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Yahoo
16-05-2025
- Yahoo
How the Royal Navy's flagship £3.5bn aircraft carrier turned into a farce
With a deck the size of three football pitches, HMS Queen Elizabeth is Britain's flagship aircraft carrier – a 65,000-ton floating airport designed to wage war anywhere on the planet. On its maiden world tour in 2021, when it cruised the Middle East and prowled the South China Sea, Whitehall hailed it as a new symbol of 'Global Britain'. Yet for all its pomp and splendour, 'Big Lizzie', as it is known, has an embarrassing personal hygiene problem. For the past six months, none of its hot showers has worked properly, because of a shortage of spare parts. The 600 sailors who live on board the ship – currently in dock in Portsmouth – must either disembark to shower blocks on shore, or shiver under the cold tap. At a time when naval chiefs are warning openly of a new risk of a Third World War with Russia, many might think the sailors should simply grin and bear it. Some on the Queen Elizabeth, though, are clearly not prepared to – with one anonymous crew member complaining this week on social media. 'Currently over 170 days without guaranteed hot showers,' the crew member told Fill Your Boots, a military gossip website. 'For six hundred people on a ship not to have a daily warm shower is a disgrace.' In the wake of the post on Wednesday, the Ministry of Defence has tried to pour cold water on the story. The problem was simply because of a shortage of spare parts, officials insisted, and as the Queen Elizabeth was in dock in Portsmouth for routine maintenance anyway, many of its crew were already living ashore. 'We are working urgently on the necessary repairs to make life as comfortable as possible for those who remain on board,' a Royal Navy spokesman said. Yet the fuss over 'Showergate', as it has become known, is about more than whether sailors can enjoy their ablutions in comfort. Far from being just a routine plumbing glitch, it is yet another manifestation of the so-called 'curse' affecting Britain's flagship vessel, which has been dogged by technical problems ever since its launch. From a faulty propeller shaft that stopped it leading a major Nato exercise last year, through to floods, fires and carping over its military capabilities, it seems to be proof of the old saying that worse things happen at sea. In an article detailing the vessel's history faults last month, a United States military website described the 1,000ft-long ship as 'a giant design flaw'. True, not all those who have weighed in on Showergate have been sympathetic to the sailors' plight. 'If the heirs of Nelson, Drake and Raleigh are worried about not having warm showers, then the Royal Navy has rotted from within,' sneered one social media post. 'My father served on subs throughout WW2,' said another. 'At sea the crew were allowed to wipe themselves down with a damp flannel once a week.' Gerry Northwood, a former Royal Navy captain who commanded the UK counter-piracy force off Somalia, takes a dim view of the complaints. 'Aircraft carrier personnel have always been a bit soft,' he says. 'If these sailors are complaining about lack of hot showers, then frankly they need a kick up the a**e.' Others, however, argue that if a navy can't keep the hot water running in a ship, it is hardly likely to master the more technological challenges of 21st-century warfare. And they point out that in the closed, claustrophobic confines of a ship – where most sailors sleep four to a cabin – anything that deters people from washing regularly is no laughing matter. 'If people start smelling, it creates all kinds of problems in that environment,' said Chris Parry, a retired Royal Navy rear admiral. 'It's no good wearing a smart uniform if you're smelly underneath. If people have been out on deck watch all night, or stuck in a hot, stuffy engine room all day, then of course they're going to want a hot shower, and also it's a productivity issue if they're having to disembark from the ship all the time to do so. 'This would have been a ridiculous situation 50 years ago, let alone now. It's an aircraft carrier, for God's sake, it has to generate a huge amount of power anyway. And if you haven't got the parts to fix the showers, what else don't you have the parts for?' His concerns were echoed by Ryan Ramsey, who spent three years as captain of the nuclear-powered submarine HMS Turbulent. 'In the 1990s, when I was on a diesel-powered submarine, you could go for four weeks when you wouldn't shower at all, and everyone would end up smelling of diesel – but that's when you're on patrol. 'Functionally, yes, it's fine to have cold showers, and nobody expects creature comforts during wartime, but these sailors on HMS Queen Elizabeth aren't out fighting a war, they're in dock having a refit. As always, the Navy says that they put their sailors first – but then they don't. They should not have allowed this situation to go on for so long.' Defence chiefs point out that vast, technically complex fighting machines such as naval ships nearly always encounter technical problems at times, and that often these become clear only once the vessel has been tested by a decent spell at sea. Even so, the Queen Elizabeth, which cost around £7 billion and entered service in 2020, seems to be a case in point. Last year, it had to pull out of leading Operation Steadfast Defender, a major Nato exercise off the Norwegian coast, because of problems with a propeller shaft. It was a humiliating setback for what was supposed to be the largest demonstration of Nato sea power since the Cold War. The Queen Elizabeth's place in the exercise was instead taken by its sister carrier, HMS Prince of Wales – which itself also broke down, off