Defence Review
The tragedy about the current situation is that any government's top priority - Defence of the Realm - has become an 'also ran'. Surely this is the time to correct some of the appalling anomalies that currently exist.
For example, a maritime nation without any long range maritime air - how ludicrous. Apart from all the obvious maritime tasks, there are other key aspects - much is made about preserving the nuclear deterrent but what about its vulnerability? Elsewhere is a thread about Vanguards being shadowed and the Russians (and who knows who else) attempting to record their signatures. Without getting too detailed, MRA4 can cover much greater areas than any surface or subsurface platform in helping preserve the bomber's invisibility.
Then there's the QRA muddle. Although Russian long range patrol aircraft have been probing UK airspace in much greater numbers lately, seeing them off the patch is not the prime QRA raison d'etre these days. If you went to the last Winter Olympics you may have seen or perhaps heard about the Canadian CF18s sitting alert right there on the nearby base, instantly available in case of a 9/11 problem. What about London 2012? Indeed, what about London right now? No good the Typhoon getting to his target when it's already inside the M25, and how far could that target have travelled in the time taken for the Typhoon pilot to leap up from his armchair, scramble the jet and rush on down from the East Midlands? You do the math - it's about 70miles from mid-Channel to Big Ben, by the way.
And let's not forget that the UK has had a war on its hands in every decade since 1945. All of them, by their very nature, "come-as-you-are" events! Let's have no nonsense about 'useless Cold War weapons' - they served us well enough in the Falklands. It is just plain stupid to even attempt to plan for the next war, but that seems to be Dr Fox's aim. Our Nation's defences are in a parlous state. In 1957 we led the world in ground-breaking aerospace technology, all thrown away at a stroke; Dr Fox could just go down in history as Son of Sandys.