As part of its election campaign, the Labour Party has pledged its commitment to maintaining Britain’s nuclear submarine fleet and supporting the construction of the new Dreadnought-class Trident submarines.
The UK’s Continuous At-Sea Deterrence is currently provided by four Vanguard-class nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines: HMS Vanguard, HMS Victorious, HMS Vigilant, and HMS Vengeance.
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer and shadow defence secretary John Healey are set to affirm that national security remains a top priority for the “changed Labour Party.”
As part of their pledge, Labour will introduce a “nuclear deterrent triple lock,” ensuring the current at-sea deterrence is upheld, the maintenance of existing systems, and the completion of the four Dreadnought-class submarines being built at Barrow-in-Furness.
This pledge aligns with the party’s commitment to NATO and aims to provide vital protection for the UK and its allies, while also supporting thousands of high-paying jobs across the country.
“My message to them is clear: Labour has changed. No longer the party of protest, Labour is the party of national security.”
Starmer will highlight the significance of having veterans standing as Labour candidates in the upcoming general election, including Al Carns, Louise Jones, and Calvin Bailey CBE, as evidence of the party’s transformation.
“The excellent former service personnel that are standing as Labour candidates are a testament to that change. From Al Carns in Birmingham Selly Oak to Louise Jones in Derbyshire, national security is now a central strand of the Labour Party tapestry,” he will say.
In his speech, Starmer will also address the increasing threats to national security, asserting,
“In the face of increasing threats to national security, actions will speak louder than words. That’s why, alongside our unshakeable commitment to NATO, an incoming Labour government will introduce a ‘triple lock’ commitment on our nuclear deterrent – providing vital protection for the UK and our NATO allies in the years ahead, as well as supporting thousands of high-paying jobs across the UK.”
John Healey, the shadow defence secretary, is expected to criticise the current government’s handling of defence.
He will remark, “With threats increasing, we must secure Britain’s defences for the future. The Conservatives have failed defence over the last 14 years. Even Ben Wallace admitted that the Conservatives have ‘hollowed out and underfunded’ our Armed Forces since 2010.”
Healey will point out the reduction in the size of the Army, missed recruitment targets, and declining morale, arguing, “Our Armed Forces can’t afford another five years of the Conservatives. Britain will be better defended with Labour. In Government, the UK’s nuclear deterrent will be the bedrock of Labour’s defence plans to keep Britain safe and grow our economy.”
Labour has also committed to matching the Conservative pledge to spend 2.5% of national income on defence when economic conditions allow
When economic conditions allow, e.g. never.
Not like I believed the Conservative pledge either though.
Neither will get much of a choice on this as we will be using this as a tool to get the rest of Europe to 2.5% at the next NATO summit. It will become untenable for any British government not to meet NATO target.
I don’t see where Labour can cut to get up to 2.5% GDP.
So it will have to increase even more the taxes.
Then the British will start to emigrate even more…
I don’t see that. I’d see a comprehensive drive to issue everyone with an NHS number from birth and transfer to a common computer system that records people’s records for their lifetime. And then work back through the ages, so in time using the IOT all records would be on the cloud and any authorised NHS officer/doctor/nurse etc could access those records. That alone would save £££s Crackdown on gender transition etc, being paid for by the NHS. of course the big one would be losing all the trusts and re-recreating a true NHS. Then turn to rail. Nationalise it… Read more »
Sorry mate there is zero chance of going to a common NHS computer system…the NHS is not an organisation it’s a brand label for a system..that is made of many tens of thousands of different organisations, some public but around 30,000 being private businesses…each of those organisations have different IT requirements, by law have to have their own IT system and be responsible for their own IT system…take it from an expert it is functionally impossible to create a single NHS system….we once tried to make a single patient record that 40-50,000 NHS companies and organisations could access and share…the… Read more »
You wrote the same, 5 years back??
Is that now part of the problem?
(Thanks for repeating what you wrote earlier – impossible to find the quote – BUT, common ID from Birth, and thus it begins)
Thank you Jonathan.
I will look out for that one, but if a Labour government try to take that forward they are going to piss away billions…that will never recoup the investment….on the last go the ONS made it clear that in the end it was going to cost far more than it would ever recoup through clinical efficiencies. I don’t believe there is any nation that has done this for that very reason… to be honest it’s worth the effort to get a single system to have access to a single record..and all systems have already done this…our NHS is divided up… Read more »
Spoilsport Jonathan!
