Labour is in and the Tories are out, and so it begins.
The Labour party election manifesto contained much and will now be subject to scrutiny over the next few years to see whether they can deliver or whether it will prove once again to be a litany of broken promises, discarded after they served their purpose.
As an ex-military man, it was the party’s defence policies and pledges that caught my eye, and I wrote previously about it here. Now that reality has bitten, however, I have a few suggestions of my own as to how Sir Keir and his party should approach the defence conundrum.
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The consensus both here and abroad seems to be that the UK’s defence forces have atrophied over the past two decades through chronic underfunding and poor leadership. How can our new government begin to reverse the decline?
First and foremost, Labour needs to sort out the defence budget. Yes, I know that they have pledged to raise spending to 2.5% of GDP when circumstances allow, but that really isn’t good enough. In the light of Ukraine, the Middle East, and other tensions around the globe, we may not have much time to put things right.
Starmer needs to get hold of his Chancellor and the Treasury and tell them to wind their necks in and listen. The budget should be raised to 3% of GDP immediately and to 4% by 2030. No point in pussyfooting around anymore. The threats are real, and we need to confront them. If Poland can achieve 4%, then so should we.
Next, and equally urgent, is the need to fix the personnel problem. Our boys and girls in uniform are brilliant, but there just aren’t enough of them to crew the ships, fly and maintain the aircraft, and fill the battalions. All the shiny new equipment in the world is not worth a jot if we haven’t the people to operate them.
Recruiting targets have been missed for years, and the outflow from the services is such that there are more people leaving than there are coming in. The reason is that the services are increasingly not regarded as an attractive career option.
It’s not a pay issue; it’s mainly a condition of service issue. Much service housing is in poor condition and badly administered by outsourced contractors. Similar outsourcing of army recruitment has been disastrous. And the after-service care of veterans is appallingly handled, palmed off in the main to charities whose remits often overlap and conflict.
A lot of this is relatively easily fixed with the right focus, commitment, and political will. The armed forces need to have their people properly managed and nurtured before, during, and after their time in uniform. The promise to establish an independent Armed Forces Commissioner will help as long as he/she is truly independent. Don’t let the military chain of command anywhere near it!
Third, and I was delighted to note that it featured heavily in the Labour Party’s election manifesto, is the requirement to reform the MoD’s defence equipment procurement processes and practices.
The record of Britain procuring defence equipment on time and within budget is dire. To be honest, the UK seems to be still mired in the 1950s when it comes to weapons development when it was acceptable to take ten years to bring weapons from inception to being introduced into service.
Take ten years nowadays, and the “new” equipment presented is obsolete before the troops get their hands on it, such is the speed of technological advance. I could name many examples, but none is more relevant to this hypothesis than the slow-motion car crash that is Ajax, the British army’s next armoured cavalry vehicle.
Already fifteen years behind schedule, the thick end of the £5.6 billion budget for 589 vehicles has already been spent with nary one in service. It is an example of how not to go about it, and the predictable result of a sclerotic MoD system long past its sell-by date plus short-term appointments of military officers desperate not to be the ones holding the parcel when the music stops.
There are many, many other issues crying out for reform in the UK defence sphere, but if Labour can get its teeth into these three, then it will have made a promising start.
If we accept that the first priority of government is the protection of the state and its citizenry, then the way forward is clear. And to fund it, either taxation has to go up, or something else has to give.
Over to you, Sir Keir.
Interestingly, I was going to comment to the effect that the Poles don’t have the financial strain of an ageing population to worry about, but then I checked the stats and found that the age distribution was much the same as it is here. So what indeed, is the reason Poland can manage 4% but for us this is somehow deemed unthinkable?
I do take issue with the assertion that in the ’50s’ it was acceptable to take a decade to develop a platform- the Vickers Valiant for example first flew in 1951, having been developed in response to a specification issued in 1947 (and competed too). The Vulcan first flew a year later.
Well for example they are getting loans from the US for defence spending for American purchases, 2 billion was just announced.
Well that accounts for 0.3% of Polish GDP, what about the rest?
Well. Poland does share a land border with Belarus, Russia and Ukraine, so you could easily understand why the heightened sense of tension and need to rearm and requip.
It’s just a pity the UK hasn’t already begun a rearmament programme.
Still new government. Let’s hope Labour can progressively sort out the utter shit show that was Tory defence policy. Might take a while.
Little chance of that. The party is full of extreme left wing Corbynistas, terrorist sympathisers and CND campaigners.
The activists have now little say in the running of the party. Most of the CND’ers are now Greens! So rest assured George, they can’t stand Starmer!
If you think Stammer runs the party you are mistaken, possibly delusional. No insult intended. The extreme left are the party on the ground, in the TUC and constituencies. Stammer is nothing more than an acceptable toothless figurehead for the masses. The veneer covering a rotten centre. (Lipstick on a pig.) Give it a few months and the extremists will seize control.
Initially it’s going to be a fight between Blair and Trots Corbyn to be the chief puppeteer pulling Stammers strings. Blair will fail because he has no physical muscle with which to intimidate his opponents. Corbyn has ANTIFA, BLM and the sectarian legions to mobilise when required. He is known within the movement as “Trots Corbyn” for good reason.
(How much do you know about the rise of communism. Marx, Lenin and the evil Ukrainian Leon Trotsky. Especially the schools of thought each of them spawned.) When someone’s marxist friends affectionately refer to them as Trots, it means something very specific. Being exiled from the party is actually a badge of office.
‘No insult intended.’ Stammer?
I dislike Labour’s present policies and did not vote for them, but I always admired how people as different as Tony Benn and Enoch Powell never stooped to personal attacks based on immutable characteristics.
Barry my friend, the Starmer/Stammer typo and subsequent spellchecker error (now corrected – it didn’t recognise his name.) was unintentional. If the guy has a speech impediment or not is irrelevant.
On the subject of Tony Benn, after writing to him regarding the unnecessary invasion of Iraq in 2003. I had the pleasure of meeting the man in person and had a tea/coffee with him in the H of C. Actually shocked myself because despite having diametrically opposed beliefs I liked him as a person. Sadly, never had the pleasure of meeting Brigadier Enoch Powel. Not sure if I’d have liked him even if I respected the man immensely and agreed with his politics.
Many thanks for your courteous and fascinating response, George. As one of millions who have suffered from an Attack of the Spellchecker, I sympathise. Benn I saw speak once and he struck me as an Edwardian gentlemen. He was more complex than portrayed, but his later views and associations were eyebrow rising. He described himself as a life long friend of Sir Keith Joseph and co-operated with Powell in the 1975 E.E.C. Referendum. Both predicted the course of events that led to Brexit. Benn backed Concorde and I think, TSR 2, his Bristol constituency being close to Filton*. When Powell died, Benn went public with his firm opinion that Powell was not a racist. Of the two, Benn would have been the better conversationalist but Powell more fascinating; he had also a sense of humour that Benn I think lacked.
*Spellchecker Alert! It may sneakily change this to somewhere or thing other than the Bristol Aircraft Company’s old H.Q.
you do of course know that Corbyn isn’t even a Labour MP ?
He was expelled but can be invited back at any time. He has a very large following within the party. That is a fact!
