"Gordon Brown was a weak-willed Chancellor who failed to fund defence as well as he wanted to because of his refusal to seek conflict with Tony Blair over the matter." Discuss.
That's tongue in cheek, but let me play devil's advocate - have we seen something of a genuine (*) attempt on Broon's part to invest a bit more in defence since he knew he'd got the top job no matter how hard Tony's cronies might brief against him?
Not only 2 x CVF, but a C-17 that CAS probably wasn't really expecting plus several UORs for vehicles and kit for the army; ammo for the Typhoon's gun is suddenly not a funding problem....
Add to that the fact that unlike his predecessor he appears to have been more interested in visiting the troops to see what's going on (as opposed to visiting for some "jolly good photos in the press, eh, Cherie?" the next day) and his banging on about British values (which seem rather similar to some of the values of service and duty associated with the forces and the presbyterian church) actually appears to have a little substance. I wonder if he might turn out to be rather better than we'd hoped (although after the grinning big-eared charlatan he replaced, that's not hugely difficult).