Dithering all the way to disaster
The TimesOnline Leader is just as damning:
No government can predict specific circumstances. But what they must do is regularly take a panoramic view of defence needs. The last strategic review was conducted in 1998. “In corporate life no enterprise would persist with a 12-year-old strategy without at least re-evaluating it fully on a regular basis,” Mr Gray writes. “Few who would expect to prosper would even try to do so.” With the sole exception of John Hutton, who commissioned the Gray report, every defence secretary since 1998 — Geoff Hoon, John Reid, Des Browne and now woeful Bob Ainsworth — should hang their heads in shame. They are responsible for the situation in which failure at the Ministry of Defence is, according to Mr Gray, “endemic”.
In 2002 the Dutch government resigned when a report found it had sent soldiers into combat without the necessary equipment. It says much about the prime minister that his only response has been to suppress the report.
And the worst of it - we are getting sympathy from our Coalition colleagues! How low can low get?