Corbyn twice won more votes at the two General Elections he fought that Sir Keir Starmer did on 4th July. Corbyn will command a large following in the House.
Trot’s Corbyn certainly has a large following on the Labour benches but he has an even bigger following among the fanatical far left factions around the country. Note how he is stirring the antisemitic pot by arranging mass turnouts at pro-terrorist rallies in London. Coach loads travel each weekend from Yorkshire etc, with well organised logistical support. There seems to be no shortage of funds.
His recent podcasts and interviews on YouTube contain truly disgusting rhetoric. Anti-hate speech laws apparently do not apply and google ignore all complaints.
Excellent commentary George.
I have long held the view that the left are nothing more than hypocrites. I couldn’t care less about their politics. Stammer and Khan have the gall to call out anti Islam “phopia” whilst actively fuelling the fires of racism against those of Jewish decent.
When last did the pro -Palestine lobby demonstrate against Putin to support the people of Ukraine? Who empowered them to exercise the judgement of Palestinian lives is some how worth more than that of Ukrainians – hypocrites.
Corbyn is clearly living in your head
My interest is purely academic at this point. Call it a retirement hobby. old habits die hard.
Corbyn is a symptom of academia and journalism taken by Marxists.
Spot on Alex. I lived the last six years under Jacinda Ardern here in NZ . Your description fits the mould perfectly.
Assuming Starmer is a sensible centrist poitician, as PM, he can simply call a general election if he is threatened by the far left and tell the country what is going on. The threat to this country by the far left gaining power by pretending to be a moderate centre left party is serious. However there are mechanisms within our constitution to make that difficult.
Hi Mark. I know very little about Starmer other than the obvious bland info on line. Corbyn on the other hand is a known quantity. (Still very much seen as the leader of the extreme left in the country. Crossing party boundaries both nationally and internationally. – Being thrown out of the official labour party did not decrease his popularity or power.)
But would Starmer throw the party “under a bus” to stop the extreme left from taking over. Hmm not very likely, especially given the threats and intimidation they can generate against family and friends. (Numerous well documented examples out there. With direct links to Corbynites.)
In 1997 the arch manipulator Tony liar Blair removed or “reformed” many of those mechanisms designed to prevent a takeover of government by enemies from within. The devil being in the details. Along with devolution, an attack on the Union. He removed the right of the monarch to dissolve parliament in an emergency and install the privy council. Having first removed the death penalty for high treason. Cleverly covering his arse.
If I’m wrong please tell me.
The Monarch can under the advice of ministers dissolve parliament in which case an election would take place. In theory he could dissolve parliament himself in an emergency although it is possible that might be challenged in the courts. The monarch having the ability to dissolve parliament and/or replace a prime minister is one of the strengths of the British constitution. Obviously the monarch would be well advised to be sure that he/she had the solid support of the British people beforehand.
Thanks Mark. Clearly one of us is wrong. Our monarch was indeed the safety net for GB with the power to “press the reset button.” Excuse the term. I’m no legal expert but was told by such a person that Blair had craftily reformed the powers of the Monarch to dissolve parliament, if in dispute with His government. Something to do with details within EU law but I can’t remember the details.
If HM ever needed to dissolve it, most likely the ministers and sitting government would be the reason why.
Is there anyone on here with the knowledge to settle this. Or at least point me in the right direction to find out.
Hi George – there were a few Bills which might be relevant however one of them related to Human Rights & another related to the House of Lords (this effectively prevented the House of Lords blocking legislation on core issues such as manifesto commitments). In theory that could have been taken further to reshape the constitution however Labour decided not to go down that specific path and decided simply to clip the wings of the Lords.
The fact that we have an unwritten constitution plays in the favour of the Monarch. The King and everyone else will know that he can play that specific card knowing that the supreme court may well decide to support the move especially if it is obvious that the public support that move. Any Government would need to spell out in detail any key changes to the constitution prior to being elected (Manifesto). Only then would they be sure the changes will be enacted without challenge.
Thanks Mark, can you remember if Blair mentioned abolishing the death penalty for high treason in his manifesto, or the other changes he made. These things are difficult to address mostly because we have an uncodified constitution. Little information is available that is written clearly and not shrouded in legalese. Further more, any situation for which there is no historical precedent is a constitutional unknown.
I find it interesting for example, that Queen Elizabeth II did not intervene when HM Gov resisted implementing the will of the people regarding BREXIT. It being a matter of great importance and tension within Her realm. Bless Her memory, I still tear up when remembering Her passing.
To jump forward a little, I’m unsure if either our Supreme Court or Judicial Committee of the Privy Council can defy the Monarch. Should they decide unilaterally to dissolve parliament prematurely. Dismissing HM Gov. entirely because it has become a clear danger to the realm. Royal prerogative and the oath of allegiance still exist for a reason. I like to think of them as our safety net, should a marxist entity dominate the H of C.
Again, if anyone can shed more light on this subject, please do. It soon could be of great importance.
From memory the death penalty issue was to bring us into line with the rest of the EU. It was simply that high treason was the only crime which by then attracted the death penalty. Indeed I understand that they maintained the gallows just in case.
The Supreme Court can indeed make rulings which in effect override the actions of various parts of Government including the Monarch. Boris came foul of this when he tried to prorogue parliament. Dispite the fact that this had been done many times before and for far longer periods the Supreme Court decided that it had never happened. In theory the Supreme Court can look at any issue using the current context to decide what would be best and not necessarily rely solely on precident.
The Queen had at that point little control as did the PM as the fixed term parliament act was a mess and had created a mess. Fortuneately that has been repealed (probably best for everyone).
Starmer supported Corbyn.
The whole neo-Marxist running trough institutions will continue, language will change and you will not notice that the word “woman, women” will disappear from government papers. That is just one example.
You will not recognize UK in 10 years.
Hi Alex. I think you should amend that estimate to 5 years as the rate of change is increasing. The woke civil service being a primary driving force.
I agree George, We had six years of this divisive left wing social engineering here in NZ under Jacinda Ardern. From experience, I can but urge much caution.
I have become distrustful of their language, words and statement that do not mean what they say – but are manipulated to their end. They are dangerous people.
Sadly, the mainstream media failed to ask the hard intelligent questions, but then hardly surprising.
For the record and context – I’m no ultra right wing supporter, just a middle of the road ordinary kinda bloke.
Correct. Starmer is loathed by many old Corbynistas. Early days yet. Let’s wait and see how reality catches up – it always does. Europes great crisis is coming not from without but within.
Exactly.
the legacy of the Blair, brown year with never a reference to the bodies that they sent on the American adventures in the middle east labour will do what labour is told to do it’s a toxic,weak, inconsistent animal that I’m not pleased to see back in government.
labour stance over defence at the election was bland and more noteworthy for what it didn’t say than it actually did. um not a Tory, but, I have no confidence in things changing there need to be more factories, more yards
Well said Andy. Blairs legacy can be measured in flag draped coffins and amputated limbs. Even though I agreed that Saddam needed to be removed from power, that is where it ends for me. It should have been done differently. Same with eliminating al-Qaeda, after 9/11 it was necessary. Both operations were dominated by Neo-Con agenda and profiteering side deals. With no thought given to the consequences or the fact it gave the terrorists exactly what they set out to achieve.
