TOFO,
This shouldn't come as a surprise. Anyone who has been reading independent economic articles in some of the more grown up newspapers for the past year or so should be aware that austerity isn't over, indeed it will probably need to be more severe after the next election than it has been so far. Both main parties are falling over each other in at least preaching deficit reduction (what they will actually do in power may be another thing), while still preserving the budgets of certain favoured departments, such as Education and the NHS. This will mean disproportionate savings in other department budgets, such as the MOD.
This thread has been running over 1 year, with over 1,000 posts. However, in my opinion, it boils down to the comment made at the very beginning, literally in POST 2. What was that comment? Well, in terms of a new MPA/MMA, it was quite simply "..there is no money..."