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Add to wish list: HMS Invincible

Mark Urban | 17:22 UK time, Wednesday, 8 December 2010

Many people like to trawl the Ministry of Defence lists of surplus equipment in search of a good bargain. Whether it's a cheap Land Rover or a desert pattern smock for Β£30, you can find these cheap buys on an MoD site called e-disposals.

Imagine our surprise in the Newsnight office, when colleagues discovered no less!

Just like the clothing listed above and below, the website gives standard e-commerce options such as 'add to cart' or 'add to wish list'. Some cart!

They do not give a price, since 'the Vince' as she was known for years in the Royal Navy, is to be sold by competitive tender.

Will HMS Invincible end up on that Indian beach being smashed to pieces for scrap? Or will some emerging power like Brazil or India snap it up for a song?

Or perhaps a new offshore haven for Wikileaks? Suggestions below please...

Comments

  • Comment number 1.

    I think it would be great place to park the RNZAF skyhawks I want to buy there also for sale start my own Naval air arm and lease it back to the Royal navy

  • Comment number 2.

    I'M RIGHT OFF THE MILITARY, COURTESY OF 'JINGO DAVE'

    'By-Jingo' Cameron was at it again today. He just does not seem to be able to get it into his shape-shifter head, that those who labour unseen and unsung in mundane, yet CONSTRUCTIVE lives, have a REAL claim to the title 'Best of British'.

    Military volunteers, by contrast, pursue from choice a destructive career, that we are constantly reminded is: 'the job they love'. They invade, smash and kill for money. How many of them REALLY believe their efforts are keeping The Taliban off the high-streets of Britain?

    Dave really IS an upper class twit, and at PMQs today Limited Ed rubbed his nose in just how Pith-helmet-out-of-touch he is - by jingo!

    And as if that were not enough, SamCam does a photo-shoot with POSH! It is as if Tony never went away. The No10 link with show-biz endures. Not so much β€˜Hello’ more β€˜Shallow’!

    WE HAVE GOT OURSELVES ANOTHER ONE!

  • Comment number 3.

    It could be used as Abramovich's new yacht for cocktail parties on the mediteranean.

    The flight deck could be grassed over and Chelski could use it as a winter training ground / Putin could visit occasionally for a good old fashioned propaganda opportunity '' look what we just picked up on e-bay - who is the daddy now?''

    The awful thing is that the above sad characature (or something similar)could happen. If they can chuck 300 years of naval tradition and engineering prowess and thousands upon thousands of man hours in the building on the same website as used clothing in the hope of drumming up afew quid they are obviously not too picky or sensitive about who buys it.

    As an engineer I find this sort of thing quite heart renching, I have an understanding of the extraordinary skill and effort which goes into creating one of these things, to me they are a thing of beauty deserving of some respect in some way.

  • Comment number 4.

    can't we just park it down by the Falklands in case the Argie's get bolshy.....

  • Comment number 5.


    chances are this Government will sell to it to the Argentine Navy inculding of course the Harrier GR9's and Merlin airgroup at bargin basement cost, we will even loan the money to buy it! after all according to General Richards. the New Chief of the Defense Staff, Argentina now poses now threat to the Falklands.
    so that's alright then.

  • Comment number 6.

    Mark asks for ideas about an off shore haven for wikileaks to carry on their controversial work ....and in thinking about it seriously I thought that the United Nations would be a safe place because it`s (diplomatically) free of interference from any nation that respects its charter!
    Unfortunately the Obama administration appear to think that the UN is near Wall Street and Washington so the US administration can run the world more conveniently from New York rather than because they respect the UN or its charter.
    Perhaps the UN could join with wikileaks and create an offshore diplomatic interference-free zone in the way our global capitalist masters do to hide all their cash away from taxmen and the law of their own countries?

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