The Forces of Brown

I've never heard before of 5 ex chiefs of the defence staff complaining about the funding and treatment of Britain's armed forces. Joined to the criticism from the present chief of defence staff, Sir Richard Dannatt, about the over-stretch of fighting two wars, it looks like a full scale onslaught on the Government.

Although the funding for defence has crept up from the lows of 2001, it has not reached levels where fighting two simultaneous wars is sustainable. After the demise of communism, it looked like a sensible plan to reduce the size of the defence budget as we seemed to have no enemy. The scourge of renewed terrorism though makes this seem premature, and with an interventionist foreign policy budgets should rise to levels similar to that of the cold war.

In a an apt sentiment from the best ever programme on television, The West Wing, “Democrats want to intervene but reduce the defence budget, and Republicans want to be isolationist but give greater funding to defence”. It is so true of the current Labour and Conservative parties.

The Prime Minister should now either reduce the commitments of the armed forces, or provide the funding required to equip and sustain the greatest armed forces on Earth. I think the latter. And while we’re at it, he should give Britain back a full time Defence Secretary. I still find it hard to believe that Gordon Brown could not foresee how this slap in the face for the armed forces would be interpreted by those on the ground. We’re fighting wars on two fronts, PM, for goodness sake. Now get a grip.

Squiffy.