Reform UK leader Nigel Farage launched his party’s election manifesto, titled “Our Contract with You,” with a pledge to recruit 30,000 personnel to the British Army, aiming to restore its strength to 100,000 troops.
Speaking at a community centre in South Wales, Farage also advocated for increasing defence spending to 2.5% of GDP, with a goal of reaching 3% as soon as possible.
“I can’t think the world has been in a more perilous place at any point in my lifetime,” he stated, noting that he was born after the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Farage criticised the Conservative Party’s idea of reintroducing a form of National Service, instead proposing the recruitment of 30,000 full-time personnel.
“Frankly, this barmy idea of saying ‘we’re going back to National Service’ – ‘Oh no we’re not, all we’re going to do is take 30,000 young people and, at vast expense, give them a year’s training’… Let’s actually recruit 30,000 people full-time to be in the services,” Farage said.
Key Defence Policies from the Reform UK Manifesto
- Increase Defence Spending: “Increase Defence Spending to 2.5% of National GDP by year 3, then 3% within 6 years. This will increase the size and capacity of our armed forces and ensure our lead role in NATO. It will also improve equipment, quality of life for services personnel and boost morale in military communities.”
- Urgent Pay Review: “Increase basic pay across our armed forces to boost recruitment and retention. It is unacceptable that a private soldier is paid less than an Amazon worker.”
- Armed Forces Justice Bill: “Introduce new Armed Forces Justice Bill to protect our servicemen and women on active duty inside and outside the UK from civil law and human rights lawyers. The bill will also create an armed forces watchdog to fast-track complaints and appeals in housing and welfare.”
- Veterans’ Department: “New, Dedicated Ministerial Department for Veterans. A properly funded and resourced whole department is essential to guarantee no veteran goes without and that our former servicemen and women play a leading role in our society and economy.”
- Recruitment: “Recruit 30,000 for the army. Military national service for 30,000 young people for one year is not the answer. We need to recruit 30,000 to join the army full time.”
- Defence Manufacturing and Technology: “Regenerate Britain’s Defence Manufacturing and Technology. Introduce incentives and tax breaks to boost the UK defence industry. Improve equipment self-sufficiency and manufacture world class products for export.”
- Defence Procurement: “Reform Defence Procurement. Launch a Joint Acquisition Corp to ensure world class procurement. The Ministry of Defence must listen to soldiers on the front line and ensure they get the equipment they need.”
- Education for Military Personnel: “Education for Military Personnel. Free education both during and after service is vital to ensure a successful return to civilian life.”
Farage positioned Reform UK as a party with clear beliefs, in contrast to what he described as the internal discord within the Conservative Party. He expressed confidence that Reform UK could become a real opposition to a Labour government, asserting that his party knows what it stands for.
Easy to say. Recruit an extra 30,000. Doing it, and funding it is another story all totogether. But partys like Reform don’t really have to take responsibility for what they say.
They do if people stop voting for parties that cut, cut and cut defence (and everything else that matters) while raising tax to pay for the unemployment they create, the immigration they encourage. Funding it is EASY, if we buy their uniforms, their guns, their ammunition, their tanks, helicopters, radios etc etc et from UK manufacturers and insist those manufacturers use British made machine tools and British produced components we will go from 20% of the working age population not working to genuine full employment with the corresponding cuts i disability pensions, unemployment benefits, policing costs and the rise in… Read more »
Unemployment is close to an all time low and employment is at its highest ever level so what the f**k are you on about?
Unemployment benefits cost the government almost nothing.
It’s pensions that are bankrupting the government along with NHS costs.
Go and check the ONS, over 20 percent, that is more than 1 in 5 of the working age population are not working. That you are moved from unemployment for any reason they can think.of hides that fact in the headline figures (but I can still remember unemployment getting to near a million and the conservatives saying labour isnt working!). That is before those on zero hours part time piss poor pay are apparently working and the overpaid diversity managers, NHS paper shufflers, army of tax collectors and the rest that do nothing remotely productive but get paid by the… Read more »
Tax collectors, I would respectfully suggest, do do something…they collect the tax* that pays for stuff. With you on the rest though.
*(The UK tax code is apparently 21,000 pages long….Hong Kong’s is 500. Changes begging there I would say?!)