England's south coast in 2022 after damage to its propeller shaft. Royal Navy sources have insisted that the propeller issues are different on both craft, and not part of a systemic design flaw. En route to Scotland's Rosyth dockyard for repairs to the propeller last year, a fire also broke out in the Queen Elizabeth. And in 2019, it suffered a leak that saw water rise to 'neck-high' in flooded areas of the ship. That same year, it was also dogged by personnel fiascos, with its commanding officer at the time, Cdre Nick Cooke-Priest, controversially relieved of his command for allegedly using one of the ship's staff cars for his children's school run. Even when the Queen Elizabeth has been fully functional, critics have often had it in their sights. Because it lacks 'catapults' to help jets take off, the range of jet fighters it can carry is limited. Meanwhile, some former military chiefs have questioned whether it should ever have even been commissioned. Lord Houghton of Richmond, a former Chief of the Defence Staff, told a Commons committee in 2019 that the Queen Elizabeth and Prince of Wales were effectively vanity projects, 'too totemic to Britain's sense of place in the world'. He said the billions spent on the ships – the only two aircraft carriers in Britain's fleet – were a waste of money without vastly more investment in the Royal Navy as a whole. Showergate is not the only embarrassing headline to engulf the Navy this week. Over the weekend, it transpired that the head of the service, First Sea Lord Admiral Sir Ben Key, had been removed from his duties while under investigation over allegations of having an extra-marital affair with a subordinate. And yesterday, it came to light that Lt-Cdr Martyn Mayger, the commander of HMS Tyne, a warship protecting British waters from Russian submarines, was being investigated over allegations of 'unacceptable sexual behaviour' with an underling. Both cases leave the Navy facing the prospect of potentially embarrassing disciplinary hearings ahead, which may do further damage to its reputation. Meanwhile, retired Rear Admiral Parry hopes that the top brass in the Queen Elizabeth have done the same personnel training that he did as a young officer – which included how to deal with sailors with poor hygiene. 'When you become an officer, you're trained to deal with all kinds of issues, from people being killed in action through to delicate personnel issues like personal hygiene. We were taught how to call people out if they had body odour – it's not something that people like to talk about in civilian life, but on a ship you have no choice.' 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The Guardian
05-04-2025
- Sport
- The Guardian
Leinster deliver Champions Cup statement with 10-try Harlequins thrashing
There was a period in this game where Harlequins needed to get the combination to the scoreboard and punch in the digits, quickly. Any class of score would have sufficed: try, penalty, drop goal – just something to put some ink on the page and look forward to receiving the restart and maybe writing another positive paragraph. That period covered the first 10 minutes of the game. It was a long trek that followed, much enjoyed by the crowd of 55,267 who look forward now to another home quarter-final tie – across town in the Aviva Stadium – on Friday night. When at its end they were held up over the Leinster line, from which Sam Prendergast nonchalantly dropped out into the Quins half, there was a lost opportunity sign hanging around the necks of the away side. In the midst of it all they had a handy penalty shot for three points but passed it up. Which is not to suggest that's where it all went wrong for them, rather if you're away from home and a door opens then walk through it. For the rest of the game it was slammed in their faces. Repeatedly. Leinster looked like Leinster are supposed to look: very good. Having established that, they went into indulgent mode, stacking a great big bonfire with pallets of tries. It was fitting that James Lowe should get over for the last two – the man of the match award went to Josh van der Flier but Lowe was outstanding. Leinster's go-to party game these days is sacking opponents behind enemy lines. Less Call of Duty and more Fill Your Boots. They did a fair bit of that in the opening 40 minutes, developing the trend to include skittling lads out of the way when Leinster were carrying. That was key to the opening try – Dan Sheehan hanging out wide and then running over Leigh Halfpenny – for Prendergast, and just three minutes later in the long and impressive build up to Joe McCarthy running over for five points at the Hill 16 end. In a range of Harlequins coming off second best, captain Alex Dombrandt suffered with and without the ball in collisions with Josh van der Flier and Jamison Gibson Park. The No 8 looked like he was having a miserable time. Andrew Osborne won't have cheered him up when he got over for Leinster's third, inside the half hour. He may not be an automatic starter for Ireland but he should be an easy pick for Andy Farrell in the Lions squad. If you put a premium on having a booming left boot in your armoury, with a skill range and versatility of a very high order, then Osborne ticks all those boxes. For added value he doesn't get flustered easily. Sign up to The Breakdown The latest rugby union news and analysis, plus all the week's action reviewed after newsletter promotion It was hard to know where they could start a revival, going in 19-0 down at the break. Missing out on the first score of the new half was non-negotiable, and when they failed that test they started going backwards at a rate of knots. At the finish their tries conceded column was flashing the big 10. Not a great day out.
