Are the lessons from Iran and Ukraine of any relevance. Just spending more % of GDP has always seemed naive and simplistic. Aircraft carriers, F35s, Ajax etc one could go on and on repeating the same mistakes without even having to quote Albert Einstein.
Sorry but did anybody seriously believe that this generation of parliamentarians are capable of meeting the challenges now facing this country? Same old Labour …. except its absolutely clear that the current PM has no authority in government.
Absolutely correct, but they did commission the SDR, and did accept all its recommendations. Not some but all. The DIP is 9 months late with some key commitments to international partners needing to be funded now. This current prime minister has berated other NATO allies in not meeting there commitments. To have reached the situation in which the Defence Secretary resigned is an appalling failure of leadership. You cant keep comparing this government’s performance on defence with those of the past. The strategic threat has changed. We have a hot war in Ukraine, and the US threatening to withdraw from NATO.
But since the actual situation is (on this view) no worse than under any other recent PM) why was it apparently not grounds for their resignation?
I mean I agree Starmer is terrible - though I also don’t think there’s a single person in charge of any of the other parties currently toy who would be any better!
They need to tax basic rate income more for the average tax payer , taxing someone ‘richer’ is just continuing the problem of avoiding proper tax raise . Wealth tax won’t raise amounts needed
The % of GDP metric does not reveal how much money is actually spent, allocated or required.
It is also pretty much useless when trying to plan for the 10, 15 or 20 year cycles required for efficient procurement and replacement which cover multiple terms of multiple governments.
We cannot plan to build/unbuild, train/untrain, float/sink: boats, schools, hospitals, railways, teachers, nurses, doctors, or personnel over some variable metric which changes willynilly depending on who’s looking at it, when, and from which direction.
% of GDP is used as a political football, being played by people using boots, bats and rackets, and not their heads.
Not a complete solution, but... At all future NATO summits, all official photos, priority of speaking in meetings etc is based on % of GDP spent on defence. That way Starmer or whoever might be embarrassed into doing what's right, not what's politically expedient. I'm fed up of UK PMs grandstanding and making out they are world leaders. They're not.
Do you think Mark that they could cull the gross excess of General rank officers that fester within the MOD from the unbelievable 431 such officers to one that is somewhat more appropriate to the size of the armed forces! I know it’s peanuts in terms of budget but this gross over management helps to feed the waste of funds on procurement as well as feed delusions of grandeur both by politicians and senior officers.
It’s a small but hugely symbolic difference that costs nothing and shows that they’re getting a grip where every government for generations has failed
Thank you, Mark. One question that seems to be missing in much of the discussion over Healey's and Carns's departures is just what sort of defence capability is needed. The Roberts, Barrons and Hill review points to a substantial uptick. But isn't a securocrat's judgement always going to point that way - the equivalent of putting NGOs in charge of a review the UK's ODA.
If Russia is currently unable to take Ukraine and is bogged down there, in your view is there the possibility of an exaggerated threat level? Agreed that cyber security spending is lagging, but do we need a fleet with aircraft carriers or even tank groups. I'd be interested in your views
So many good questions. The need for more money is real. The world is becoming more dangerous and the U.K.’s primary defense partner is unreliable. Despite hitting a brick wall in Ukraine, Russia is still dangerous. They continue to invest heavily in the Northern Fleet at Murmansk and their submarines based there outnumber the UK six to one. Their ballistic missiles hold all of Britain at risk. Russia is constantly probing undersea pipelines and telecom cables. This is critical national infrastructure. The threat level is not exaggerated. Cyber attacks are estimated to cost the UK £27B per year and Russia is a big part of this. Note the UK defense secretary just resigned because he couldn’t get an additional £7B per year in funding.
The QE carriers are amazing ships (despite a lot of bad press) and are incredibly useful right now. They may need to be retired a decade or two early if the boffins cannot figure out how to resolve the thrust issues with large UAV’s and ski ramps (I should acknowledge the UK has said they believe they will). Tank groups are almost gone. Challenger 3 will be the last British tank and there will only be 148 of them. The carriers are needed to honor treaty obligations to Australia and Singapore. The dwindling tanks and PFV’s are to honor commitments on NATO’s Eastern flank. Over the next decade I would like to see the UK decrease its Army commitments by increasing Air Force and Navy obligations, but that would require more funding now.
Roosevelt found the USA’s defence capability in a similar or worse condition than in the present day UK. In 1941 he overruled the Treasury, issued Defense Bonds and turned the USA from military backwater into the arsenal of the west and generated jobs and prosperity as he did so. Not a moment too soon, because in December that year the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour. A precedent not to be overlooked by any incoming Prime Minister.
