The problem is that the Ministry of Defence is facing a black hole of £13 billion in its ten-year budget for equipment. If you kick in £ 1.9 Bn extra for one year most of it will go to fill the hole - or if it is spent on new kit the hole only gets bigger (and that has been the pattern since 1945).
Since the MoD are incapable of costing things properly we finish up with something BIG having to be sacrificed or alternatively just let everything slowly bleed down
|The alternative, to ring fence cash from a tax raise, is politically not on the table even in good times