The Guardian
21-02-2025
- Politics
- The Guardian
Jaysley Beck inquest prompts flood of testimonies of abuse in UK military
A soldier left suicidal after complaints about a senior officer were ignored. Two women told that they needed to grow up, or their heads would be banged together after they complained about sexual harassment by their major. A servicewoman raped and left with PTSD, while her attacker was given a slap on the wrist. Online army forums have been flooded with testimonies of abuse – and the military's failure to tackle it – this week, sparked by the inquest into the death of 19-year-old gunner Jaysley Beck. The head of the army, General Sir Roly Walker, has expressed his disgust and suggested that senior ranks may even be 'actively complicit' in abusive behaviour. The Ministry of Defence has promised that lessons will be learned. But longtime campaigners for change in the way sexual complaints in the military are dealt with have heard this all before. After an inquest this week found that the army played 'more than a contributory part' in the teenager's death, they have accused defence chiefs of paying 'lip service' to reform. Beck's family have led calls for the most serious complaints to be removed from the military entirely, calling directly on the prime minister to force change. The teenager killed herself after the army botched an investigation into her complaint of a sexual assault making her reluctant to report her boss when he launched an 'onslaught' against her. 'Too often, servicewomen and men don't feel able to speak up out of fear of being victimised and even when they do, the army is left to investigate itself,' said her family. 'This cannot continue.' Sarah Atherton, a former chair of the House of Commons defence subcommittee and an ex-servicewoman, is tired of promises. She points to other scandals, like women being treated as 'property' in the Red Arrows, submariners subjected to 'intolerable' misogyny. She notes a major review in 2019 and the damning parliamentary inquiry she led in 2021, which found that almost two-thirds of women in the armed forces had experienced bullying, sexual harassment and discrimination. 'I've spoken to countless service chiefs who are appalled at this abhorrent behaviour, who say it can't continue,' she says. 'They introduce initiatives, they introduce policies – yet nothing changes. It's lip service.' Evidence from more than a thousand people who shared testimonies on the military site Fill Your Boots and in closed forums after the inquest has been harrowing. One woman described a group of male soldiers trying to open her door after a night out: 'The next minute my door was flung open and they had used a boxing bag to barge the door,' she wrote. 'I was told it was my word against theirs.' Another described not wanting to leave her room after being hounded by an aggressive colleague. 'The [Royal Military Police] told me unless he had 'actually committed a crime' there was nothing they could do,' she wrote. A former commanding officer who had worked in complaints said weak leadership 'allowed poor behaviour to continue and at times flourish – often under the guise of workplace banter and fun'. The majority of testimonies appear to have come from women, but many men have also spoken out. One anonymous senior figure described his regret at not officially reporting an incident that saw two junior officers 'pull a bloke's trousers down and jam a finger right up his arse'. Another man described fellow soldiers forcing 'objects and parts of their own body into me', saying he sometimes slept outside to stay safe. The MoD has said that reforms have been made: the chain of command has been removed from the complaints system, anonymous hotlines have been introduced and 'zero-tolerance policies' made clear. After the inquest the veterans minister, Alistair Carns, said the MoD was 'deeply sorry for the failure' to protect Gunner Beck, the army would 'learn lessons' and 'substantive changes' were making the military safer. But the testimonies show that the complaints process can still be manipulated, says Atherton. 'The collusion, the loss of evidence, the misogyny, the old boy network, [it] is still going on,' she says. 'This has to be a moment for the MoD to look at itself and say: 'Did we do enough?' And the answer to that is, clearly, no.' Emma Norton, the founder of the Centre for Military Justice and a lawyer for Beck's family, argues that changes to the appeals system have made it more difficult to challenge an outcome, with only 6% of complainants the centre deals with now able to appeal, compared with about a quarter previously. 'Our experience of supporting women that go through the service complaints process to report discrimination, harassment and bullying is that it is appalling and brutalizing,' she says. Diane Allen, a retired lieutenant-colonel from the Independent Defence Authority, which helps victims in the military, hopes a promised independent defence commissioner, announced by the government earlier this month, will help. 'If the MoD is unable or unwilling to enact change, we need an independent figure to mandate it,' she says. 'Either there has to be some real backbone in military leadership, or parliament has to say we're not willing for the UK's reputation to keep being trashed by this.'