What about War Bonds , joining the Defence and Resilience Bank or overhauling the procurement process and a UK Marshall plan ?
Isn’t this the necessity the mother of invention to break this depressing UK doom loop and couldn’t a revamped UK arms industry finally get that growth in the economy we have been waiting for ?
Our European partners are fast loosing patience in the UK and we are becoming an all mouth and no trousers perceived military .
Not so grim- as Covid shows, if deemed, government CAN and DOES have the means if its an existential threat to pay for things A high bar but
unrestrained Russian imperialism and a lose tooth US in Europe meet this high bar.
Losing Healey I believe can only end in the departure of the PM. The Canadian proposal via a NATO structure of a “ Defence Bank” is both practical and a cheap way of paying for rearming. Europeans have also been looking at this win win concept- no one has been flagging this excellent idea up.
Behind the resignation last week stood the Treasury who resent losing power to Mark Carney”s proposed bank- they prefer the European version.
Whatever, try telling Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania not to join.
Unity is strength and this NATO concept could be a game changer.
Ps this mess is largely down to the Cameron administration and in particular George Osborne who single handily sucked all demand out of the economy. Savage cuts driven by an antediluvian view of how an economy works,the worse in charge of the Treasury since WSC and a return to the Gold Standard.
By the way MOD contracts, outsourcing are uniquely dire, corrupt and overly outsourced- an outrage state of affairs which unless directly addressed as a top priority means most money, again, will be wasted. Eg aircraft maintenance contracts and that tank.
HS2 is dire but mostly happened as BR was smashed into a thousand pieces so they had to cobble together a rubbish body to do the heavy lifting. Didn’t go well- thanks Adam Smith Institute!
Wow,sad state of affairs in the UK. It’s as if Labour has taken lessons from former Canadians PM Trudeau. Lots of talk but deliverables?
In Contrast our new PM , of course a man the UK knows well has gotten the Defence commitment message and for the first time in many decades Canada is moving to increase real Military capabilities. Recruitment is up, parts bins refilling,and a new Submarine soon to be picked. There is even rumours that Canada might increase our A-330-200’s from 9 to 12.
Good riddance to the cold war warrior Healey and his chum Carns , who has apparently killed more men than all the other MPs combined; why on earth we need people like that in Parliament is beyond me.
I doubt that either man has the technical and managerial expertise to run the MOD in the public interest and policy is being mostly influenced by the images of Empire on great-grandmother’s biscuit tin.
There are six Type-45 frigates,the only defence the UK has against a conventional missile attack. Four are in dry-dock, one is undergoing maintenance and the other is in the Persian Gulf. So there are none to defend the UK.
Why isn’t Healey in court over this rather than being eulogised for walking out of a job that he couldn’t do anyway?
As a group, they’ve got six Type-45s and only one of them operational, and they’ve sent that overseas. And there is the same pattern for other types of vessels.
If a commercial operator had 6 ships with only one operational, they simply wouldn’t exist. What’s the point of being intelligent if you can’t keep the ships at sea and leave the UK undefended?
It’s the other guy that has that reputation, Carns, not Healey. No I don’t think military people should be prosecuted at all, in any circumstances. Neither do I think that military skills are translatable into a complex bureaucracy like the MOD. You don’t see too many military people successful in business either.
The Type-45s are Britain’s only anti-missile defence and Healey is responsible for the zero availability. Dry-dock times are 5-7 years; probably because the MOD is technically and commercially out-of-its-depth in dealing with the contractors. Five of out of six of the frigates are non-operational and the only operational one has been sent to the Persian Gulf, leaving the UK defenceless against its main threat - a conventional missile attack on the East Coast infrastructure. Why should Healey not be prosecuted for that?
Our military leaders want prosecutions to be extremely rare, not impossible, otherwise it undermines the credibility and professionalism of the British armed forces.
I take the exact opposite position on the skills of our senior officers. They are some of the most uniquely qualified individuals to run bureaucracies. As a group, they are highly intelligent, well educated, have decades of leadership experience running large organizations and can perform under pressure that most of us cannot imagine. If you make it to the UK general staff, you are amongst the best in the world.
Yup. The rot really started with Osborne's austerity budget after the GFC - but each and every government since then has its share of the blame.
The big question - is there a politician out there with the balls to remedy this?
Started well before though that didn’t help.
Are the lessons from Iran and Ukraine of any relevance. Just spending more % of GDP has always seemed naive and simplistic. Aircraft carriers, F35s, Ajax etc one could go on and on repeating the same mistakes without even having to quote Albert Einstein.
