Perhaps another avenue to focus on is the apparent belief that only capital spending should be cut in any forthcoming spending review. Time and again you hear figures along the lines of "£20BN to be saved (or 10% of government spending)".
Last time I looked, government spending was marginally south of £600BN pa - the difference of course being the resource budget. Seems to me that one of the reasons defence is always being held up for cuts (apart from Cyclops & his ilk despising the Forces) is that it is capital intensive. Call me simplistic, but surely you can't ring-fence 2/3 of total spend at the expense of desperately needed equipment that will be around for 20-50 yrs? I realise that huge chunks of the resource budget are salaries etc, but once you've paid HMAF, plus "doctors, nurses & hospital staff, teachers" etc, where's the rest?