Oh the tax and benefits system needs scrapping. We should settle on a single tax, a lot points to sales tax as being the best option as it would leave more money for people to invest or save. The tax rate should be the same regardless of where the product comes from (or the company is ‘based’). The alternative of an income tax would be ok if companies are taxed on the income (not the ‘profit’) at the same rate as everyone else but it would mean less money for investment from all. Benefits are equally easy, a single flat… Read more »
Unemployment benefits cost almost nothing ? Are you mad ?
Unemployment benefit costs may be small, but it is the lost income tax and national insurance that really hurts us, with 20%+ of the working age population not working.
While the MOD buys cheap chinese cap badges with bugs builtin to the cheap second rate ‘metal’ that will corrode and decay in weeks.
Jim, do you do a tax return? If you do you’ll have an HMRC account you can see how much each department get from your tax and NI. Pension is 10.3% welfare is 19%. Add up welfare, NHS and debt is 50% of government spend. So pension is high but its not whats dragging us down. Someone with 2 kids can get the equivilant of 45k gross salary for working 2 days a week in a low stress job minimum wage job. Work is massively disinsentivised. Don’t take my word for it go to a website called entitledto dot com… Read more »
There are at least a million unemployed and hundreds of thousands more on long term sick and disability. I’ve worked 20 years in the NHS and the number of people not working is shocking. The Spectator has done a lot on this subject. In addition many more left the workforce after covid and didn’t return (somehow) Whatever, it means that there are many many fewer people paying taxes and performing useful functions in the economy. A 30K expansion of the Forces seems reasonable and do-able (it wasn’t that long ago there were 100K in the forces) but it would have… Read more »
A vast amount of UK military kit is already made in the UK. You can’t force people to work in the defence Industry.
The f35s aren’t, not in fact any RAF plane since harrier. The rn auxillary ships aren’t. No ships are broken in the UK anymore the army lorries are all MAN or Renault, none British,they don’t even buy land rovers now. Hell the MOD is even buying cap badges from China along with all our uniforms! The light tanks from spain.the majority of defence spending is abroad especially when you include the imported components of supposedly British made kit. And no,not everyone does want to work in defence, but there are thousands, tens of thousands of engineers who would especially if… Read more »
Our UK defence industry is the 2nd largest defence exporter of defence equipment in the world and the largest In Europe. Its a global economy. You won’t find a single fast jet, warship, tank or submarine that has every single component designed and built in the one country. It is simply not how industry works. Certainly with big ticket equipment.
Oh please, a 10 second Google search and the numbers are there, 7th behind Italy, ffks we export less defence stuff than Italy who have tanks with 1 forward and 10 reverse gears (old joke but it drives home just how pathetic we are!)
Yes you can provided they are compensated. Too many people complaining about taxes not going anywhere not one wants to serve for a few years.
“It is Keynsian economics and it WORKS because it has done multiple times in multiple countries over hundreds of years.”
Keynsian only came into being, Post WW2!
Inflation eventually caught up with it, when the economy met up with supply constraints.
Any extra demand, will end up as inflation!
Oh please, Keynes explained what was happening, it had happened a number of times before! Its like saying the sun only came into being when someone worked out how it worked! As to your assertion about inflation again you demonstrate a lack of knowledge. Inflation occurs when demand exceeds supply and producers think they can put up the price. When the price hits enough of a level other producers (or in our case these days imports) come in to increase supply. There are two ways to reduce inflation – attempt to cut demand or increase supply. Since the 60s we… Read more »
erm I think you’ll find money supply is also key in driving inflation. You can have tight demand but without money supply goods can’t be purchased. Hence why covid was so bad for inflation no supply a 100s billions of extra money pumped in. So you can cut inflation buy constraining the supply of money also ie less borrowing. Currency will only go up if you’re interest rates out pace other countries, so its not a binary that exchange rates will change drastically when interest rates rise. Politicially and as someone who doesn’t have red/blue tinted specs, both Labour and… Read more »
Billions printed indeed did push up available demand while we killed output and this supply, big mistake, but what government needs to do is build factories either directly or with cheap money and a steady demand such as making all public spending, police, council, military, health etc etc etc British. We can even ramp it up from just final assembly to from raw materials because we need industry for wealth creation and defence. If it wasn’t for cabinet makers there would have been no mosquito, without car factories there would have been no tanks, guns, spitfires, army lorries etc
Totally agree with you
I think Count Binface has a lot of good ideas on defence. He is about as likely as Reform to have any input on defence policy.