Sorry but did anybody seriously believe that this generation of parliamentarians are capable of meeting the challenges now facing this country? Same old Labour …. except its absolutely clear that the current PM has no authority in government.
You might not like the current government.
But whatever they’ve done wrong they are not responsible for the last 30 years of defence budgets.
Absolutely correct, but they did commission the SDR, and did accept all its recommendations. Not some but all. The DIP is 9 months late with some key commitments to international partners needing to be funded now. This current prime minister has berated other NATO allies in not meeting there commitments. To have reached the situation in which the Defence Secretary resigned is an appalling failure of leadership. You cant keep comparing this government’s performance on defence with those of the past. The strategic threat has changed. We have a hot war in Ukraine, and the US threatening to withdraw from NATO.
You’re right. This in isolation should be enough for his resignation let alone all the other failures of his anaemic premiership.
But since the actual situation is (on this view) no worse than under any other recent PM) why was it apparently not grounds for their resignation?
I mean I agree Starmer is terrible - though I also don’t think there’s a single person in charge of any of the other parties currently toy who would be any better!
A depressing read for its accuracy and insight.
It doesnt have to be framed as welfare v defence , someone could raise taxes
Wealth tax, given the ever-growing income disparity ?
They need to tax basic rate income more for the average tax payer , taxing someone ‘richer’ is just continuing the problem of avoiding proper tax raise . Wealth tax won’t raise amounts needed
The % of GDP metric does not reveal how much money is actually spent, allocated or required.
It is also pretty much useless when trying to plan for the 10, 15 or 20 year cycles required for efficient procurement and replacement which cover multiple terms of multiple governments.
We cannot plan to build/unbuild, train/untrain, float/sink: boats, schools, hospitals, railways, teachers, nurses, doctors, or personnel over some variable metric which changes willynilly depending on who’s looking at it, when, and from which direction.
% of GDP is used as a political football, being played by people using boots, bats and rackets, and not their heads.
This is incredibly depressing reading. Starmer and his patriotic bs!
Not a complete solution, but... At all future NATO summits, all official photos, priority of speaking in meetings etc is based on % of GDP spent on defence. That way Starmer or whoever might be embarrassed into doing what's right, not what's politically expedient. I'm fed up of UK PMs grandstanding and making out they are world leaders. They're not.
Do you think Mark that they could cull the gross excess of General rank officers that fester within the MOD from the unbelievable 431 such officers to one that is somewhat more appropriate to the size of the armed forces! I know it’s peanuts in terms of budget but this gross over management helps to feed the waste of funds on procurement as well as feed delusions of grandeur both by politicians and senior officers.
It’s a small but hugely symbolic difference that costs nothing and shows that they’re getting a grip where every government for generations has failed
Thank you, Mark. One question that seems to be missing in much of the discussion over Healey's and Carns's departures is just what sort of defence capability is needed. The Roberts, Barrons and Hill review points to a substantial uptick. But isn't a securocrat's judgement always going to point that way - the equivalent of putting NGOs in charge of a review the UK's ODA.
If Russia is currently unable to take Ukraine and is bogged down there, in your view is there the possibility of an exaggerated threat level? Agreed that cyber security spending is lagging, but do we need a fleet with aircraft carriers or even tank groups. I'd be interested in your views
So many good questions. The need for more money is real. The world is becoming more dangerous and the U.K.’s primary defense partner is unreliable. Despite hitting a brick wall in Ukraine, Russia is still dangerous. They continue to invest heavily in the Northern Fleet at Murmansk and their submarines based there outnumber the UK six to one. Their ballistic missiles hold all of Britain at risk. Russia is constantly probing undersea pipelines and telecom cables. This is critical national infrastructure. The threat level is not exaggerated. Cyber attacks are estimated to cost the UK £27B per year and Russia is a big part of this. Note the UK defense secretary just resigned because he couldn’t get an additional £7B per year in funding.
The QE carriers are amazing ships (despite a lot of bad press) and are incredibly useful right now. They may need to be retired a decade or two early if the boffins cannot figure out how to resolve the thrust issues with large UAV’s and ski ramps (I should acknowledge the UK has said they believe they will). Tank groups are almost gone. Challenger 3 will be the last British tank and there will only be 148 of them. The carriers are needed to honor treaty obligations to Australia and Singapore. The dwindling tanks and PFV’s are to honor commitments on NATO’s Eastern flank. Over the next decade I would like to see the UK decrease its Army commitments by increasing Air Force and Navy obligations, but that would require more funding now.
