Originally Posted by
Pontius Navigator
FB, your defence narrative is seductively plausible but pr00ne's point about the Tories is the clincher. You are quite wrong about the Invincible class. Before the Falklands the Illustrious was being proper for sale to Australia and I am not sure about Arm Royal.
You mention Sands.
I don't have the time to work out the aircraft procurement time lines or research, orders and cancellations. I know that cancelling aircraft programmes and smashing up completed aircraft is virtually criminal. Similarly suddenly scrapping an entire force is monumentally risky.
Wilson is seen to be the architect of our withdrawing from East of Suez. In fact my earlier research shows the reverse. The US, with increasing involvement in Vietnam, urged Wilson to maintain our presence East of Suez and he wanted to do that. He was also under pressure to maintain our forces in NATO.
Pontius,
The Labour Governments of Wilson and Callaghan did make it clear they wanted to concentrate the defence effort in Central Europe and NATO. But they were at the time less easy to convince of the need for what we now call expeditionary forces. Hence the scrapping of the aircraft carriers, that was a part of the end of the East of Suez deployments. Labour in office did in fact increase the number of aircraft in Germany, they maintained the Harrier Force while assigning only two squadron number plates the third, 20, becoming an additional Strike Sqn at Bruggen with Jaguars. The trouble with Labour is, they have always been blighted by the left wing of the party, the Labour Defence Study Group I referred to was headed by Ian Mikardo MP his recommendation that the entire Tornado Force be scrapped before the first aircraft rolled off the production line was simply to divert funds elsewhere including raising the school leaving age. Callaghan paid no notice of course. When we've had a Labour government it has always been essentially the right wing of the party which has largely filled the cabinet. When Foot and Kinnock were leading they remained in opposition, this time with Corbyn....
FB