The wounds associated with those wars are still very raw. Best we do not rub salt into them. I salute the injured and fallen allied service personnel. May their Gods bless them.
Poland’s 4% also goes much further without CASD on the ledger, oft forgotten.
And the SSN as well.
and SSBN too?
Yes, but an additional £84 billion per year (which is what a 4% UK spend equates to) would give us the full spectrum capability and combat mass we need as well as properly funding CASD.
Fine. But a large scale conflict that drew in N.A.T.O. now and in any foreseeable future would be conducted and controlled by the U.S.A. Facts are never wrong. Spend as we may, the U.K. is not in that league and never was. Since the end of the 17th century to date apart from very minor (but serious) conflicts the U.K. has fought as part of an Alliance.
’20 millions od debt and nothing to show … The Allies have been the rui of us.’ – Swift 1712.
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_Works_of_the_Rev._Jonathan_Swift/Volume_3/The_Conduct_of_the_Allies,_and_of_the_late_Ministry,_in_beginning_and_carrying_on_the_present_War
Yes but 4% is 4%. What its spent on isnt relevant.
Poland is recruiting “militia” as is Lithuania. Also they are relaxed about civilian held firearms. Applications for civilian held rifles/pistols are through the roof since Ukraine kicked off. Poland is also cleverly buying off the shelf kit without the fannying about we see in the UK. As a front line state l understand all of their actins and intentions. The UK sadly is full of weak politicians, an even weaker willed populace and has poured billions into idiotic programmes and civil institutions not fit for purpose.
Poland is running a deficit of 5% plus. It has to reduce that deficit or face action from the EU. They also have had a very high rate of growth, which is expected to curtail in the coming years. They were not hit as hard by Covid or energy prices. Poland has a population of circa 40 million spread over a much wider area than the densely packed UK. It also produces most of its energy from coal. They have a plan to decarbonise but they haven’t yet. The UK government by comparison spent £400 billion on Covid and another circa £60 billion on energy support. Poland may very well face some tough choices in future. Whether they can maintain 4%, will depend, I guess, on the Russian fear factor. Labour wont get near that figure, unless there is a war. The beige potato won’t even tell us when they can get to 2.5%.
Add on the additional costs and the impact to the economy that the self-inflicted disaster that Brexit has caused.
The UK didn’t have £400 billion to spend on Covid. That was derived solely from ‘borrowing’ and quantitaive easing. In other words printing money or creative accounting. All of which has to be paid back by guess who? And much of that money ended up in the off-shore bank accounts of Johnson and Co’s friends, and out of the economy.
This is not always the case GKN came up with Warrior 2000 in 9 months for the Swiss competition. Unlike the LM project it was a working fire on the move turret with 30 mm bushmaster prototype.
Poland simply spends less on other things. Grandma and Grandpa don’t get a state pension, they’ll have to be looked after by Piotr in their old age, etc.
When was Jeremy Kyle last on telly? Jeez….
If instead of believing the myths and received opinion that is not actually the case. There are some but very very few in proportion. Your understanding is a myth put about by those who want to fool you!
Spot on.
There isn’t the money available for an increase to 3%, never mind 4%. Interest repayments on the national debt totaled £111 billion last year and there are conflicting priorities for whatever cash there is available to spend. Even if the money was available for such an increase, the MOD would have to demonstrate that it would be spent wisely.
What conflicting priorities?
No priority or interest is more important to a soverign state than defending it’s very existance. It’s the most basic principle of statehood. The rational behind BREXIT.
The electorate won’t see it that way. Was there a rationale behind brexit?
I appreciate the subject is above your quotient.
🤣
Of course there was, but political competition don’t interests you, maybe because you are part of political complex or the economic complex dependent on government money.
The rational behind Brexit? Give your head a wobble.
And just to make you splutter cornflakes, 2nd Labour Govt will take us back in; enjoy your breakfast.
I see you too have a problem understanding how important sovereignty is to those who dedicated their lives to serve in the armed forces. More importantly, why it’s so important to GB as a whole to be in charge of our own destiny.
The only thing that wobbled was my gut, laughing at the suggestion of a second socialist/marxist government. It being highly unlikely that the current shower will run the full five years. Destroyed from within as Corbyn is welcomed back.
The demographic that elected Labour in is the same demographic that elected the tories in, and the same demographic that voted against corban. Don’t be daft.
Not exactly. Many of the traditional tory voters either voted Reform this time or just stayed at home. Remember, it was the Brexit vote that elected BoJo, both labour and tory Brexiteers. Do you recall his acceptance speech. “Blah blah, thank you for lending me your votes blah blah.” He didn’t immediately leave the ECHR and sever other tentacles of the EU quango.
Then along came Sunak. (Had to go look up his name, as I’d already forgotten it.) The incompetent out of touch Conservatives lost the election rather than labour winning it.
It will be interesting to see how the sectarian vote increases from now on. Labour lost many this time, despite opening the illegal immigration floodgates to recruit them.. They have greater allegiance to the middle east terrorist groups and religion than to Great Britain. They still back Trots Corbyn though, I wonder why?
A tiny fraction of the population voted for reform far more voted for the libdems or greens, Labour moved to the centre if the conservatives continue to head off to the right and remain incompetent they’ll continue to loose.
How do you know? 9M voted for Starmer of 48M registered. That is about 20%.
Different people can stay at home in different elections.
The last line of defence for a scoundrel is a claim to be a patriot.
However, for Scot Nats you might make an excellent point.
Moving on, please don’t think you have some moral superiority over me or anyone else; I’ve served my country in green and still serve my country. The only difference being is that I’m not a brain dead retard who voted to take back control, remind me, how’s that worked out so far?
Without Brexit we’d have a better economy and more money to spend on defence plus still have the diplomatic alliance underlying our military one.
Our defensive diplomatic and military alliance is NATO. End of argument. The EU is undermining it at every turn. All because they have lost the will to spend to defend their borderless former soverign countries.
NATO is a military alliance, that’s only worth something if you have a political alliance underlying it (Von Clauswitz wrote that down over 100 years ago) the EU grew from the EEC, the coal and steel initiative, creating a group of countries that cared about each other to their mutual benefit, ending the risk of another Europeam war and ensuring that they would fight for each other. Wonder why Putin wanted brexit? Why SEATO or the Warsaw Pact don’t exist? Britain had sovereignty, we isolated ourselves from our markets, our friends and allies for nothing.
A country without control of it’s borders or laws is not soverign. We isolated ourselves from our markets, our friends and allies for nothing by joining the EU. The anglosphere is where our past and future reside.
It’s obviously a long time since you watched day time TV. Good man!