And yet, Amazon can generate account numbers but subcontract ‘delivery.’
The Army had 155,000 personnel and… ‘managed’
The NHS needs to be sorted from the ground up, one unique number for each new born, and move on from there.
As we have regiments, I see the different Departments in the same way and the RLC for ambulances; stupid? Naivety? I can see the ambulance trusts in the same way.
What I can’t see is the huge and increasing costs of the ‘N’HS being sustainable.
Hi DB I will try to unpack those things for you to try and give some context first the Amazon thing…so world wide Amazon generate 1.6million parcels per day..each essentially requires a name and address as records..they don’t need to share the record in any complex way…and don’t need to store that record beyond a few months or link it in any complex way with any other record.. The NHS on the other hand sees 1.6 million patients per day..now each of these contacts will generate a complex record that at its most basic would run to a couple of… Read more »
You are not describing a uniquely complex problem for a computer system to manage, and you are also misrepresenting Amazon. They may not strictly need to do anything other than correctly store a user’s credentials and basic address information, but they actually devote a lot of resource to building alarmingly detailed profiles of their millions of customers despite the added hardship of having to harvest the data indirectly.
Agreed, and I say that as someone who also works in IT and also worked for 2 of the IT companies you listed, BT and Accenture.
We have similar problems in defence digital services, with the added complication of security classifications on top of the usual data protection issues. We nonetheless achieve much better interconnectedness and smoother data flows than the NHS does, particularly since we started accepting cloud-hosted systems that only need a modern browser to access them. It is not as difficult as you are suggesting if you take a rational approach to designing the system.
But the issue is that your not 40,000 different companies all with their own it systems. If you had contracts with 40,000 companies and had to get them to change up their IT systems to all use the same cloud hosted service..how long would it take you and how much money would it cost…considering many of the records you would have to put on the cloud will date back to the 1930s and be stuffed in warehouses full of boxes or if your lucky on microfiche and all be completely different formate from each other…each of which need very specific… Read more »
“Crackdown on gender transition etc, being paid for by the NHS”
Did you honestly just recommend cutting people off from healthcare to save money?
You talking about 0.2% of GDP to get us to 2.5%, that’s a rounding error at the treasury, easily borrowed.
True. Using Sunak mathematics, the pace at which it will arrive, all backloaded, requires only about £9bn extra to be found over the next five years to take us to April 2029 and to 2.44% of a by then £3.2tr economy. Then there’ll be another election.
If UK is spending 2.3% GDP already then it has not much to show for it.
We include extras in the budget like the servicemen’s pension and the nuclear deterrent. Both should be totally excluded from the calculation.
The pension should be covered under Welfare/Benefits.
The nuclear deterrent should be considered a national insurance policy and, thus, completely separate from any other budget grouping.
Just wondering – and to take just one example – do ex-teachers pensions come out of the Education budget or from some random Welfare/Benefits budget?
The Education budget does not concern me. This is a defence news platform.
In this discussion, I consider it totally irrelevant.
You don’t get my point – I was using a simile. If all public sector workers have their pensions paid from relevant Departmental budgets, then it is surely not wrong or strange for military veterans to have pensions met from the Defence budget.
Again, government budget calculations outside of defence really don’t concern me. I understand where you are coming from, but they don’t matter to my issue. Including pension costs in our supposed NATO “contribution” buffs the value without providing any additional capability or strength, and it is totally misleading. The 2% minimum expectation should be costs directly associated with the defence of the nation and our NATO partners, not former servicemen and unrelated costs. Whether it is strange is immaterial – “this is the way we’ve always done it” is not an excuse when it comes to our obligations and our… Read more »
It comes out of the education budget and the present teachers pay..the employing school pays 23% of the wage to the pension scheme and the teachers pays around 8-11% of their pay.. the NHS pension uses the same principle…although the nhs employer pays slightly less 20% and the employee pays a bit more ( up to 14%). The NHS pension scheme also only costs about 90% of what it charges the employer and staff..so 10% tGets paid to the treasury at the end of the year to go into general taxation..( essentially you could say nhs staff pay an extra… Read more »
Thanks Jonathan, so it is logical (from HMG point of view) that veterans pensions come out of the defence budget, even if that is not what many people want to hear.