Christ cock, have the other two ever done? I served in the Royal Navy under both, one took me to the Falklands, the other to the Gulf.
Its a start, a small start, a move in the right direction, anyone who votes anyone else is just a prat this election especially. Neither conservative (last what 12 years in power) have done ANYTHING for our defence except cut it and the labour bunch are not doing anything either. We are AT WAR, time to realize it!
O.K. I’m a prat then but I’m not stupid enough to vote reform so that we can have the most left wing government the country has ever had. Are you? 🤔
If you dont vote reform then we will have Labour in power, there is no way on Gods clean earth that the conservatives will win a decent number of seats never mind a majority and frankly looking back at 12 years of them they certainly dont deserve one. If you want to stop Labour (which seems your goal) then voting for Reform IS the way to go, the ONLY way to go. Name a single thing, one single thing, that the Conservatives have done well in the last 12 years that would be an excuse to give them another go.… Read more »
I didn’t say the Tories were brilliant but unless you want, and I repeat, the most left wing govermnent we have ever seen don’t vote Reform. Labour are Corbynite wolves dressed up as Starmer lambs.
You don’t have to vote Tory. There are others.
The conservatives stand not just no chance but less than no chance, a spent and useless bunch of morons led by the most ineffective waste of space ever to set foot in the house of commons bar none. If you don’t want labour (and I agree that I don’t trust them) then reform are the only party with a hope in hell of getting anything like near the labour party. And frankly the conservatives have achieved what? And that is why they don’t deserve a single vote. That they aren’t labour is absolutely no reason to vote for the losers
So vote Reform if you want and see what you get. I just don’t want to see it myself
Yes. But before you voted for conservative consider what they have done for you in what 12 or more years, they are even putting EU laws into our books regardless! Look at what we got under labour, assassination of people blowing a whistle on Blair’s lies to go to warzone brown selling our gold at cut price, the collapse of many many companies including river, erf, foden, ship building, mining, look what they promise already, scrap our oil and gas industry so we have to import more russian oil, gas etc. ffks neither of these parties will do other than… Read more »
For heavens sake Dave vote Reform. I only say that it is predicted by every political columnist I have read that Reform will get no seats anywhere and will give Starmer a landside victory. Maybe you’re happy with a one party state .I’m not.
All the columns written in Tory supporting press like the daily express? Assuming the votes are counted properly it’s actually not difficult to win in some places despite the gerrymandering. Take a fictitious version of the UK, 10 constituencies of 100voters each. In the last section there were 2 parties, party A got 51 votes in each constituency, all seats are theirs. This election the new party comes in, this party gains only 33 votes in each constituency, now this brand new party has no seats but it is actually only 10 votes from winning all the seats. All people… Read more »
I wish I hadn’t said anything now. Dave, if it makes you happy please vote Reform.
Thank you, I will but if we want to rebuild our defences, rebuild our country, get away from poverty, control, being ignored then it takes a few people to read and think anf to put their daily express down. I know a woman who thinks Putin is right because all she watches and reads is Putin’s bullshit, those reading the sun, express, mail, telegraph and times are just having the rich Tory supporting owners information shoved down their throat, the bbcs question time doesn’t have the second place party reform probably because if reform gets in the licence junket will… Read more »
This has become a pointless conversation. You don’t know from Adam and you’ve obviously not understood a word I’ve said. Maybe you might consider your own bias to answer the ranting tone of your posts
Well if you wont read and try and understand yes it is pointless. Look at history, look at what has actually happened. When I was at college we spent 7% of GDP on defence, the roads had a surface on them, you got treatment at the doctor or hospital, the police had police cars and staff, even the village police station was manned all day and night, schools had books and the tax burden was lower in total. Today you need an offroad car for our supposed roads, we spend 2 percent on defence INCLUDING the pensions, the barracks at… Read more »
I read useful coherent information ,not biased rants. We’re done. No more.
Maybe you think you do, but the daily mail or express are not coherent information, not only that but they are deliberately misleading. Yes I am biased, I want my country to be defended including by me, want it put first by our own politicians and dont want it screwed up by stupid grandstanding and senile judges wrecking our industries on the altar of global warming (sorry, now climate change) while the chinese are strip mining for lithium, building 2 coal power stations a week and invading the Philippines with our money, Worse is I dont want to read people… Read more »
So which EU laws do you not want on our books?
