Defence before aid

IT IS NO USE THE Defence Secretary, Dr Liam Fox blaming the last government for the cuts he is now being forced to make to his departmental budget. Quoting from the Daily Telegraph, the Defence Secretary said, “the 'ghastly truth' was that Labour's financial mismanagement had left a £37 billion black hole in the MoD budget and drastic reform was essential.”

While historically the Labour Party enjoys culling the armed forces for ideological reasons, the Conservatives enjoy berating them for so doing before they themselves embark upon another round of cuts, usually under cover of a ‘defence review’. If you remember one such review was underway just before the Falkland crises, and who was overseeing that, Sir John Knott, the then Tory defence secretary.

The truth is all parties have served the armed forces badly in order to retrieve a difficult economic situation - and in so doing trying to save their own skins at a cost to the nation’s defence.

The MoD is overburdened with civil servants; indeed, it boasts of employing more civilian bureaucrats than members of the British army. So there is no argument that such an arrangement should not be allowed to continue. But the proposed cuts should not extend beyond this level. However Dr Fox is considering reductions in our armed forces fighting capability. The RAF is facing cuts to the EURO-fighter’s now on order; while the army is facing manpower cuts, and I have read of talk about selling one of the new aircraft carriers now under construction to India - a true example if ever one was needed of our nation’s decline, a decline, it seems, all of our politicians have accepted.

AS YOU MAY HAVE GATHERED FROM THE ABOVE, I am not a defence expert, but I know that our nations’ defences should not be weakened. How many times in this nation’s history have we been caught out and relied upon luck to see us through. Who knows; if the Argentinean’s had had the patience to wait a few more months, then maybe Sir John Knott would have done with more success, what President Galtieri failed to do.

One piece of luck in our past did literally save this Nation. Churchill fought the appeasers in parliament who stood out against any form of rearmament; while Germany was (according to the Treaty of Versailles) illegally building up her own armed forces throughout the 1930s. But to a modern British politician these warnings from history mean very little. Indeed those who make such analogies are waved away as eccentric old farts.

This island nation will always need to be defended. Human nature has not so advanced that nations can lower their guard; but this is what Dr Fox proposes, and in doing so he cannot be allowed to blame his predecessors if it all goes wrong. He should have fought his corner and allowed the pyramid of bureaucrats to be reduced, but should have also fought his corner regarding men and materials.

He should have done so by explaining to David Cameron, that if our finances are in such peril, then why ring-fence the oversees aid budget and leave our nation’s defence so exposed as they will be despite the rhetoric of reassurance?

Surely as far as the safety of the people of these isles are concerned - people who elected you to represent them and whose interests you are supposed to look after, have to take a cut in their security while you ring-fence the International Aid Budget.

The current oversees aid budget for 2010-11 is £9.1 billion; the price in effect of the two new aircraft carriers needed for this island’s defence in the future. Yet we are contemplating losing one of these because of the current economic difficulties.

The world community must understand that, like their own nations, we in the UK put our own people first when it comes to their safety. So if our International Aid Budget is no longer affordable for the next decade, then so be it.

I cannot for the life of me, as an English citizen, understand how I and my fellow citizen’s interests are best served by ring fencing oversees aid. Please tell me someone how by weakening our defences, our people feel better protected and secure in this troubled world?