Indeed, essentially pretty much every public and private sector organisation are responsible for paying for their own occupational pension schemes if they offer them…the army, navy and airforce should be no different….the only big difference between the forces pensions any say the NHS or teachers pension is that there is no individual contribution.
Yes. I am sure you are aware that the non-contributory nature of a service pension is deemed to be a significant perk and it is considered by the Armed Forces Pay Review Body when assessing the annual pay award for serving personnel ergo the pay is reduced accordingly below civilian comparators, which is one reason that service personnel quite understandably consider that they are underpaid. Thus that non-contributory pension does not end up by being much of a perk in reality. When I was a serving Major responsible for 120 soldiers I was paid less than a train driver or… Read more »
Indeed, to be honest it’s not really fair, yes for instance I have 12.5% removed from my salary for my pension..but I do get to choose to be a member or not. So I have colleagues who stepped out of the pension when they needed their full salary to live. wages wise, unfortunately even when there is wage competition the government purposefully subdue public sector wages ( I’m sure they use it as a way to manage inflation)…like you when I was more senior I ran a large team with life and death as an outcome and for that got… Read more »
As I intimated, a problem with military salaries being suppressed because we had a non-contrib pension and because HMG could suppress the pay award as an anti-inflation measure is that you were only offered a lower amount of mortgage.
Yes that’s a really good point around mortgages…when I and my NHS colleagues apply for mortgages our full pay is used..even though we then loss that 10-12% for pension…you guys never had it on your gross pay…
Seem to me that they maybe need to think about paying forces Staff the full wage and then allowing them to enter the pension scheme and taking the deduction…would give them better mortgage options..and if they are in need of the money drop out of the scheme for a bit….war pensions and pension for those wounded should really be completely separate anyways..
So the 2.3% are not really 2,3% which explain the ever reduced army, RAF, RN.
I wonder how many Tempest UK will have, it is reportedly a large aircraft with 2 engines, and for that matter Italians and Japan.
The 2.3% is clever mythology (to be fair to us, a lot of countries play the same game), hence I think it is completely misleading to claim that we are spending a lot on defence.
A former serviceman living on his pension is not defending the nation any more and, therefore, should not be calculated as part of the defence budget.
Take it up literally with Nato.
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_49198.htm
100% agree the Nuc Deterrent and Pensions should both be separate. Actually funds are paid into the pension fund so were does that go? Pensions already paid for and therefore are separate to the MOD Budget. Fudged figures as always and of course that £22k!for that new toilet seat etc etc. We should have top kit and the right amount, but we don’t. We get our crappy low quality uniforms from China and they are certainly not fit for purpose but some idiot ordered them just the same and that is but one factor. Note the RM’s do not either… Read more »
I recall that years ago we got some clothing from China – I think it might have been DPM pattern waterproof jackets and trousers. China still supplying uniforms? Crikey!
Hi Angus, Pension fund? You think that MoD works the same way as everyone else. I very much doubt that MoD operate a pension fund in the same way as private companies do. They will have a sub-Vote for pensions but that’s for billing attribution, so is a very different thing to a company pension fund. Certainly Equiniti are contracted to do the admin and pay the pensions out (including mine), but that doesn’t mean they control a pension fund. What funds are paid into this pension fund? Service personnel (if they qualify) have a non-contributory pension – service pay… Read more »
Nato defence spending includes the spending on pensions etc. From Nato and how it’s calculated.
“Retirement pensions made directly by the government to retired military and civilian employees of military departments and for active personnel is included in the NATO defence expenditure definition.”
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/topics_49198.htm
I don’t particularly care that it’s part of the NATO definition, it’s a fundamentally flawed way of calculating it.
It is not productive investment in our armed forces and everyone should recalculate it with that nonsense excluded. No pensioner will be deployed on PoW, no pensioner will be doing exercises in Bahrain, no pensioner will be doing training in Kenya. Hence, it should be completely ignored.