I think it’s also important to look at historic spending..we all get obsessed with what is happening that year..but for strategic national capabilities it’s the long term spending that matters…Poland may be moving up to 4% but in 2000-2010 it was around 1.75% vs the Uks 2.5%..between 2010 to 2020 it www around 1.9% vs our 2.1% ( yes the tories spent less than Labour..but around .4% GDP per year for 12 of the most iffy years since the end of the Cold War..)..and there spending only really went beyond the UKs in 2023-24…so we have a better base..which is why we have SSNs, carriers, escorts a modern airforce with around 150 modern fighters vs 36 F16s and ballistic missile submarines…
Personally I think the UK has a ridiculous downer on how much it gets for what it spends…we do get good value from our armed forces..every nation has crappy procurement..because manufacturing and developing cutting edge military hardware is difficult, that’s why there are very few nations in the world that build top end escorts, SSNs etc….we simply don’t spend enough to get what we actually need…
The common trait across our nation in regards to all our strategic infrastructure and systems and why they are not up to scratch is because as a nation we are cheap skinflints who are not actually willing to pay what it costs to have what we want. We always think we can have it cheap and wheel out the efficiencies barrel..but the simple truth is cheap makes things inefficient..shaving in year funding and slowing a programme costs money in the end…if you want it you have to pay for it and if you want armed forces that are within the top five in the world you have to pays your money on time, when needed and at the amount it actually costs…not what you want it to cost…when you fancy paying.
Indeed. I’d say every public body in every nation has crappy procurement, and it irritates me that MOD is constantly being slated despite not being nearly as shambolic in that regard as say, the NHS.
Actually NHS procurement tends to be very very tight…as someone involved. I can tell you we are constantly screwing over our providers…with contracts that are so financially tight it’s almost impossible to provide the service..the problem the NHS has is not so much wasting money on procurement..it’s that we keep driving private companies out of business or out of the market….because we are so very very cheap…as an example I’ve had contracts I know could not be provided for less than 13 million a year…but as a standard we will only pay about 2 thirds of that amount…take standard tariff…the NHS will only pay around 5k per knee replacement…the private sector want £15k…we will still only pay them 5k….
Sounds like Wes is in fir a shock.
Yes, but that is still ‘crappy procurement’. An unwillingness to accept what things cost is also a major cause of problems with MOD procurement. People complain about ‘cost overruns’, but barring certain high-profile exceptions it’s often simply a consequence of not budgeting realistically in the first place.
That’s not crap procurement, that’s government policy on how much central government and the taxpayer is willing to pay…the people who are procuring know the cost ( AKA me) but we are simply ignoring by central government because central government know that if they told the electorate the actual cost of a good health system they would not be voted for….we procured using the money we are allowed to spend….
That’s what supermarkets do to their suppliers, to be fair.
Is that why they say the NHS is on its knees?
The nhs is on its knees because:
1) this country for 80 years has refused to pay what every other peer country does for its health system…France pays 25% more per person, Germany around 40% more and the US 500% more.
2) it refuses to pay to train the number of healthcare professional it needs….and has around 20-30% less than comparable systems.
3) our social care system is broken and our hospitals are full of old people who need nothing more than someone to take care of them ( help them dress, feed them and wash them)
4) because healthcare is free “like air” we take no care of ourselves and are the second most unhealthy population on the planet and refuse to take public health seriously.
Thats why..pretending it’s the NHS needing reform is simply the political classes lying because no one has the balls to tell the public healthcare is expensive and £3000 per person per year will alway buy you shite healthcare no matter what type of system you try and use.
What do the international per person spend comparisons look like if you add what is spent on the NHS to what is spent by the private sector?
That is it the comparisons take all healthcare spending it does not separate out…there is no way to wiggle out…it’s a self evident truth that every individual who has actually studied health systems understands..every singe paper ever written concludes the same thing…basically the issue drills down to the following:
for all healthcare:
1 Uk pays around £3000 per person per year
2) France pays around £4000 per person per year
3) Germany pays around £5100 per person per year
4) US pays around £15000 per person per year ( 50% of that is government spending…so the US government pays around twice as much per person than the UK does just for Medicare and veterans care..then the public in the US pay another 7-8k per person on top).
Do the numbers include charities?
Yes indeed, as almost all charity provision is actually contracted as part of national health systems and licensed, so part of the assessments of international cost comparisons. So the US figures include things like the VA, the Uk figures include all hospice care etc. you can get some micro providers who don’t provide licensed healthcare that may not be included..but your talking insignificant amounts of money..all the big stuff gets shuffled in…
So hospices are not really charities then?
Yes they are, but almost all the major charities that provide healthcare have NHS contracts..so the hospice beds will generally be paid for via an NHS contract…but a lot of the extra stuff that makes that bed really good will be funded by donations..so essentially the NHS pays for the nuts and bolts care..the charity then raised money to make it so much better than nuts and bolts…but without the NHS funding you would not have the beds….even organisations like the Red Cross provided contracted care..so one service I procured from the Red Cross provided enhanced care to elderly frail patients for 48 hours, who had just been discharged to help ensure they did not bounce back for something basic..like the council social care not being adequate or reactive enough…so although delivered by a charity it was entirely paid for by the NHS…most people simply don’t realise the NHS buys care from any and all organisations that will provide it within the cost range the NHS can afford to pay ( remembering the standard cost that say circle charge for a knee replacement is around £15,000 but the NHS will only pay around £5,000…so we can essentially only buy slots the private hospitals cannot fill and would loss more money if they left it empty…we essentially buy the equivalent of just going out of date meat from the supermarket).
Sounds like the Aldi approach to procurement: wonky raspberries and special buys when the supplier offloads a surplus. So at the moment we have 2 systems – a Waitrose system and an Aldi system. Shop for basics at Aldi and if what you want is not available you wait until it is or you go to Waitrose….which interestingly a partnership business…benefits shared by employees …at the expense of customers? Sounds like BUPA.
Essentially we buy every bit of capacity spare we can from anyone we can who will take the money we pay…but we cannot really get the private sector to develop capacity because we cannot afford to pay what they would want…we can only afford their wonky veg as you say…to get a private provider to build a hospital or develop capacity for the NHS we would need to pay closer to their private prices…( realistically double standard nhs tariff) essentially far more than we pay NHS hospitals trusts….we would be far better off paying NHS hospitals slightly more than tariff (around 20% would do) to open fully at the weekends for elective surgery..that would essentially immediately add close to a 40% increase in elective care capacity…we could do it but the trusts would need the government to pay above standard NHS tariff, which it would never do..because the trusts would need to pay staff overtime..( one of the big problems is that although overtime is in NHS terms and conditions of employment..the NHS refuses to pay staff overtime..consider this, in one month I once worked 140 hours over my contracted 37.5 hours a week contract..but never got a penny in overtime payment..I got time in hand spread over a year and given in penny packets at my employer convenience)…
But even that does not remove the crushing issue of our missing 200,000-300,000 health care professionals…( I have had the insane situation of having funding for increased urgent care capacity..but no one would take the funding because it was impossible to recruit the urgent care practitioners needed to run it..I even tried to give it to the fire service, armed forces and other random organisations) so we either
1) start to train up our own…but as it takes about 12 years to make a consultant and about 8 to make make an advanced nurse practitioner..it will take a long long time to fill the skills gap at the top even with massive investment now. And the other issue is we have so few senior staff we don’t have the clinical supervisors to train new people..they are all to busy firefighting.
