Labour MP and former Royal Marine Fred Thomas has raised concerns about the pace of military modernisation after visiting troops on Salisbury Plain ahead of their deployment to Estonia.
In a thread on X (formerly Twitter), the Plymouth Moor View MP—who sits on the Defence Select Committee—praised the ingenuity of British soldiers but expressed alarm at the slow response from the defence system in equipping them with modern battlefield technology.
This was part of a remarkable @CommonsDefence visit to @BritishArmy HQ.
Briefed in Andover by Gen Roly Walker and his team, then out to see the Forward Land Force, part of 1 Div, on their final exercise before they go out to Estonia to take up the job of deterring Putin.
— Fred Thomas MP (@FredThomasUK) March 21, 2025
“Awe and pride in our soldiers and their relentless focus on fighting and winning on the one hand. But equally: alarm at how slow our defence system is responding to their pleas for modernisation.”
Thomas, who was elected in 2024 as one of fourteen ex-military personnel standing for Labour, visited British Army HQ in Andover before heading to Salisbury Plain to observe the Forward Land Force—a component of 1st Division—during final exercises before their six-month deployment to Estonia as part of NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence.
With the UK contingent deploying just 100km from the Russian border, Thomas noted that many soldiers were taking matters into their own hands, personally sourcing and modifying technology to enhance their combat effectiveness.
“The ingenuity of our soldiers amazes me. They know they will be deploying for six months just 100km west of the Russian border & want to be ready. With little direction, many have taken it upon themselves to buy tech online & tinker with it to produce contemporary capability.”
Among the improvised kit, soldiers had acquired and adapted first-person view (FPV) drones capable of targeting tanks and electronic warfare devices, filling capability gaps while waiting for formal procurement.
“The Army Knows How to Modernise—They Need More Funding”
Thomas highlighted General Roly Walker, Chief of the General Staff, who stressed the critical relationship between the British Army and the defence industry in delivering cutting-edge capabilities.
“One thing Gen Roly was clear on is how crucial the ever closer relationship between fighting force and defence industry becomes if we are to achieve his vision.”
However, Thomas did not shy away from warning that the UK is deploying forces without the full suite of modern equipment necessary for contemporary warfare.
“The fact remains we are sending our people out to Estonia to man the Russia border without the full suite required to fight and survive in contemporary warfare. And we know it.”
As Co-Chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on Defence Technology, Thomas has long advocated for accelerating innovation in the UK defence industry, ensuring British forces remain at the forefront of technological advancements.
Calling for increased defence funding, he urged the government to frame the defence industry as a strategic growth sector that offers secure, high-tech, and ethical employment opportunities.
“The Army know how to modernise, but they need more funding (now) to do it, and we need to tell a national story about the high technology, secure, ethical work available in a growing defence industry.”
The “Forward Land Force”
Oh goody, something new or renamed.
I’d never come across it.
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Not a new comment, but still not good.
While this is likely to be fairly modern (from the 1950s) ie about 70 years old, it is also attributed to Gaius Petronius Arbiter (alias Titus Petronius Niger; AD 27 – AD 66
‘We trained hard, but it seemed that every time we were beginning to form into teams, we would be re-organised. I later was to learn in life that we tend to meet any new situation by re-organisation; and a wonderful method it can be for creating the illusion of progress, while producing confusion, inefficiency and demoralisation.’
I saw this quote in many police stations during my service. Everyone must have seen it yet the same principles kept coming to the fore over 3 decades. Essentially, everything and nothing changed. Quite a paradox.
Same with the NHS.. government not facing the core issues of appalling health in the population, aging population with poor social care and lack of skilled workforce.. instead they re organise the management and planning functions again and again ( mainly because no one cares if you sack the planners and managers ).
Yes, easy to sack the planners and managers and blame them for the medics not condescending to do their jobs!
You can always tell a good unit by information flow.
I walked into QE Birmingham who were treating a relative. Had an information filled conversation in minutes and the senior nurse on the ward took me up on two points I raised. Within 20 mins she had come back to me to say she had talked to the relevant medics and they had approved the two relevant interventions. Open honest, people who were making eye contact and unafraid to communicate. None of this ‘you will have to talk to the Dr’ nonsense.
Contrast that with my experience of two other major teaching hospitals where the staff were 1] all clearly terrified [no eye contact and conversational avoidance pervaded]; and 2] did not have decisional freedom or the freedom to communicate; and 3] senior Dr’s were in permanent hiding; and 4] junior Dr’s to terrified to confirm the basics.