But then both parties have essentially complete parity on this and in reality it’s not actually that much money…if you look at a .1% of GDP increase per year for 5 years it’s really not huge in the government spending game…remember it’s not a set amount either…if GDP shrinks that increase shrinks
Actually what will be really meaningful is if we have a significant uplift in GDP as if both parties are essentially determined to uplift to 2.5% at that to fair economic winds and a GDP increase and you get a big defence spend injection.
reopen palliin shipyard as a dedicated naval construction facility, another yard to increase the national rates of production.
And give them what? Already have too many yards for the coming gap in shipbuilding.
coming gap in shipbuilding? at the rate those clowns produce our current orders, itl be the 2040’s and as things are, we’ll still be waiting for Glasgow then there’s th destroyer and boris’type 32 to be sorted. to depend on the Clyde in the way we do is risky they’re unproductive and as for the glued nuts and bolts saga, undeserving. they get the navy orders because there’s nowhere else to give them to.
Amusing coming from the party that left us with a 6.9% deficit in 2010. Which was the entire reason for austerity. Also its a small point but 2010-15 was a coalition government not a Conservative only government.
Funny as the current deficit is 6.1% so what did the Tories do in 14 years if the deficit is still 6%. When labour left office we had 35% debt to GDP and now we have 100%.
And Labour completely supported the debt increase, not once did Starmer say no to lockdowns or handing out money in fact he wanted more handed out and longer lock downs. 14 years of Tories supported by 14 years of woeful opposition.
So it’s the opposition parties fault the government f**ked up COVID and doubled the national debt.
There was me thinking it was Boris.
But clearly it was all labours fault
Muppet 😀
The point is if we’d choose labour Starmer would have made the same choices. In fact, with JC at the helm, it nay have been even worse. I’ll take the insult as a complement.
I think you were right. this site is riddled with people who should as m.p in their areas , they are self appointed idiots.this not a political site and some rabid anti Tories should remember it😡😞
labour performance in opposition was dire.how would the likes of boy band millibandand and Corbyn fare? the Tories kept winning elections because there was no alternatives.
There are a number of key things around covid that need context ( and I was in the weeds working 80 hour weeks trying to help keep a healthcare system from collapse and killing a lot of people so I know what I’m talking about on this one). first we need to understand the context where the NHS was before covid: the system had been running over hot for about 5 years, with each year getting worse in winter we were seeing our hospitals running over 100% capacity. essentially over the period of winter our hospitals had more patients than… Read more »
So your suggesting if we had 10% vacant capacity which Labour would have built in preparation for a pandemic lockdowns on the kevel we had could have been avoided? Sorry but I refuse to believe Labour would have built a 10% buffer, that would mean 10% extra spend YoY just in case. That’s what 14b just incase money approximately 30% of the defence budget. Everyone knew a pandemic will hit but when is the question 1 year 10 years 100 years. Spending 14b and climbing just in case for any period of time is big commitment. We’d be better off… Read more »
Hi expat, it’s a little known fact that almost the most effective western healthcare systems work with around at least a 10% buffer on hospital beds…you should never really go above 90% occupancy rate in a hospital..it’s sort of managing a healthcare system 101. If you do go above 90% you end up harming people because..you will be putting surgical patients in medical wards..and medical patients in surgical wards etc…it would essentially be like the navy under crewing with engineers and sending some of the bridge crew down to the machine space and getting them to run it. Essentially all… Read more »
Took me a while to get back to this So Germany pays 66% more per head but gets way more than 66% more beds!! It also get more than double number of nurses. Even If we increase our taxation to accommodate 5000 per head it looks like we won’t get the same service as the average German from your numbers. One finer point is of course raising taxes will mean actually the top 10% who pay over 60% of tax will be paying huge sums for health. Because Germany pay via insurance which whilst linked to income it’s capped it’s… Read more »
Hi expat. The Germans have around 33% more drs per 1000 people…for 40% more…around the beds it’s a bit distorted as 30% of the German beds are always empty..were as every NHS bed is always hot with a very sick person in it.. So each German bed is cheaper than each NHS bed..a bed with empty air or someone recovering and resting costs a lot less than a bed with a very sick person in it. The NHS was built from exactly the same private care system as the German system was…and as I said 90% of all NHS organisations… Read more »
Underpayment us exactly why we should switch to a similar insurance based scheme to Germany. When bury the cost and lump it in with other government spend which it needs to fight for of course you won’t get what’s needed. It’s predicted to collapse anyway it’s just when. My experience of day to day health insurance is much lower, in the low hundreds per month. And while if you get a chronic condition you may loose you house odds on within the next 10 years the government will be helping themselves to a high % of it anyway. The point… Read more »
labour have a solid history of blowing the nations pennies.it won’t be any different with starmers crew.
