Proone,
I suspect that we share some common ground. Like you I'm disquieted when the redneck tendency start rattling off words like 'liberal' in a derogatory way, and I worry when people use the coded language ('asylum seekers', 'Tony Martin') which is so often a cover for the worst kind of ignorant knee-jerk far right attitudes.
But unlike you, I don't accept that grinning Tony is any better (or much worse) than the shockingly awful Thatcherite and post Thatcher Conservatives or the ineffectual liberal democrats. I think that we're currently very badly served by our politicians and face a very poor range of choices. And I fear that that's as true in health and education as it is in defence.
I do think that Labour's defence reviews so far have been better than I'd have dared hope, but expect the next one to have much more serious effects. There may or may not be a real-terms rise (these politicos have become so adept at double-counting money that it will take years to figure it out) in cash terms, but there is no doubt that there will be cuts to present force structure and in service equipment, and that these cuts will be imposed to safeguard funding on a number of high profile future programmes (Astute, Nimrod 4, CVF, Typhoon).
And much of the blame must go to the Government, who have failed to halt the delays and cost increases in these massively expensive, sometimes uncompetitively procured and often wasteful programmes, and who have failed to offer adequate oversight, direction or management.
Because of these programmes, money is undeniably being taken away from our current defence budget, largely to further 'featherbed' particular contractors and their shareholders.
Part of the answer must be to squander less of the defence budget, as well as to fight the diversion of more of it to 'squander' elsewhere.