What is the Conservative Party? A bunch of factions that have fought between themselves to deny what the country voted for in 2016 and subsequent elections!Now what are we left with and how long before Starmer is got rid of by the unions etc?
No guarantee the unions will get rid of him, but if people do the sensible thing and vote for the one party in this election that doesn’t have a history of failing people we might even avoid starmer
Reform won’t win any seats in Parliament. Simple as that. It’s a wasted vote.
Well if they don’t then this is proof that voting is rigged and not counted. My mum used to say that conservatives always win where she lives so voting for anyone else we a waste. So what do you do, vote for the party you want to win or vote for the one the papers say will so you don’t waste your vote? Pathetic, my mum had the excuse of poor education ending at 14, what’s your excuse? Reform can and will win seats and are the only current party that hasn’t screwed the voters over in the last 60… Read more »
I think you need to study how our parliamentary system works, Dave.
I have, maybe time others did as well. We have a broken election system with zero transparency and a civil service that runs the country regardless of the ministers who are in and out of new briefs they don’t understand on arrival and never get to grips with before moving on. Dont forget, fun y though it was, yes minister was actually written on inputs from civil servants and ministers of the time
Even if we had an elected Civil Service system like state governments in the U.S, populists will still claim the system is biased against them!
An elected civil service would be a disaster, people with no knowledge (not even the apparently obligatory arts degree from oxbridge) running things wouldnt work. However if you look at the civil service, what it has recommended and what it has done over the last 50 years we should certainly consider it is acting against the UK and for at least one foreign power. Our defences at an all time low and falling even as russia and iran are at war with their neighbors and china is rapidly upping things in its neighborhood, we are in world war 3 even… Read more »
Conservative type parties win, because older voters, vote for them!
Because other political parties have to live within economic reality!
More conspiratorial hogwash again!
I am an older voter, I have lived through the ‘economic reality’ of Thatcher and the rest of the muppets, Destroying jobs is NOT good economics, sending profits from essentials like water abroad is NOT good economics, buying foreign is NOT good economics. Reform is an actual conservative type party, the conservative party no longer is. Billions spent on ‘diversity managers’, dressing police cars in rainbow flags and of course giving immigrants money, 4 star hotels and dental care the locals cant get. Never mind the billions wasted on other non jobs throughout government, millions of managers and accountants i… Read more »
Come on, starmer is as centrist as you can get and the Labour Party has been selecting the hell out of centralist for its new MPs…if it gets what it says it will in the polls you would have 300 blue Labour MPs and a handful of old lefties.
O.K. So why did most of the shadow cabinet support and vote for Corbyn? Why are dozens of Labour members of momentum? Because there blue Labour. I don’t think so
Geoff, Labour MPs do not vote for the Labour leader the party does. So no MP ever voted for Corbin as part of the parliamentary party…Simply put Corbyn needed 15% of MEPs or MPs to nominate him to allow him to be put on the party membership ballot..then it was out of the MPs hands…stupidly a lot of that 15% actually lent Corbin their nomination to widen the ballet, which was just going to be full of centrists. Of the 35 MPs that gave Corbyn his nomination only 2 are on the front benches…and I think around half are no… Read more »
O.K.
👍
the view of where central is depends on peoples own political bias and views tbh.
Like who ? The library Dems would probably want to disband the armed forces
O.K but my point was perfectly factual. There are other perties other than reform.
👍Exactly!
Thanks.🙂
Most left wing? oh please what nonsense
O.K. Name me a Labour government that has been more left wing than this one.
There isnt a current labour Govt, but all of them, how is the current party “more left wing”, sounds like the usual panicking Tory headlines and conspiracy nonsense about Corbyn
O.K. Name me a more left wing Labour party about to enter government than this one A simple answer will do.
That response makes no sense, how is this labour party more left wing than any other?
O.K. Iwill try to make it simple because you’re beginning to sound like Starmer. My original point was that if elected this will be the most left wing Labour government we have ever had, so the question is…Name me a previous Labour government that had ideas as left wing as this one?
And how will it be the most left wing? so8unds like Tory hysteria to me, especially the nonsense about Corbyn coming back
REFORM=Voodoo economics!
+ it’s new leader is putler’s favourite Englander!