The small matter of a global pandemic Jim.
Germany and the same Pandemic and didn’t double its national debt.
So did most countries in Europe
Just us and the US
Indeed; just us and the US. I think the French refer to it as the Anglo- Saxon agony. Maybe the WASP agony would be a better name. Not that France is a paragon of virtue 🙂
See my responce above Robert..as a senior leader in the field I can tell you the lock downs were required in they way they were because of the fact we ran our health care system to hot for to long and it was going to catastrophically collapse in the face of a pandemic disease with a natural R0 of 8-10 and a mortality case rate of 1%…( every year flu overstressed they system and it has an R0 of 1.2 and a case mortality rate of .1%)…when the health system collapsed you were going to see deaths in the many… Read more »
Umh…Covid?😷
The UK budget deficit is currently 4.4%, not 6.1%.
5.8% last year.
Are these your Moscow supplied figures?
The ONS dataset released on 28 March 2024 is as follows “The UK current account deficit when trade in precious metals is included, increased to £21.2 billion, or 3.1 % of GDP.”
These figures can be found on the ONS website. Next
I should add debt to GDP was as follows “Public sector net debt excluding public sector banks (debt) at the end of April 2024 was provisionally estimated at 97.9%” In 2021 it was 103.7% this is after the unprecedented support offered by government to business during covid. Which saved millions of jobs. Oh and in 2010 debt to GDP was not 35%, it was 69%. The following quote is from the ONS website. “General government gross debt first exceeded the 60.0% Maastricht reference value at the end of FYE 2010, when it was 69.0% of GDP.” . Do try and… Read more »
Funny really I though it was the international crash causes by a catastrophe failure in the international banking system…
What a load of cobblers.
Which Chancellor allowed unmitigated mortgage lending which has bombfired a rise in unaffordable house prices?
Riddle me that?
Which Chancellor allowed banks to do what they pleased and sent the banks into an economic nose dive?
Riddle me that.
Foxtrot Oscar with your cobblers.
Did a Chancellor allow mortgage borrowing – surely it was the mortgage lenders in the private sector?
It is the Bank of England that fixes the rates that allow mortgage lenders to offer very low one or in practice 0% rates. Same thing happened in USA and Cont. Europe. At start of XX Century the Western world political complex unable to improve knowledge to drive growth in high tech resorted to real estate construction as a solution for increase Government social spending and the growth problem and drove the borrowing rates down to zero, which is basically printing large amount of money by credit issuance. The only thing that made inflation not explode then was price competition… Read more »
Hi Alex, the BoE is of course independent of HMG in pulling the lever of monetary policy ie setting BoE base interest rate which knocks onto the mortgage rate. But mortgage interest rate is of course only part of the story. A buyer has to be able to both put up a deposit and then afford the repayments long-term – where the US went wrong was in lenders offering sub-prime mortgages to people who had no real ability to meet the payments long-term. Our lenders were somewhat more repsponsible than UKLS lenders particularly after self-certified mortgages were dropped. I am… Read more »
BoE is part of same political culture that is enforced by the media – media which are who legitimates from political disgrace to political violence- BoE know very well to not be the enemy of the people more than they are already are. Which in this case was the Gov and political class wanting lots of taxes being paid, the banks(same culture of BoE) wanting to make lots of business and the common people wanting low rates – No BoE independence would survive if they are going against that coalition, so to preserve their status, lets say benevolently they were… Read more »
Hello Sir.
Was it not Lamont, Howe or Lawson, who ditched substantial financial regulations and allowed banks to apply different lending ratios.
Two impacts. The financial melt down and the current cost of housing.
That is down to the Cons.
Hi, I didn’t know Government meddled in this, setting lending ratios for mortgages – thought that was the business of lenders who had to bear the risk.
Not sure – you may be right.
I think that ‘supply and demand’ has got a lot to answer for. Demand for houses went up and supply did not ever keep pace.