Roosevelt found the USA’s defence capability in a similar or worse condition than in the present day UK. In 1941 he overruled the Treasury, issued Defense Bonds and turned the USA from military backwater into the arsenal of the west and generated jobs and prosperity as he did so. Not a moment too soon, because in December that year the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbour. A precedent not to be overlooked by any incoming Prime Minister.
What about War Bonds , joining the Defence and Resilience Bank or overhauling the procurement process and a UK Marshall plan ?
Isn’t this the necessity the mother of invention to break this depressing UK doom loop and couldn’t a revamped UK arms industry finally get that growth in the economy we have been waiting for ?
Our European partners are fast loosing patience in the UK and we are becoming an all mouth and no trousers perceived military .
Not so grim- as Covid shows, if deemed, government CAN and DOES have the means if its an existential threat to pay for things A high bar but
unrestrained Russian imperialism and a lose tooth US in Europe meet this high bar.
Losing Healey I believe can only end in the departure of the PM. The Canadian proposal via a NATO structure of a “ Defence Bank” is both practical and a cheap way of paying for rearming. Europeans have also been looking at this win win concept- no one has been flagging this excellent idea up.
Behind the resignation last week stood the Treasury who resent losing power to Mark Carney”s proposed bank- they prefer the European version.
Whatever, try telling Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania not to join.
Unity is strength and this NATO concept could be a game changer.
Ps this mess is largely down to the Cameron administration and in particular George Osborne who single handily sucked all demand out of the economy. Savage cuts driven by an antediluvian view of how an economy works,the worse in charge of the Treasury since WSC and a return to the Gold Standard.
By the way MOD contracts, outsourcing are uniquely dire, corrupt and overly outsourced- an outrage state of affairs which unless directly addressed as a top priority means most money, again, will be wasted. Eg aircraft maintenance contracts and that tank.
HS2 is dire but mostly happened as BR was smashed into a thousand pieces so they had to cobble together a rubbish body to do the heavy lifting. Didn’t go well- thanks Adam Smith Institute!
Wow,sad state of affairs in the UK. It’s as if Labour has taken lessons from former Canadians PM Trudeau. Lots of talk but deliverables?
In Contrast our new PM , of course a man the UK knows well has gotten the Defence commitment message and for the first time in many decades Canada is moving to increase real Military capabilities. Recruitment is up, parts bins refilling,and a new Submarine soon to be picked. There is even rumours that Canada might increase our A-330-200’s from 9 to 12.
Perhaps that Carney guy is on to something.
I don't think it's a benefits or defence question. There are other options
Good riddance to the cold war warrior Healey and his chum Carns , who has apparently killed more men than all the other MPs combined; why on earth we need people like that in Parliament is beyond me.
I doubt that either man has the technical and managerial expertise to run the MOD in the public interest and policy is being mostly influenced by the images of Empire on great-grandmother’s biscuit tin.
There are six Type-45 frigates,the only defence the UK has against a conventional missile attack. Four are in dry-dock, one is undergoing maintenance and the other is in the Persian Gulf. So there are none to defend the UK.
Why isn’t Healey in court over this rather than being eulogised for walking out of a job that he couldn’t do anyway?
As a group, they’ve got six Type-45s and only one of them operational, and they’ve sent that overseas. And there is the same pattern for other types of vessels.
If a commercial operator had 6 ships with only one operational, they simply wouldn’t exist. What’s the point of being intelligent if you can’t keep the ships at sea and leave the UK undefended?
It’s the other guy that has that reputation, Carns, not Healey. No I don’t think military people should be prosecuted at all, in any circumstances. Neither do I think that military skills are translatable into a complex bureaucracy like the MOD. You don’t see too many military people successful in business either.
The Type-45s are Britain’s only anti-missile defence and Healey is responsible for the zero availability. Dry-dock times are 5-7 years; probably because the MOD is technically and commercially out-of-its-depth in dealing with the contractors. Five of out of six of the frigates are non-operational and the only operational one has been sent to the Persian Gulf, leaving the UK defenceless against its main threat - a conventional missile attack on the East Coast infrastructure. Why should Healey not be prosecuted for that?
Our military leaders want prosecutions to be extremely rare, not impossible, otherwise it undermines the credibility and professionalism of the British armed forces.
I take the exact opposite position on the skills of our senior officers. They are some of the most uniquely qualified individuals to run bureaucracies. As a group, they are highly intelligent, well educated, have decades of leadership experience running large organizations and can perform under pressure that most of us cannot imagine. If you make it to the UK general staff, you are amongst the best in the world.
You think that Healey should be prosecuted for killing lots of people and for not increasing the number of UK frigates in under 2 years? Riiiiiight.