Are We Defended?

I have written little this month. I am not quite sure why. There has been much to talk about. Some of the time I have been too stunned to write anything. The new coalition government is definitely drifting off course at the moment. Maybe they are just giving themselves too much to do and are becoming punch-drunk. I still can't get to grips with our defence plans. To add to the nonsense - that still will cost £45 billion per year - Call Me Dave has told the bankers gathered in The Guildhall for the annual do, that he does not intend to let Britain get involved in fighting several wars at the same time. With our current defence arrangements it would be best if he avoided fighting wars all together. Yesterday, I was told by my friend Harold at the gym - he is an expert on military vehicles and knows about these things - that the MOD has decided to scrap 250 armoured vehicles having just spent £100,000 on each of them to improve the protection and armour plating. So we spend £25 million and then just chuck it away. The intention is to sell them for scrap at about £11,000 each - a net loss of over £22 million. Is is surprising that we need to cut government spending when money flows down the drain like this? At the same time we are scrapping Ark Royal - a perfectly adequate working aircraft carrier - with aeroplanes on it - and building two new aircraft carriers - bigger than any we have ever had before - at a cost of £5 billion. Yet these ships will be unique in the world of aircraft carriers in that they will have no aeroplanes at all. This will render them useless. Perhaps we can borrow one from France - after all, they will never need it - complete with aeroplanes now that we have a special relationship with them?

As all this goes on and our troops in Afghanistan are starved on many essentials, we carry on with the nuclear deterrent. If anything should be abandoned, it is this. David Cameron is concerned that we do not get involved in more than one war at any time but feels the need to retain the ability to wage nuclear war against God knows whom. Of course, it's politics. He doesn't want to upset the sabre rattling wing of his party. He wants to face the future while living in the past. The nuclear deterrent is madness and should be scrapped. Then, possibly, we could afford to put some aeroplanes on the aircraft carriers.

/