2) import the staff…two issues here..the whole world is massively short of healthcare professionals ( it’s always been cheaper to steel from the second and third world..and the west never bothered to train the numbers and we have all started to run out) and we pay our staff less that our competitors ( english speakers can choose anywhere in the world..and the US pays its consultant surgeons around 10 times what we do and it’s nurses around 2-3 times)…Also we are trying to cut the number of immigrants..and already of our 300,000 nurses in England 100,000 of them are migrants…
I honestly think the only way we can go now is a German or French type “social security payment” system…but the big difference is that the funding model in these systems is not political, has nothing to do with the treasury and the payment amount is decided and set by the health system itself…so I would guarantee that a UK “social security funded” health system would immediately set payments at the European market rate…which is 25-40% more than we pay at preset
No overnight silver bullet solutions then. I can understand why the govt are proposing a strategic review….preparing us for the bad news. Italy is the only other european nation to have a NHS. Do you know how they are getting on?
Italy has gone a very different way, although in theory both the UK and Italy have National health services..neither does in reality, so they are both totally different
The British system..this is one of those important things to remember, which the British public don’t really understand…and is of fundamental importance if your wrapping your head around our healthcare system…there is not such thing as a monolithic national health service ( in reality the NHS is a brand/logo that an organisation uses if it holds a contract with an integrated healthcare board ( ICB) to provide healthcare services….an ICB is a state owned organisation that holds the budget ( which is allocated by NHS England and the DOH), plans the local care needed within its allocated budget and then contracts out the services for a population of around 1 million people..but the NHS you as a person comes into contact with is actually around 40-50 thousand independent organisations..most privately owned, some state owned and some third sector..who all have a contact with an ICB to provide you with specific care…the ICB then pays them at the agreed contract or NHS rate for that care, at the agreed activity levels ( waiting lists and activity levels are generally a function of rationing to keep activity lower and costs within budget..i would have to manage over performance on a contract if a provider started doing to many operations…as the DOH would only allocate the set funds and just because we needed more was irrelevant)
The Italian system like the NHS is not a homogeneous national system…it’s funded as 20 completely autonomous systems under the control of 20 regional governments. Each of those regions then splits the health system down into around 10 local health authorities..each of these plan and contact the care from around 2-3 districts that look after the primary care side of things..there are then the independent hospital trusts that run the state owned acute hospitals and the private hospitals that have contracts with the LHA..
so with Italy you have to look at each of the 20 autonomous regions..as each is completely independent of the other systems..
but general stats wise..Italy has 25% more Drs per head than we do ( 4 per 1000 vs 3 per 1000 people) but we have more nurses ( 8 per 1000 vs 6 per 1000 people ) but importantly both Italy and spain don’t provide nursing care in hospital as the family are expected stay 24/7 and to undertake a lot of nursing tasks ( in it Italy and Spain it’s expected that relatives will always stay with a patient, to dress, wash, feed and look after them..so they don’t have as many nurses).
re diagnostics Italy has 66.7 MRIs and CTs per million people in the Uk we have 16.1 ( that’s by far the lowest of any western nation, Japan has 166..the US 85 and germany 70 that is a direct result of capital funding starvation).
funding wise it’s about the same as the UK.. but with more regional variations and more focus on medical intervention( hence more CTs..with the family having to do all the care element of healthcare) and significantly reduced nursing care in Italy…the other thing Italy does not have is an epidemic of long term conditions..such as diabetes… our poor health makes a big difference.
re management costs they are pretty much tied…both Italy and the UK have some of the lowest management costs anywhere Italy is 1.7% and UK 1.9%..the French system has 5.5% management costs, Germany 4.6% and the private U.S. a massive 9%.
Interesting. Thx. I always sensed that the NHS was a brand, with lots of piglets trying to get their snouts in the trough.
So, I think we need to transition to an Italian like system. The UK system is too fragmented. 40 ICBs is too many. It needs to be reduced to about a dozen. What with the trend to metro mayors there is an obvious opportunity to replace the large number of ICBs with a smaller number of democratically accountable regional health authorities which map geographically onto small groups of metro authorities. Eventually funding for a region could be part central, part regional. This would create a more straightforward link between the economic health of a region with its demographic profile and physical health and costs for the region. Each region could include 1 or more university teaching hospital to form a central nervous system : a training focus to maintain best practice standards. Be a reference point like the Direct Grant schools used to do. Are there too many suppliers and too many short term contracts? Regional authorities could do region-wide 3 year contracts for services with capable suppliers. Regional health authorities which map to metro authorities should make it easier to plan and coordinate budgets: social care provision with health services – no brainer. I also like the Italian hierarchical structure. Ours seems flat and unco-ordinated and connected to nothing except itself. Seems to me we have created a very fragmented system and then created layers of ‘NHS providers’ etc office types to bring it all back together again.
It is the italian system that is fragmented by regionalism. And that is a tiny bit better for competition.
Without competition NHS goes nowhere.
Give health vouchers for those in need. Let them choose.
Start a free market.
If you don’t people will realise soon that veterinary services are better…
So, the elevation of competition into free market ideology which began with Thatcher is the reason our economy and society has got into trouble. From 1945 through to the 70s we prospered because nation shared a common sense of national identity and people understood the concept of ‘the common good’; that is that sometimes you have to make sacrifices. This principle of sacrifice for the common good is at the very foundation of service in the armed forces. Thatcher famously said ‘there is no such thing as society’ and since her time government policies have essentially incentivised selfish behaviours. This change in government outlook resulted business behaviours which prioritised short term financial performance at the expense of investment in modern technology, people and skills. Large, well run, healthy companies like ICI disappeared from the national landscape because of it. When you reward short term share holder value the result is financial services transactions which generate ‘value’ for those who had information dominate while those trying to generate the real underlying wealth suffered increasing insecurity and we have become an unhappy and disillusioned people. In 1960s the average CEO salary was about 20x the salary of a shop floor worker. Today it is over 200x. This is because the CEO knows that he can’t depend on his company continuing to exist for long so he insists on high pay. Shop floor workers can be essentially traded in company takeovers; treated as serfs. They are the lucky ones, the ones not on zero hours contracts. This trend in ideology ( that competition is the solution to all our problems) also infected the NHS; and the effects have been similar; fragmentation, vast increases in (pointless) financial transactions, short term objectives, too little investment in training and technology and a focus on self rather than service of customer. Penny Mordaunt recently lamented that the conservative party would not survive if it continued to talk only to an ever smaller self. In this country competition has passed from an ideology into a pathology; an obsession which is making us ill. Covid did us a big favour – it reminded us that actually, the way communities survive adversity is by co-operation.
And a lot of our approach falls back on to the ‘class’ system. Working people cannot possibly be paid as much as us so we will cut back wherever possible and worker salaries are the easiest and immediate option. Britain does not actually like paying what something is worth or even what it costs. So ‘cut services to the bone and more if possible’ in order that the few can keep more of what they see as ‘their’ money. They think that all the money rightly belongs to them and nobody else should have any, so what is paid is a ‘charity’ from our lords and masters.
Agreed, the great British public needs to stump up.
State Pensions is currently 110Bn annually. Needs to be means tested to assets. People can’t expect to retire in their 4 bed family 800K houses and still get a handout.
Quite simply the NHS needs to stop being free at the point of use For All. If you don’t meet certain criteria then you pay on a fixed scale as they have for dentistry. ALL non UK born users must pay in to the system for 2 years until they qualify for free treatment (if they meet the criteria). If conditions are preventable and its case of not looking after yourself then no free treatment for you.
