According to today’s Times, Dominic Cummings is trying to get the Tories onto an election footing so they can ‘leave the EU then smash Corbyn’. As part of this drive Cummings is looking to departments for policy achievements and indications what policies can be ditched. The article goes on to suggest that ‘there could be significant cuts to wasteful Ministry of Defence procurement projects ...’
So is this Boris’ ‘Defence Dividend’ in the making? I know he made roughly the right sort of noises in the leadership campaign, albeit with seemingly less commitment than Hunt. In the meantime, I have been wondering how Defence in the round would fare given the announcements about spending increases for almost every other aspect of life. Now call me a bluff old traditionalist, but a global posture needs a credible military to back it up.
So is Defence about to get the bat inserted once again? Does Boris really give a damn about Defence?