6 fighters.

Now KC-10's aren't the most reliable beasts, so serviceability probably plays some part in this, but, I wouldn't be surprised if places like Guam and Diego Garcea currently have a large number of big grey lumps sat on them.

[Mister Rog]

Oh, and another thing for the conspiracy theorists...

Nope. We don't have any of them here. None at all . . . . 

[Lizzie Zoom]

We were in the last Korean War, so why not this one if it kicks off.

We are allies of the US, and have the biggest military capacity in Europe. It is only reasonable that Boris was asked THE question.  We certainly are a potential player in this game which does / could affect us seriously.

[STEMO]

LCO112G, we are not America's number 1 buddy, we are America's number 1 poodle.
Lizzie, if we have the biggest military capacity in Europe, then I pity the rest.

[Mister Rog]

We were in the last Korean War, so why not this one if it kicks off.

We are allies of the US, and have the biggest military capacity in Europe. It is only reasonable that Boris was asked THE question.  We certainly are a potential player in this game which does / could affect us seriously.

I would really like to think that is true, but I very much doubt it. Please prove me wrong

[Marks DTM Calib]

Oh, and another thing for the conspiracy theorists...

The US have 58 KC-10 tanker aircraft. These are the biggest refuellers the USAF have, and are based on the civilian DC-10, and can off-load roughly double the fuel that the much smaller KC-135 can. They're all US based, and during normal times they're used to ferry cargo around the world and to support the transit of fighter jets to/from Europe, the Middle East and the Far East. However, whenever a military action is imminent, KC-10's gather at nearby bases to support fighter and bomber operations. During the 1986 raid on Libya, over 20 of them were deployed to RAF Mildenhall and RAF Fairford.

In the past month there have been a number of high profile fighter deployments to/through Europe - including F-15's, F-22's and F-35's. KC-10's have been very noticeable by their absence, to such an extent that several of these deployments have been delayed by lack of available tankers. You would normally expect one KC-10 per 4-6 fighters.

Now KC-10's aren't the most reliable beasts, so serviceability probably plays some part in this, but, I wouldn't be surprised if places like Guam and Diego Garcea currently have a large number of big grey lumps sat on them.

Hence why they want to buy are old DC10's, a large number of which are sat at Bruntingthorpe in a legal wrangle as the company that purchased them has gone bust and owes lots of ground rent...

[Bigron]

Sir Tigger, a mugwump was an invention of Michael Bentine's, back in the days of black and white telly; it was a (mythical?) creature, maybe a hairy dog - memory won't let me be more specific than that - whose front and rear were so indistinguishable that you couldn't tell its "mug" from its "wump" . Just like that arse-face from EastEnders, Sonia!

Ron.

[Entwood]

Sir Tigger, a mugwump was an invention of Michael Bentine's, back in the days of black and white telly; it was a (mythical?) creature, maybe a hairy dog - memory won't let me be more specific than that - whose front and rear were so indistinguishable that you couldn't tell its "mug" from its "wump" . Just like that arse-face from EastEnders, Sonia!

Ron.

Nice try .. would be nice if true .. but the reality is ...

mugwump

ˈmʌɡwʌmp/

noun

NORTH AMERICAN

a person who remains aloof or independent, especially from party politics.

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/mugwump

[Bigron]

It IS true, Nige - even with my ancient memory I can remember the programme in which it occured - "It's a Square World" You can Google all you like, but we/he invented it first; one up for Britain! 

Ron.

[Lizzie Zoom]

We were in the last Korean War, so why not this one if it kicks off.

We are allies of the US, and have the biggest military capacity in Europe. It is only reasonable that Boris was asked THE question.  We certainly are a potential player in this game which does / could affect us seriously.

I would really like to think that is true, but I very much doubt it. Please prove me wrong

No Problem:

https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/study-finds-uk-is-second-most-powerful-country-in-the-world/

http://www.globalfirepower.com/country-military-strength-detail.asp?country_id=united-kingdom


I do admit though there seems to be some confusion as to how powerful Britain's military is.  Some say 5th, others 6th, then, as per one of the above links, we are 2nd in terms of how far our military power can reach.