Means testing pensions is absolutely the way forward
So in your opinion a person that contributed millions should not get nothing back…
Many posts like that here, to me it just means that Britain, the starter of industrial revolution is now today a mere socialist-social-democrat that is obsessed by wealth distribution and with very low care for wealth creation.
Why not 6%, 12%, 45%? A pointless number when the accountants have already worked their magic.
First thing in SDSR should be a reversion to 1997 accounting practices. Then hitting 2% immediately after, an actual increase. Then plan to hit 2.5% as quickly as possible. We can all scream for 5% but its utterly pointless if that 5% is only 1.8% in “old money”.
It is not only a condition issue, it IS absolutely a pay issue too. Anyone who focuses on one over the other will not fix recruitment and retention.
Absolute pie in the sky. Never going to be 3%, never mind 4%, unless the UK is directly involved in a conflict. If we spent 2.5% properly we’d be fine. Half of the problem now is that we’re trying to regrow capacities that we lost due to ill-informed cuts and changing our minds too much. Ajax is a mess because we hadn’t ordered a new tracked AFV for 15-20 years. The sub building/maintenence programme was/is a mess for the same reasons. We can’t build artillery any more because we weren’t interested in even a modest investment in the 2010’s when BAE said they’d close the plant for lack of orders, instead we were to wait for some “game-changing solution” in the late 2020’s. Why couldn’t we upgrade 10-12 AS90 a year with longer barrels, or buy a similar number of 777’s?
The Army is the biggest culprit and doesn’t deserve any more money until it shows it can get a grip of existing projects and problems.
Agreed. The roots of all this go way back to the early, mid 2000s.
We were fighting a series of pretty vicious wars and insurgencies in defence of our greates ally that suffered its biggest ever attack including pearl harbour, it’s quite understandable that upgrading armoured forces was not a top priority in the mid 2000’s especially given those forces were actually in a fairly decent state until after 2010 .
Don’t talk too soon
I think that finally the army has got a coherent plan for its reorganisation and equipment. Ch3, Ajax, Boxer,RCH155, MRLS upgrade all in hand. But these programmes just emphasize how much defence manufacturing capacity has been lost. BAE should never have been allowed to acquire so many manufacturing sites, including state owned ones, then close them down and sell off land for development.
If the design capability is gone, the very least we should do is insist on UK production. If we wanted a new army rifle, who could design and make it? Manufacturing under license isn’t ideal but it is better than just buying from abroad.
I actually think the RN has been even worse at planning its equipment. Most of the budget black holes have arisen from naval programmes( and still do). Yet all we have to show for it are near useless carriers and an escort fleet that would struggle to get half a dozen ships into action.
If the army had selected Boxer at the start all the UOR money could have gone in to procuring boxer and the army woukd have not have many issues like it does today.
It was never lack of money just lack of leadership that was the issue.
Our senior army generals are shit and always have been.
How would you keep GKN and Alvis going with no orders . fair one on Royal Ordnance , 16 sites reduced to about 6 . Land was worth more than price paid for business, Most privatized businesses were sold off by the Government less than value worst value for money was Quintiq sold for 374 million and floated on the stock exchange at 1.3 billion !
Fair point. We kept shipyards open with TOBA but were content to let land equipment manufacture all but disappear. The question now is what happens to GDs Ajax assembly plant once the current order is complete? The best option might be for the government to acquire it and keep enough of the workforce to handle future orders of AFVs. Not sure about the maintenance arrangements for Ajax, but it would make sense to have it carried by the people who built them.
When Qinetiq was floated on the stock exchange for £1.3 billion the MOD still owned 56% . the issue was that the Carlyle Group brought 31% in 2003 for £41 million and then that was worth £341 million by the flotation. Qinetiq senior management did very well out of as well,
To be fair the carriers actually aren’t that expensive by the standards of programmes in general and have been relatively reliable so far (compared with other carrier programmes around the world)
Ajax was a mess because they bought a cannon which was not developed. Warrior upgrade failed because one it needed a new turret and two the cannon was not suitable as Warrior 2000 prototype showed !
To be honest 2.5% on defence isn’t good .I personally think it should be 3% or 4% like in the mid 80s, let’s face this the world now is more unstable than the cold war days of the day.It’s cold war 2 with out a doubt 😟 💰💰💰💰🇬🇧
I think in the 1980s it was around 5.2-5.3%.
I think the Warsaw pact had 3 million soldiers ready to storm Europe and the soviet navy had like 400 submarines ready to cut us off.
Things are very different today.
If you look at Andrew’s post I was correcting his figures.
less than 5% from 1983 onwards
circa ’83 post Falklands- came off the boil to the 4% mark from mid 80s.
And we where cutting the Army then, we went from 4 Armoured Divisions forward based in Germany, to 3 with an Infantry Division to reinforce it based in the UK.
Perhaps instead of obsessing about various percentages of GDP spent we instead look at our vulnerabilities, determine the optimum solution to plug them and then add up the cost. Meeting GDP targets is not evidence of a successful defence policy. We instead need to have a defence policy built around a required defence capability and a defence budget configured to deliver that.
Agree you could spend a lot of money painting curb stones on barracks but does literally nothing for war fighting capability
The implicit, unstated assumption is that a validated requirements analysis has already been performed and cost estimates to fulfill the requirements reasonably estimated. GDP threshold estimates are SWAGs of those costs by generally knowledgeable observers/commentators. Certainly, reasonable adjustments to the defence budget should be accommodated by process, as real world conditions dictate.
The reason people are obsessed with percentages of GDP is because it is quite evident that what we currently spend is wholly inadequate and it can’t all be pinned on mismanagement of the finances. You don’t need a detailed understanding of newtonian mechanics to know which way a dropped hammer will fall.
The issue is that we have almost no vulnerability.
Our defence budget is almost entirely devoted to defending Allie’s.
Hello Jim, that’s a fair point actually, we have no real enemies at the door and the budget does seem to echo that however, we should be looking at other potential threats and still equip adequately.
Which in our post zenophobic world does not go down well! I think we have too high an expectation that we are in fact a forward post of American effort and don’t need to do any more than try to slow an enemy down till the ‘Yanks get here’. A more extreme view of the cold war tactic of delaying things long enough for our reserves to be mobilised is what we have now. Perhaps that is actually what they actually mean by ‘special relationship’.
And while US v Japan was one thing and they could fight a major war on two fronts, a US v China would be something completely different (not forgetting that in WW2 China was also against Japan, though not very capable – unlike today). Europe does need to do more for itself. Even if it does mean that US arms suppliers get fewer orders from us all.
Exactly! Something many do not understand. Instead of fitting defence (among other things too) into what they are prepared to spend, find out what we need and budget accordingly. If what we need costs more then so be it.
I worry there is sometimes a danger with sweeping percentages: we should have X% of GDP for example. It overly simplifies the complexity of the international and national economic circumstances, the conflict that exists at every level of the treasury and the internal conflict that plays out between the individual Services, the joint environment and Main Building (and of course politicians playing politics). I would argue that there could be more benefit from a root and stem capability review; what do we want to achieve and with what assets. The answer of ‘USA levels of capability, shiny kit and everyone at a smaller scale’ clearly doesn’t meet reality. It results in salami slicing of resources, bad behavior by the politicians and dishonesty about our actual capabilities.