No. If you actually look at history then Keynesian economics has worked every single time it has worked from current Russia and china, Nazi Germany right back to the USA and UK getting out of the wall street crash to the start of the industrial revolution. We started the industrial revolution because we needed to invest in the royal navy and through so doing, even at great borrowing, we created massive demand for everything from nails, food, canvas, rigging, wool, everything creating thousands of direct job then thousands more supporting them mining coal, iron, spinning cotton, growing food. This creates… Read more »
Keynesian economics only works up to the point of what given economic resources will allow expansion. The great Keynesian experiment of the 1960′,was brought to a halt by the oil crisis of 1973, which resulted in a 3 day week and power cuts, and the Trade Union demands of a greater share of the economic pie, which by early 1970’s the demands led to raising inflation, reaching 25% by 1975.
What most people forget is that true Keynesian economics work both ways and a Keynesian will use government spending to stimulate a lagging economy as well as reduce taxation..but then also reduce government spending and increase taxation during economic overheat. The true Keynesian is basically focused on removing the amplitude of the business cycle ( boom bust cycle and hi- low inflation) by the use of counter cycle fiscal policies. The true weakness of Keynesian economics is actually the greed and short sightedness of people: 1) conservative businesses oriented parties, actual encourage the boom part of a cylce by reducing… Read more »
But it still flawed becuase it assumes there’s no outside influences. Example most UK billionaire have’t made their fortunes from the UK market, so they can continue to make money even when the market where they live is bust. That also goes for global businesses. And the growth of more countries to developed status means that there options where to live so hiking taxes aren’t as effective as they were last century. I beleive 9500 millionaires left the Uk last years alone. So Keynesian economics would only really work if the entire world has one government or you completely isolate… Read more »
The top 10% of the UK own about half of it, the bottom HALF of the population own less than 10% of the UK, so a request for a bit more of the pie would make some sense, I am not a communist after equality but I think such a skew is a little excessive in reality, its not much different to the dark ages of serfs (essentially slaves). The 60s did what you might look at as rather well, not surprising the Keynes ‘theory’ was only a write up of what had worked very well in the past. The… Read more »
Sounds like you want people to vote reform to split the vote because you’re perspective does align with reforms policies imo.
I am closer to reform than the others but I don’t want a split vote, I want people to realise the conservatives have been horrendously destructive and labours let everyone in, buy oil and gas from Russia instead of getting it ourselves and force the plebs from the roads is going to be at least and possibly more destructive, we should split the vote, we should realise the mess needs cleaning and the parties that made the mess aren’t going to clean it
I do agree that tge Tories and Labour don’t know how to fix anything they are wedded to outdated political systems.
“…not surprising the Keynes ‘theory’ was only a write up of what had worked very well in the past…”
Not True! In previous depressions of the 19th century, to the 1930s’, governments made a depression worse by cutting expenditure to balance the budget, including cutting sailors’ pay!
And more untruths of the cause inflation!
It is simply too much money chasing too few goods, including a higher cost of production, thorough demand for raw materials.
Reform can promise anythign they want becuase they know they wont have to follow through on it
30,000 is only part of the pledge. I listened to Farage’s speech and he said ‘the equivalent uplift in the RAF and Navy’ with a policy of spending up to 3% on defence. The 5% government spending cut in other areas essentially pays for it.
Farrage also says it’s not a manifesto as he has no chance of implementing it. 😀
He’s calling it a contract for PR purposes; nothing to do with whether he can implement it or not.
It’s a start, what is actually needed is about 20% of GDP for the next 10 years to make up for the destruction of the last 40
We might be able to sustain 20% for a couple of years if we were in a state of total war but realistically we’re not going to be anywhere near that figure. 3% is okay, 4% is good.
We cut to 7percent while I was at college. There is no reason we shouldn’t hit 20 while we sort out the lack of kit, maybe even higher, sand drop to 10 later when we are updating rather than equipping. We can apparently afford diversity managers paid as much as a deputy y head in every school, a fleet of them in every hospital, heaps of them in every government department for a start. We can apparently afford many other things like spending trillions on banks and giving them to our mates for nothing (of course not to the tax… Read more »
I agree, there is a lot of waste. But all that you’ve listed will be at best a couple of % of GDP. Where is the other 15% or so going to come from? If spending was 20% we need big cuts in high spending areas like pensions, education and healthcare.
Indeed and we are going to need to chop the mod (not the forces but the paper shufflers), dept of social security (easy, just pay a flat benefit to all legally here), tax (easy, single flat purchase tax), health really has far too many managers and accountants not actually working on healing anyone, civil service all over, number of mps and their pay lots we can chop
The future of British defence with the arrival of labour IS zero.
