Dark storm clouds hang over Clyde Shipbuilding

This morning as I drove into Glasgow I was listening to the radio and news was unfolding of the planned cuts by BAE Systems and the future of Shipbuilding in this country.

This is a view on a wet and dreich morning looking across to the Govan Yard.

The BBC covered the news that BAE Systems is to cut 1,775 jobs at its yards in Scotland and England and end shipbuilding altogether at Portsmouth.

The firm said 940 staff posts and 170 agency workers will go at the Portsmouth site, which will retain repairs and maintenance work.

Some 835 jobs will be lost at yards in Govan and Scotstoun on the River Clyde in Glasgow, Rosyth in Fife and Filton, South Gloucestershire, near Bristol.

The cuts follow a drop in work after the end of aircraft carriers work.

Nick Robinson, the BBC Political editor said "I'm told that Govan has two advantages over Portsmouth - a lower cost base and a partnership with the Scotstoun shipyard on the other side of the Clyde. Tory strategists point out that it's hardly in their political interests to save a Scottish shipyard and part close an English one. Nevertheless, it's clear that there can be no decision on something as significant as the building of warships without a great deal of political calculation. As I reported yesterday, one well-placed source told me that the government was "acutely conscious of the politics of the Clyde" and did not want to give Alex Salmond a gift a little less than a year ahead of the independence referendum.

Whatever the decisions or political motives, this is another hammer blow to our depleted shipbuilding industry.