We need an honest and frank review building on the excellent work by the Select Committee in the last few years. We need to decide where we want to excel and where we are happy to be ‘good enough’; where we want to contribute to NATO; where we want to focus our training of allies and partners; where we are happy to take risk and what mitigations we can establish to ensure that these risks can be resolved when conflict (inevitably) happens. The scariest thing is we may have to say no to certain operational commitments, dwell a pause and fully reset our place on the global stage like we did in the 1930s. We need to make decisions on what we want and then appropriately cost it. Dog wags tail!
I will get off my soapbox momentarily, but I would also council that the Polish comparison is perhaps unhelpful. Our respective societies have very different economic circumstances and priorities. The Polish do not have a government funded health service (the NHS is currently c.11% of UK GDP), it has free and accessible trade with Europe; Poland is currently experiencing higher inflation than the UK (2.8 vs 2%); Poland has experienced continued growth since the 2008 financial crisis (the wider EU has declined by approx. 4-5% across this period). They are an anomaly and that’s before you consider the acute geographic risk of potentially being next in line for Uncle Vlad. You are comparing Apples to Frigates. This is by no means an economic summary, but just to demonstrate that these are really complex issues that none of us actually understand properly.
Thanks for getting the debate going always great to force a discussion.
NDG
To argue that Labour should aim for 4% of GDP on defence by 2030, when it was just elected on a platform that doesn’t come anywhere near to that sort of spending, is totally unrealistic. It just won’t happen. There are simply too many other spending priorities.
I am not sure that the UK establishment actually believes there is a serious Russian military threat since they have not really changed anything since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The rhetoric says one thing, but actions have been quite different. That seems likely to continue under Labour.
I can only agree the forces are abysmally short of staff & equipment in very dangerous times. The clock is running down fast so we need prompt action to demonstrate a real will to oppose autocracy worldwide, before it’s too late.
I’ve just noticed ukdj publish a lot of comments from know it all armchair warriors, but any ex-service personnel or people who have links to ex or current service personnel have a lot of their comments sent to moderation. I take it the people who matter have less rights than those who sit at home reading and playing cod in their bedroom than actual people who are serving and who have served….
It should have it’s title changed to kiadj for know it all defence journal. I’m not expecting this to be published.
Cobblers.
There are no ranks here, or seniority for military types over civilians, the site is for posters interested in the armed forces.
There are plenty of current or ex military who post here without issue.
Why not take the chip off your shoulder about “armchair warriors” ( no doubt directed primarily at me after I told you where to go the other day on the other thread for your rudeness ) and JUST BE NICE?
Try it.
Here’s an idea for a review of defence spending; forget about 2.5/3/4% etc GDP spending and instead actually review what the armed forces need, and then spend what’s needed?
Rather than giving arbitrary numbers for a budget and force the military to fit within it?
Well said. And it is also and perhaps more important even that resupply of ammunition and equipment should be enhanced even more with a significant boost to the miltary industrial base. If we don’t have time to re-equip now what would we do in the event of a war? We may well be barely equipped for minor police actions now because of ‘peace-dividend, tax cuts for the wealthy and prioritising the money launderers, but anything on the scale of what is looming in Europe is way more than we can cope with. If the expensive hi-tech equipment takes years to build it is essential that we have significant reserves in store to give us time to manufacture more. What could or would we equip our reserve manpower with if they were all called up and enhanced with conscription? So much of our current capability seems to have been established on the basis of little if any being lost in action.
In the world of UK defence spending where it is difficult to find much to be optimistic about I am at least the teeny tiniest bit encouraged to see many of the papers and news outlets today reporting that Kier Starmer is going to be calling on NATO to boost defence spending. It’s not because I think that what Starmer says to NATO will have any significant impact but rather because, like him or loathe him, it does seem pretty clear to me that Starmer is an intelligent man so the hypocrisy of that call to NATO when Labour has not committed to any timetable to raise its own UK defence spending must surely not be lost on him – and if it is then I suspect that a number of world leaders will point out the hypocrisy to him albeit probably in private.
This does make me wonder, if Starmer is willing to go on to possibly the biggest defence stage in the world and open himself up to claims of hypocrisy, whether some positive and more definitive commitments on increasing UK defence spending might be closer than some might think. A lot of pro-Labour spin during the election was that Starmer likes to under-promise and over-deliver so just maybe all of this “only when we can afford it” stuff is a bit of smoke and mirrors and discussions have already gone on with Rachael Reeves to put shaking loose some extra funding for defence further up the priority list. Probably wishful thinking on my part but a man can dream.
I do accept the reality of the dire financial situation at the moment and the need for Labour to get its feet under the table, examine the books in full detail, and get some of its other flagship policies underway very urgently but in my most optimistic but still reality-tinged fantasy world I’d love to see an immediate announcement of an increase to 2.5% and then after the strategic review, that some are saying might take up to a year, a further increase up to 3%. At least an increase to 2.5% now could start the work of fixing recruitment (which implies fixing stuff like housing, pay & conditions etc), rebuilding stockpiles, and plugging at least some of the black holes in the current equipment budget. That way the defence review could at least be done based on a more solid foundation and any increases announced after the review could be genuine moves forward rather than simply fixing holes in a currently foundering ship.
I suspect you are right. Labours priorities will be settling the NHS strikes, funding the blood transfusion and post office scandals. If there is any money after that then the child benefit cap will be high up the priority list but so will defence. It wouldn’t cost a fortune to improve or even rebuild services housing stock and the gesture would be very much appreciated. The major equipment decisions have already been taken: Frigates, submarines, F-35, CR3, Ajax, Boxer ( including rch) , MLRS and can’t realistically be accelerated. So my bet is that they will start with recruitment and increase numbers in the army and navy. Start by deploying the assets we already have.
Anyway did anyone else appreciate the irony of Starmer flying off to the US in the very aircraft that he lambasted Johnson about as a waste of money!
Oh YES!!
A good article, which identifies the main issues.
Talk of 3% of GDP is alas for the birds at the present time.
Just about every aspect of Government spending is in a parlous mess and crying out for more money and major reform – NHS, junior doctors, care services, housing, courts, prisons, transport, the list goes on and on. The new Government has many mouths to feed and has inherited a lousy economic position, with taxes at their highest level ever and sky-high national borrowing at nearly 100% of GDP, which means we are paying twice as much in interest each year as we spend on defence.
When we talk about defence increasing to 2.5% of GDP, everyone is assuming a smallish increase from the current claimed 2.32% (2023/4).
When you look at the maths, it is hard to see where that figure is coming from. The basic arithmetic suggests that defence spend was actually only 2.01%.¹
We do need to get to 2.5% in the first instance, 2% or 2.3% is hopelessly inadequate, particularly when it has to include the nuclear programme/CASD, civil service pensions and the other dodgy bits that Osborne snuck into the defence budget, as well as expensive vanity projects like the carriers.
I think the increase can only be done incrementally, 2.1% this year, 2.15 next year, 2.2 in 26/27 and so on until we get to 2.5% in the early thirties. Far too slow of course and far too little, but that has always been the way with British defence spending.
¹ UK GDP, 2023/24: £2,687 bn
UK defence expenditure, 2023/24: £54.2 bn
Defence share of GDP thus looks to be 2.07%.
