why is anyone surprised at the cuts they would have happened no matter which party was elected. Conservatives were all up for slashing defence in 1981 under Thatcher until the Falklands War and even then she had no idea about what the Navy had in service.
I would sugest that Brown would have slashed the defence budget by a much bigger margin and programes like Nimrod,A400M,FSTA,FRES,Typhoon Trance3, JSF and Carriers would probably have been cut. Astute would have stayed 4 boats, The Type 45's would have been sold and the frigate fleet slashed. The Army would probably lost all its heavy armour.