The financial melt down of 2007-2009 was of course a global thing and largely intitiated by the US and the awful sub-prime mortgage business executed by their mortgage providers.
Later stuff – definitely the fault of our Government.
Thankfully, if it keep pace the disaster would have been bigger.
I wonder what happened to make that deficit happen. Couldn’t have been an existential economic crisis, surely??
Austerity in an era of free money was the biggest grift on earth, and anyone who bought into it was a complete sucker. We could have spent billions on investments in new kit, new technology, new infrastructure, but instead we gutted the bejesus out of all of our public sectors. Now look.
Ridiculous, you never spend so much in public sectors except in war and Covid.
in 1947 38% GDP, now 46%. It is basically a social-democrat/socialist country despite a supposedly conservative government.
Spending more as a percentage of GDP doesn’t mean our services aren’t gutted, and you are being disingenuous if you are pretending that is the case. The cost of providing the same service is much higher than in the past, particularly given the range of requirements and tools that can be used in healthcare or defence. In the past, a very limited suite of diagnostic tools were available in healthcare, but now you have an array of MRI/imaging/testing equipment that has massively improved the quality of disease detection. This costs more. But our economy has failed to grow to absorb… Read more »
it was also around 45% in the mid1970’s and 2009-2010.
Spending as a percentage of GDP on the public sector in Portugal has been over 40% since 1990
Yes and we have been stagnated ever since.
There are more aspects to it like a negative culture evolution but essentially everyone from people to companies expect the state to give and pay them jobs and works. We have several highways where in middle of the day you see barely a car for km’s.
GDP seems to have have trebled until 2009 when you have had almost a lost decade unto now.Life expectancy is nearly 83 years as well. not all bad
labour won’t be much different. 7 months after the election people will be wanting the Tories back.
I guess we’ll quietly ignore the fact that Labours deputy leader and shadow foreign secretary are both vehemently opposed to nuclear weapons then?
12 members of the shadow cabinet apparently as well! Twice now this week Rayner has embarrassed Starmer over Abbot and now Trident anyone who thinks the hard left has gone away might be in for a shock! What’s the money on Labour winning the election and then ousting Starmer?
Starmer goes a away and Labour nature rises.
With Labour’s approach toward Defence i keep hearing those Talking Heads lyrics – “Same as it ever was, Same as it ever was…”
Nothing new then.
Meaningless Percentages and CASD.
We want to hear about ending the cuts, stabilising or even, dare I day it, increasing numbers in a few key areas.
Nothing re Tempest.
Nothing the vital work SF, ASOB, and the intelligence community do in the Grey zone countering Russia and China BEYOND the NATO area.
TBH, CASD is about good jobs for union members so has support within some factions of the party. Tempest they have previously made noised to the effect they’re on board with Tempest but on the flip side said that the our startegy shouldn’t be driven by deals outside Europe, or words to that effect. On AUKUS Its very ironic that AUKUS would have never happened under Labour 1) They would have preferred EU partnerships 2) They would not wanted to upset the French and AUKUS did royally screw them. But Now AUKUS is providing investment a long term jobs so… Read more »
Agree, zero detail, that’s modern politics unfortunately. No one will say anything because anything good will be knicked by the other side and anything that can be spun will be spun.
If labour comes out and says it will increase defence spending the Tory’s instantly say they are the high tax party.
to be honest I don’t think we are going to hear anything of any detail until the new defence review comes out….essentially the message we are getting is don’t worry we are not going to make any major changes for the worst….and will see what is actually needed via a review programme…for you and me that’s a bit maddening..but for the average voter..it doesn’t sound loony left and there are no spending commitments the conservatives can get hold of and say…look tax and spend Labour…and essentially that’s labours mission…no silly messages..no loony lefty statements and no tax and spend….. Essentially… Read more »
So one cannot choose based on a party manifesto or commitment as they won’t make any. And this is what politics has become.
No wonder Farage said what he said, he’s right.
On my last paragraph, that is posture and commitment, not tax. Labour have spent months telling the world we can basically withdraw to EU borders.
Funnily enough, now missiles are flying in the Red Sea they are silent.
Funny that.
Naive beyond words for me. And they’re in next.