Next defence review Will be the final disaster for the armed forces.
Regardless of labour or conservative so we NEED reform to get in
Don’t you get it? REFORM=VOODOO economics!
Twice as bad as the Truss budget, Corporate tax slashed to 20%! They can afford to pay 25% rate is reasonable! 20% rate for small businesses only, agreed.
You need to study history more. Taking money from business is not helping when other countries don’t. Charging them more for energy, for capital, and then denying them demand is what kills our businesses. Germany doesn’t, they buy hundreds of thousands of German police cars, German buses and German tanks crating demand. France does similar but with french products. Our army drives German lorries, fires foreign bullets from foreign guns wear Chinese uniforms are protected by the RAF in American jets and a navy refueled by Korean tankers. Truss was ousted by russian supporting civil servants spreading lies just as… Read more »
I say it’s You that needs to study history more!
Do you not remember Red Robbo, from the early 1980’s, who destroyed British Layland? Thats why we do not have a mass car manufacturer any more! The rest of the British car industry became completely uncompetitive by early 1990’s!
Industrial relations with Unions was very bad at the time!
The rest you write is completely conspiratorial hogwash!
As I said earlier, the Leader of Reform, is putin’s favourite Englander!
The bullets used by the British army are made by BAE in there plant at Radway Green Crewe
So adding to the defence forces adds demand and jobs there, good. At one time there was at least discussion about having the ammunition made in South Africa.
You’re barking mad but I like it! The more numpties that vote for Reform the worse the toerag Tories will do, it’s win-win for Labour and the sane members of society 👍🏾😀
We need reform in they are the only ones who aren’t on course to screw the country. Labours great plans include open our borders to anyone that wants, close our oil, coal, gas industries do we have to import more ultimately from Russia, price the plebs off the roads. Thats just the shit they admit to. Labour are a disaster as bad as the conservatives
I think that was in relation to BAE shell plant. the old plant in Birtley was very run down and riddled with asbestos. there was talk of contract going else were but the MOD placed an new order and BAE built a new plant which is now being upgraded again
Glad, sad though that they didn’t extend the same effort to buying British fighter jets, British support vessels, British army lorries, British tanks and so on, if they had we would have more refurbished factories, more employed and exports
Most UK institutions have been so badly managed that we should almost start again. But how exactly do you rebuild a house when you have to live in it? The NHS is the 7th biggest employer on Earth yet waiting lists are long and it’s regarded as “understaffed”. How, exactly? Similarly there are vast numbers of working age people not working, (many on long-term sick) not paying tax and being supported by those working. My own step daughter works for a charity contracted by government to try and get people into work, a job that shouldn’t really exist. You can… Read more »
After 70 years of anti-English racism from the UK Government rippling through our institutions that is going to be a difficult goal to achieve. At least within a single term of government. Patriotism isn’t off-and-onable (TY Creature Comforts) like a light switch.
Agreed, I read reports (no idea of course of accuracy) that straight white males are being rejected for the armed forces in an attempt to create ‘balance’
Morning all, can we all agree to do one think, not tell people how to vote. As for politics that I would think should be on a diffrent platform. Yes we all would like to see a defence spend of about 3% GDP. Yes we would all like to see an Army of 100,000 to 120,000 a RN of 30 combat ships e.g DDGs/FFGs and 12 SSNs and an RAF of 150-200 fast jet fighters plus a proper UK GBAD network. We all would like to see as much of the work as possible done in the UK from making… Read more »
Russia is taking 50 new ships this year, a navy of 30 is not enough. Their army loses 100k on individual attacks and their air force has lost more planes than the RAF has, 3 percent is way too low, we need to restock and retrain urgently so need to be up around 20 or so percent and investing in factories right now. War will be on our shores this year
Hi Dave, in many ways I agree, defence spending would possibly need to go to 5% GDP for ten years to rebuild then reduce to 4%. This is the cost of decades of under investment. The current world situation does remind me of the 1930s all over again. Peace in our time, look where that got us. I am a firm believer in the “if you want peace you must prepare for war” thinking. As much as I would like to see that it will not happen. I also agree that the RN should have about 50 combat surface ships… Read more »
Easy to make promises like this when you have no chance of having to follow it up with action, its amazing people fall for the Reform nonsense