Sounds like the classic example of a high quality hospital team that is culturally generative ( improvement is not a forced external thing but something the team just does) vs a team that has a very poor cultures.
One of the issues with the NHS is it’s structure is based on contracts and it’s not a cohesive organisation so everything is a contractual exchange and each hospital or service is an individual organisation that has a contract… and you cannot really influence and develop a good culture through a contract, especially if it’s a natural monopoly and there is only one organisation that can bid for that contract ( you cannot build a new hospital to compete with a hospital that’s already there and a bit shit).
How curious that the day after Ukraine undertook a massive, long range drone attack against Engels Airbase in Saratov Oblast (about 450 miles from the front line) Heathrow airport is put out of action by a massive electrical substation explosion. Including the back-up generators.
Engels was a key base for Russian strategic aviation, housing nuclear capable long range Tu-95MS, Tu-22M3, Tu-160 strategic bombers, ammunition bunkers and aviation fuel storage silos. We can assume that Russian nuclear warheads were also stored there.
Geolocated images – including several that look suspiciously like a mushroom cloud – satellite imagery and video footage show that the attack caused huge fires, the destruction of aircraft hangars, the loss of many aircraft and clearly show secondary ammunition explosions (“cook-offs”) damaging more infrastructure. This morning, Reuters is reporting that the base is still burning
This is a military exploit worthy of the SAS. By successfully destroying an active Russian nuclear bomber base, Ukraine is protecting us from the war criminal Putin’s nuclear threats – and demonstrating that Russia is most definitely not invincible. Slava Ukraini!!
Russia isn’t subtle when sending messages, look at Salisbury etc. If they had done something against Heathrow it would be all over the news.
I don’t think the Russians could have organised something that pin point as to take out a critical node in that time frame.
It is pretty shocking that there was only one switch over node and that it was for the backup switch over too.
I am surprised that the backup generators are not far more distributed and that they are not colocated at terminal buildings and say fire stations.
Whist there is almost always a single node/mode of failure [as we see repeatedly with DNS mess-ups with ISPs] if the backups were colocated as I described you could, at least have a hyperlocal manual start up procedure? We are so obsessed with ‘efficiency’ that we end up baking in huge levels of vulnerability.
“I don’t think the Russians could have organised something that pin point as to take out a critical node in that time frame.”
That sounds like something idiot Jim would have posted. Recent reports from the Fire And Rescue Service say that the cooling oil in the transformers overheated and caught fire. If that was the reason for the reported explosion, it may well have been a cyber attack causing an overload
The UK is extremely poor at cybersecurity. Nobody takes the threat of a cyber attack seriously. Thats why the N Koreans are so good at it
Transformers do go bang from time to time, this was just a very big one and it’s most likely due to accident or negligence.
An overload shouldn’t (on it’s own) cause a fire. Not to say that a cyber-induced overload wouldn’t be possible or disruptive.
F Off occasionally getting posts like this is thankfully not a regular thing, but when it gets brought up regularly then it shouldn’t be ignored. but, yet again a minion m.p nobody has heard of puts his ill informed rubbish forward, then his/her leaders should be brought to account for the spouting of siege that in the current climate is counterproductive. when you go abroad and look out at the airfield you’ve just landed on, it’s not unusual to see armed police, soldiers or local militia patroling all over the place the air sector is vital everywhere. I do fear that our important infrastructure is too vulnerable I walked my dog inside the submarine building area at barrow, I’ve ailed a dinghy across Pompey harbour and had my picture taken leaning against the hull of one of our carriers. on neither occasion, was I challenged.
Don’t forget at least three warehouse fires in the Midlands last year, including a parcel distribution warehouse and the Ukraine ammunition warehouse that caught fire after “a large explosion” in May. Many who post here though it was sabotage
If so, the team reponsible is still at large. Officially, the authorities are saying that “investigations are ongoing”
If you want peace prepare for war.
It will be exactly the same in a theoretical Ukraine deployment the Army doesn’t treat logistics seriously it’s a capability they have on paper that’s nice on paper to say they have without understanding how seriously inept it is in practice.
Undermanned and overworked G4 Teams with even the RLC struggling to keep loggies, when I was in you had Commonwealth lads bemoaning that Army logistics was 3rd world tier it’s also hard to keep people when skilled logisticians are in high demand in civvie street with higher wage offerings.
One of the funniest examples I ever seen was when two stores LCpls got stuffed on a Dangerous Goods course to become qualified DG movers ontop of their jobs and after a few months both signed off for 35k DG jobs on civvie street.