HMS Daring, a Type 45 destroyer’s mission was to replace the aging Type 42 destroyers after lessons learned during the Falklands War. She was laid down in the BAE Systems yard on the Clyde , 28 March 2003, launched in 2006, commissioned in 2009 and entered active service in 2010 – 7 years later. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Daring_(D32)
Leaving aside the 21-year delay between the Falklands war ‘lessons’ of 1982 and the laying down in 2003, those 7 years did not lead to a ship that could do what she was designed to do because, take a breath, her engines failed in warmer waters like those in the Med, the Gulf or the South China seas!
So, seven years of only being fit for the cooler northern seas where there is no action to be had, she was taken out of service in 2017.
Returned to service in 2025, 22 years after being laid down and 43 after the Falklands War lessons so off to the gulf to protect our new aircraft carriers? Nope, they could find enough sailors to crew her.
CalMac’s Glen Sannox took 8 years in total from laying down in February 2017 to entering service in January 2025. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Glen_Sannox_(2017)
To be fair, they haven’t tried the Glen Sannox in the Persian Gulf. 😉
Where is HMS Daring now?
As of early August 2026:
- She has been alongside in Portsmouth since returning from Cammell Laird in early 2023.
- The crew has taken charge (milestone reached in February 2026), systems are being tested (including recent activity with her Sampson radar), and official social media posts refer to ongoing progress toward a return to sea.
- Official statements (e.g., from Defence Minister Luke Pollard earlier in 2026) indicated she was due to rejoin the fleet later in 2026 after completing upgrades and trials. She has not yet returned to operational sea service after more than eight years out of action. https://questions-statements.parliament.uk/written-questions/detail/2026-03-23/123065
BBC Scotland’s Hayley Millar loved it in 2006:
They’ll be covering this great story now, won’t they?
Don’t be daft. Not a trace.
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Talking-up Scotland 
‘Destroyer Disaster’ as Royal Navy destroyer still not in service after 23 years, takes three times as long as as Scotland’s ‘Fiasco Ferries’
Alas that is a non story for the majority of the UK media , as in one that will never be labelled as a “fiasco”, “scandal” or “Controversy” that is linked to any UK government , as these labels are only ‘reserved’ for anything within Scotland that the media (and the opposition parties) constantly want to link to being only the fault of the Scottish government (SNP).
Ferries and boats aside…….
The biggest scandals , controversies and fiasco’s have always been those that are connected to various UK governments and also to specific individual members of their parties.
How many can we list ?
No need to list any just do a look up on Wikipedia under:
“List of political scandals in the United Kingdom”
Past and present scandals clearly communicate just how bad UK governments (and some of their individual politicians) are when it comes to shocking behaviour and bad decisions (both on an individual level and at a party level).
Indeed , the majority amount of entries linked to pro UK opposition parties within this Wikipedia page certainly puts into perspective the tiny amount of noted ‘scandals’ that are listed on this same page for those connected to the SNP.
(Also ,the types of scandals that are connected to pro UK political parties, that are seriously bad scandals that have had a hugely damaging impact on people , does then make you wonder how anyone could vote for any of these pro UK parties ever again, more so where we see some people still voting for any of these pro UK parties within Scotland).
It’s funny how we are all expected to believe the media in that the recent Murrell scandal impacted the SNP vote and their membership numbers, yet we are also expected to believe that all of the past and current disgusting scandals linked to different pro UK parties apparently had no similar impact on their votes and memberships in both the past and also in the present.
Liz S
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‘Still not in service’ is a pretty blatant lie. Daring entered service and performed several operations.
She has visited several ‘warm-water’ AOPs, including Central America, the Med, the Persian Gulf, Vietnam and Malaysia.
You fail to mention the other five destroyers, all of which are continuing to operate in regularly scheduled cycles of deployment, maintenance and upgrade.
Where do you get off posting drivel?
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