Junior Ministers
 

BBC website is reporting 2 junior ministerial appointments (both tories):

Baroness Pauline Neville-Jones as 'Security Minister'

Gerald Howarth as 'Junior Defence Minister'

Labour had 5, I think, so presumably more to come.

Min(AF)
 

Just picked up on this website:

PoliticsHome | The coalition cabinet and ministerial appointments | Research

Minister of State (Minister for the Armed Forces) – Nick Harvey - Lib Dem

Two new Permanent Under Secretary's named
 

At least there is some military experience here:

Ministry of Defence | Defence News | Defence Policy and Business | Gerald Howarth and Andrew Robathan confirmed as Parliamentary Under Secretaries of State for the MOD

It would be nice if whoever wrote the MOD website had a clue..... The Permanent Under Secretary is a civil servant. Trivial point perhaps - but the sort of mistake that you'd expect to see in the Mail.

Looks like the RAF and SF are safe in the Defence Review then :)

Having military experience is not necessarily a guarantee of being a good Defence Secretary. Malcolm Rifkind had no military experience - but was very popular and competent as DS, principally for energetically advancing and defending the MOD budget in cabinet, but then letting MOD control how they spent it without too much political interference. On the other hand, John Nott was a former Ghurka officer, but was widely ridiculed and disliked as DS.

I think all the purely for/against AD military arguments here have considerable merit.

However, these are politicians we are dealing with. To remove QRA, a token force already, would IMHO be politically unlikely as it would not go down well with the general public. At a time when lack of any kind of border control is causing huge unrest to further cut it, in any form, is an unlikely move by any of our leaders, whatever their political pursuasion. It is not about effectiveness, it is about perception. There is, I agree, no threat either. However, there is still a capability out there, which is actively demonstrated on a regular basis, do we just ignore it?

It is also another (small) cog in the counter terrorism machine, a hot topic now and for the forseeable future. Furthermore, AD is still an exportable 'business', especially to the Middle eastern countries and, therefore, a money spinner.

There is also our commitment to NATO in Europe.

I just think that pure capability arguments are irrelevant on their own. Since when has any Government ever made a decision based purely on practical need? They are sensitive to public mood (?)/media and, irrespective of the technical arguments, the UK public would vote to have it's military visible at home.

I think the bottom line here is that we need to effectively demonstrate our capability/intent to defend our own territories before we go a long way from home to defend others. Also, if you remove it altogether, it is gone forever. That strikes me as daft for an island nation.


I hope the SDR is balanced and looks properly into the future.

Wyler, good post.

"Balanced Force Mix" - will be the buzzwords for SDR...

...and rightly so. :D

Really! He was the one who got his knickers in a twist over CAS comments and made him retract ..... if my memory serves me right!

Well .... there must be so much to look forward to under this new Tory government ..... that last time they were in power we had split pay rises (1% in April and the rest in December), closure of all military hospitals, selling off of FMQs, NMS (No Money Sunshine) ... etc .... can't wait for the next great ideas!

I thought that it was Michael Portaloo who carpeted CAS?

Was Rifkind the one in charge when the Defence Medical Services were decimated and most of the Military Hospitals were closed.

Not one of the better decisions!