Source: House of Commons Library.
However, they also state that defence expenditure was 2.32% of GDP, does that include the spend in cash and kind on Ukraine? Who knows in the murky world of statistics.
Vey good analysis Cripes. However the 2,5% need to start asap (2025 defence review/budget) and not “when economic circumstances permit”. It’s the oldest trick in the book with all governments- defer capex as much as possible.
We are far behind in capital budget for replacements. This needs to happen now. The cost of building a warship today is cheaper than it will be tomorrow. As such, I’d probably live with a modest tax increase to that end- but that’s just me.
2.5% would be a good immediate start. But only if that excludes the £3bn pa of UK miliary aid to Ukraine. That is currently being used to boost claimed UK defence spending from 2.1% of GDP to 2.3% £3bn is enough to buy 7 T31 frigates, or 30 Tranche 4 Typhoons, or [unrealistically] 600 upgraded Challenger 3 tanks.
Tend to agree RB , but the 2.5% needs to be now (2025 defence review/budget< and not “when economic circumstances permit”
We are far behind in capital budget for replacements. This needs to happen now.
Don’t see that happening in the near future. Even with it the youth have no wish to get into doing the hard work these days we in the past did. All pink and WOKE and sorry to say the services are a sad shadow of those that stood tall at the walls of freedom. Kit is only part of it its people that make a FORCE to reckon with in the end and we have neither these days. All the privatisation of the services to the Armed Forces has killed much, can’t even get a good meal these days only fast food rubbish which is far from what you need to do what is expected
NHS talk needs to work smarter not harder and no matter amount of money given it will never ever improve without major changes in how it operates. NHS need to push the message to folks to help themselves to be healthy and not waste funds on those that have no future..
The UK is not the state it once was and looks after those that dont put in more than those that have….God help us all..
Main spending priorities will on diversity and inclusion policies and managers. Simple one to answer.
50% of the population are women, 12% are ethic minorities, approx 5% are Gay. That means het white males are about 41-42% of the population. They currently make up about 92% of military personel and we have some people on this site saying they are persecuted?
1, I do not think we really want such entitled fantasists in the military at all.
2, If the Government are going to ask people to spend more on defence then the military needs to at least look as if the jobs are open to all. It currently has an image problem as a training ground for the far right.
3, Where do you think the unmined gold of good recuits not yet applying is likely to be? I suspect it is in the 58% of the population currently under represented.
I’d rather have a military founded on the basis of merit than on the base of diversity tick-boxing. War is neither fair and reality doesn’t give a stuff about equality. The military require uniformity not diversity. Standards should never be lowered to meet artificial political goals.
My take – The signs are that labour want to put an end to ‘culture wars’. I wouldn’t hold your breath for any more news on defence. The immediate spend priorities will be to pay compensation promised to the victims of the Post Office scandal and the infected blood scandal and settling the junior Drs strike. Next will be manifesto commitments to recruit more dentists, more teachers and more police. July 17th is the day to watch; the King’s Speech to Parliament will lay out legislative program. By then Rachel Reeves will have figured out whether there is any spare money: if so I would expect it to go on removing the child benefit cap and increasing the basic pay of carers. They have initiated lots of reviews to buy time before addressing really big spend areas like defence and reorganisation of the NHS. All of that said I do think they will start work on renovation of service accommodation immediately.
there is also the WASPI issue to sort it out as well
Indeed Val, the political economy in UK is giant.
Currently the UK spends £51.7 billion (1.9% of GDP) on its core defence budget (i.e. the money that the MOD gets), or £64.2 billion (2.3% of GDP) if you add on pensions, aid to Ukraine, etc. To get to 2.5% by 2030/31 would probably require just 3% real-term increases annually, depending how the economy does. The MOD’s budget would then be about £58 billion – a 19% increase compared to 2024/25. That’s probably enough to fill the funding black hole in the equipment budget, assuming nothing major was added to the plan between now and 2030. So 2.5% is NOT a game changer, it would need to be at least 3% of GDP to actually allow an increase in the size of the UK’s armed forces.
Is there any truth in the rumour that the US NGAD programme is in trouble? Could there be a small window of opportunity for Tempest to be our first serious export success since… Harrier?
UK plans to procure VAMTAC air-defence vehicles to replace Stormers donated to Ukraine (janes.com) umm interesting and needed
Labour must decide whether the delusional idea of saving the planet is more important than saving the UK.
The Telegraph is reporting that the new Defence Review is likely to be conducted by the same team (lead by Professor John Bew) that undertake the 2021 Integrated Review and its minor refresh in 2023 – which basically said that they got it right first time and Ukraine hadn’t changed the main recommendations! As such, and given the lack of significant additional money, it’s unlikely there will be any major announcements such as a U-turn on Army numbers or lots more tanks. At a guess the headline making soundbites offered to the press will be some relatively minor announcements on lots more UK manufactured UAV/UCAV’s of all sizes, the refitting of the QEC to allow them to operate large UAV’s, a bit more more emphasis on air defence and anti-UAV systems, confirmation that “up to five” T31B2’s will be built (otherwise shipbuilding will cease at Rosyth by the early 2030’s), and a couple of other similarly relatively low cost (i.e. c.£1 billion) projects. All the big money is already committed to GCAS/Tempest, AUKUS and Dreadnought – cancelling one of those (which has almost a zero probability) would be needed to pay for all the items on just the RAF’s “White Board” wish list – more P8’s, more E-7’s, Joint Rivet Joint, a squadron of new Typhoon’s to partially replace the Tranche 1s, a squadron or two of F-35A’s, Loyal Wingman drones, Hawk replacement, more transport aircraft, hypersonic missiles, etc etc.
Military development in the 1950s took considerably less than 10 years to produce results, arguably the pace of development was faster then than it is now.
Do not fall into the procurenent trap with a closer relationship with the EU. It too has its own problems with France and Germany nominated to decide the equipment to be bought. Le Clerc or Rheinmetal?. Fin stabilised ammunition or not? France insists everything is French, Germany wants Rheinmetal which coincidentally is part of BAES as are the Swedish armoured vehicles (tanks, artillery). It also manufactures equipment for and in the USA. Ditch the French and go for BAES subsidiaries. Common vehicle base is a much smoother way to proceed. France wants Command of the EuroCorps. We should never commit to anything run by France. It’s probably the worst example of cohesive relationships. It still wants our fish! They are also not the best example of commitment to NATO.
Getting the finger out of the proverbial backside and getting things up to speed ,the budget needs to grow, bad enough the previous pile of crap that was in government sat on their useless backsides and sat like a row of turnips more interested in lining their pockets and their rich prick friends and addressing issues like defence, let’s see what happens with this incumbent government
nothing will change under labour, nothing at all they could raise the budget too percent and it wouldn’t make a hot offer difference, only through the size of the manufacturing base can change actually happen. mor factories, more yards, better planning on the right areas and not fly by night Stirling castle and ark royal fantasy’s cable monitors laser weapons? on that prickly subject how many millions have been thrown into it? what do we have to show for it bland it’s under more testing, and it’s better at focussing on things. i think it’s all pants the MOD is not fit for purpose. it should be closed and restarted from scratch with people who know w They’re talking about.🙏🙏🙏🙏