Proone,
I have some sympathy with the view that the Tories have been as damaging to defence as Labour have been, and only have to look back to Sandys, through to 'Options for Change' and 'Front Line First' to find evidence.
But unlike you, I'm not a card carrying member of New Labour, and so I have to say that your sycophantic and uncritical repetition of their nauseating spin makes me puke.
"The same stupid attitude that has delivered the longest period of sustained real above inflation increases in over three decades?"
Bollocks. Utter bollocks. Twisted statistics that ignore the fact that Defence Inflation is running much higher than the RPI.
And you only have to look at force structure to see who is doing damage to the forces - and if you do so, you'll see that the RAF has suffered grievously under both parties, and to absolve the current gang of incompetent fools from blame is as much of a disgrace as it is to pretend that everything was 'peachy' under blo.ody Thatcher.