Defence Is Now An Election Issue – Poll Reveals

[Mr Grimsdale]

Dunno if you're interested or attach any credibility but...

TIME FOR A PUBLIC DEBATE ON DEFENCE, HOLMES TELLS TORIES

Author & broadcaster Prof. Richard Holmes joins military and political leaders to call for a new relationship between the Nation and its Armed Forces

Major-Gen. Patrick Cordingley, Bernard Jenkin MP, and UKNDA President Winston Churchill put the case for Defence Reviews and higher spending

UKNDA makes its presence felt at the Conservative Party Conference

Leading military historian Prof. Richard Holmes has called for a public debate on Defence. Speaking on Sunday September 28 at a UKNDA [United Kingdom National Defence Association] fringe-meeting at the Conservative Party Conference, Prof. Holmes – the best-selling author and presenter of the popular BBC TV series War Walks – said the time had come for “a national debate about Defence and more honesty from politicians about what our Armed Forces can do”, adding that the present Government had “a prince’s appetite for commitments but a pauper’s budget to carry them out.”

Holmes, a vice-president of the UKNDA, which was formed last year to campaign for “sufficient, appropriate and fully-funded Armed Forces”, told the meeting in Birmingham that he had been involved in Defence all his working life, serving for 36 years in the Territorial Army from private to brigadier. He had decided to speak out, he said, because the relationship between the nation and its Forces had become unbalanced and “nobody who has the best interests of the Armed Forces at heart can remain silent.”

UKNDA President Winston Churchill, former Conservative MP and grandson of Britain’s wartime leader, said that there could be “little doubt that Britain’s Armed Forces are in crisis”, with less than half the budget they had two decades ago. Funding had shrunk to “a mere 2.3% of GDP – the lowest since the ‘locust years’ of the 1930s when inadequate Defence provision paved the way directly to world war. As a result of grave under-funding, our Armed Forces are today too small for the commitments placed upon them. This in turn causes extreme over-stretch, with intervals between active service tours of duty all too often measured in months not years. This leads to family pressures, even break-ups, and the threat of mass resignations.”

Front-line troops, Churchill said, were “all too often committed to battle with equipment that is defective or obsolete. Members of our Armed Forces are being killed or wounded totally unnecessarily, due directly to under-funding. Government ministers, indeed our politicians collectively, should hang their heads in shame at this betrayal of the Military Covenant.” Meanwhile, he said, global threats were mounting – “an unstable nuclear-armed Pakistan, Iran building a nuclear capability and threatening to use it, China and Russian rearming, while the latter flexes its muscles by invading its neighbour, Georgia, and threatening Ukraine.”

Churchill also announced the results of the latest public opinion poll on Defence, conducted by ComRes for the UKNDA, which had shown that 78% of the British public believed the Armed Forces were “dangerously over-stretched”. Seventy per cent thought the Government was failing to give the Armed Forces the resources they need, and 57% said they would consider each party’s policy on Defence when deciding how to vote.

Cameron urged to “speak up for the Forces”

He called on Conservative Party leader David Cameron to “speak up for Britain’s Armed Forces” and make a firm commitment to increase Defence funding. “Let him state forthwith that the next Conservative Government will immediately increase Forces' pay and will provide more resources for Defence overall. That action alone will give hope to our underpaid, overstretched forces, and will persuade many not to quit, who might otherwise do so in the course of the coming 18 months – something we simply cannot afford to let happen."

This message was reinforced by Major-General Patrick Cordingley, who commanded the 7th Armoured Brigade (the ‘Desert Rats’) in the Gulf War, who said that: “our service men and service women have been treated disgracefully.” Politicians’ neglect of the Armed Forces also had wider consequences, he said. In Iraq, for example, due to lack of troops on the ground, British forces had needed to concentrate on superior firepower, using “excessive force” through air and artillery bombardments, causing unnecessary civilian casualties, displacing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi people and leading to long-term problems in the region.

“We need an expansion of Britain’s Armed Forces and regular reviews both of our Defence and our Foreign Policy,” Cordingley said.

Former Shadow Defence Secretary, the Rt Hon Bernard Jenkin MP, a member of the House of Commons Defence Select Committee, said that “under the pressure of current operations our Armed Forces are suffering a slow attrition of manpower, equipment, morale and readiness.” This, he said, would affect not only the long-term viability of the Armed Forces but also the UK’s ability to influence international events or protect our global interests. He welcomed Conservative leader David Cameron’s acceptance that there should be a Defence Review “based on national security not Treasury guidelines” but added that “if we are to remain a capable military power, this will almost certainly mean spending more.”

Jenkin told the meeting that Britain needed “significant, but not outrageous, increases in Defence spending” to provide adequate force levels – a third aircraft carrier, restoration of the full Type-45 destroyer programme, immediate commencement of the replacements for the Type-23 frigates, an extra 18 infantry battalions and an additional armoured regiment, and a significant increase in RAF transport aircraft.

This expansion, together with “filling in the current black hole” in the Defence budget, would require an extra £5 billion per annum, the MP for North Essex told the meeting. “This is a large increase, but given that there have been real-term increases under this Government of £45.1bn in Health and £35bn in Education, it is realistic. By the end of the current spending round in 2011, spending on Overseas Aid, Health and Education will have risen in real terms by 215%, 147% and 75% respectively since 1997, while Defence spending will have increased by just 11%. While the public sector as a whole has gorged, Defence has been starved of its fair share for too long.”

The UK, Jenkin concluded, needed forces “large enough and flexible enough to undertake war fighting and stability ops in several different theatres and would also ensure that key skills are maintained should the threat of a major war develop. There is rightly much talk about respecting the Military Covenant, but the Covenant is about much more than pay rates and accommodation. At its heart it must mean addressing the fundamental question of the MoD’s core budget.”

Among the Conservative politicians and activists present at the UKNDA meeting was Shadow Defence Minister Gerald Howarth, MP for Aldershot.

The UKNDA recently published a major report – Overcoming the Defence Crisis – setting out the case for a 40% increase in Defence spending to meet current requirements and likely future threats, and calling for regular Defence reviews. The report argued that “Defence provision should be threat-driven, not budget-driven.”
-Ends

For further information or interview opportunities please contact:
Cdr. John Muxworthy, CEO, UKNDA, tel [phone], email [email protected]
Andy Smith, PRO, UKNDA, tel: [phone], email [email protected]

Editor’s Notes:
1. The United Kingdom National Defence Association (UKNDA) was formed in 2007 to campaign for sufficient, appropriate and fully-funded Armed Forces. UKNDA's President is Winston S. Churchill, the former Conservative MP, war correspondent, and grandson of Britain’s wartime Prime Minister. Patrons include three former Chiefs of the Defence Staff – Lords Guthrie, Craig and Boyce – as well as former Labour Foreign Secretary Lord Owen and former Liberal Democrat Leader Sir Menzies Campbell. Please see Home - UKNDA - The UK National Defence Association

2. The poll was carried out by ComRes on behalf of the UKNDA between 19 and 21 September 2008 and comprised telephone interviews with 1,002 adults throughout Great Britain, with data weighted to demographically represent the adult population of Great Britain. Please see ComRes - Welcome for further details, or email [email protected]