Personally I’m not sure what will actually wake the political classes up to the threats to be honest. Although both parties are saying look at the threats, I don’t think they really believe it…if they did we would be seeing a lot more action….I suspect you would need china to freedom of navigate a navel task group ( or god forbid a carrier battle group) up the channel and into the North Sea…but china will not do that at present as they like the west being fat and stupid….but watch the hens flap when that does happens ( and it… Read more »
Interesting point. What would wake up the political classes? Perhaps one of the following: -Loss of a RN warship with loss of life, to Houthi fire. -Use of tactical nukes or other WMD by Russia in Ukraine. -Total defeat of Ukraine by Russia. -Any proof that Iran is embarked on producing nuclear weapons. -Detection of preparations by China to invade Taiwan imminently. -Serious efforts by Argentina to re-build their armed forces, beyond the F-16 purchase, to enable expeditionary operations. -Russian machinations to invade another European country, whether they be a NATO member or not. -Very low RN fleet availability and… Read more »
It was the same crap as Covid, very dangerous , terrible, Suddenly George Floyd occurs and could be useful to push Trump out so public protests are okay…
Details about Defence rarely ever appear in manifestos – it is usually bland stodge. You are right that we won’t have details until the next SDSR or IR+DCP.
Today the major security issue for the U.K. is internal. Russia is a nuisance but has busted itself militarily in Ukraine; the issue is what will a post Putin Russia look like and how can the west shape that given its previous baleful impact on the Yeltsin era? China has serious long term domestic issues and has expanded its influence globally by lending money it will not see re-paid. It’s only customers with economies that can support trade at scale are slowly ganging up on it. It is not a usual trading ploy to attack the interests of your only… Read more »
Worrying isn’t it? It’s happening under our noses and they just don’t want to see it!
Yes Jacko, since I see none who would take action anywhere near the levers of power. Our armed forces and police combined are too small and unprepared to deal with any sort of threat alone. I’m pretty old so it may be academic for me, but I see a huge ‘problem’ coming this way.
River Tiber foaming with much blood?
Nero looking after London burning?
‘It’s only customers …’ should be ‘Its only …’ My inner greengrocer …
Good Evening,
Will Labour put right what the Conservatives destroyed in Government? We need more than 2.5%! Perhaps after taking control Labour will be as useless as the present party when it comes to Defence?
I hope Iam wrong!
Nick
I would like either party to commit to 2.5% GDP on 90s and early 2000s measurements, i.e not all the spending they include in the MODs budget measurements today and we might then start getting somewhere
Agreed. This is a significant problem, especially with the government’s latest abuses. The inclusion of operational spend to a fixed ceiling could be disasterous, reducing long term capability spend when and because extra operational spend is required at that time. If we are increasing operational spend, we need to consider increasing capability spend, not reducing it.
they should commit to building the fleet too
Tory’s promise 2.5% gdp military spend as they are about to lose election. Labour will spend when conditions allow. Really Putin needed to see us being more serious. Not bonkers money but just some more and in step with other nato countries.
We had no problem spending 5% GDP in the Cold War, when Russia was not busy invading other countries, but just looked menacing.
Indeed I find it a bit bizzare, that we could burn 5-6% in the 1970s when the nations finances were a lot worse than they are now..and yet in reality we faced a far more stable enemy……but now when we face a third Reich level nutter in Russia and a far more powerful enemy that the Soviets in china..we seem to think even 2.5% is a step into the realms of back to the Cold War…instead of just getting back to spending the amount we did in the less threatening 1990-2010 period.
Hi Jonathan, I have researched the actual number – take a look at a website called macrotrends.net https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/GBR/united-kingdom/military-spending-defense-budget from which: 1960 (UK defence spend was 7.09% of GDP; 1965 (6.44%); 1970 (5.2%); 1975 (5.34%); 1980 (5.02%); 1985 (5.32%); 1990 (3.98%); 1995 (2.85%); 2000(2.37%). The much vaunted 2.5% that Tories are promising if they get re-elected (and not delivered in full until 2030) and Labour float the figure as a vagues aspiration – is nowhere near Cold War levels. Even if delivered, 2.5% would plug some capability gaps, enable better recruiting, fix some Quarters, may allow a good pay rise, cover… Read more »
My reply was lost. We actually spent over 7% in 1960!
No doubt we afforded 5%+ as we did not indulge the NHS and the Welfare state as much.