In a theme trailed on ConservativeHome this week, Liam Fox has written an excellent piece for today’s Telegraph about EU/European defence policy: "At a practical level, those who favour a greater role for the EU have three essential problems – the lack of defence spending among EU members, the lack of a common approach to […]
The Daily Telegraph leads with a Conservative analysis that defence expenditure is at its lowest level since the 1930s as a proportion of national wealth. Bulgaria, Greece and Turkey all spend more of their national wealth on their armed forces than Britain – and at a time when Britain faces complex new threats. Just 2.5% […]
Reacting to Lt Gen Freddie Viggers’ admission that the accommodation for service families is of a poor standard the Shadow Defence Secretary Liam Fox has said: "There is an unspoken understanding that when we send people out to fight and potentially die in our name, that our part of the bargain is to make sure […]
Earlier this afternoon I listed the ten peaks of David Cameron’s first year as Conservative leader. Given David Cameron’s statesmanlike response to Blair’s decision on Trident I think we have an eleventh high. Pasted below is the text of David Cameron’s words during this afternoon’s Commons statement: “I agree with the Prime Minister about both […]
According to this morning’s Independent, Tony Blair will have to rely upon Tory votes to secure parliamentary support for his plans to replace Trident. A poll by Communicate Research for the newspaper found that 36% of Labour MPs believed that "the international security outlook makes a UK nuclear deterrent unnecessary." The Independent has also been […]
Britain’s nuclear deterrent is back in the news with this morning’s Independent reporting that Tony Blair is "bouncing" the Cabinet into accepting a replacement for Trident. In the above 18 Doughty Street video clip you can watch me interviewing Liam Fox about nuclear deterrence and my own belief that we need to put the whole […]
The number of personnel in the forces is not only not increasing due to greater demand but recruiting rates are slowing whilst "quit rates" accelerate, according to a comprehensive National Audit Office report. The report says that as of July: "The Army’s strength was 100,010 personnel – a shortfall of 1,790 personnel (1.8 per cent), […]
General Sir Richard Dannatt’s interview with the Daily Mail’s Sarah Sands has been greeted with excitement by the anti-war press and it certainly offers ammunition to the critics of the Iraq operation. Sir Richard worries that British troops might be exacerbating the security situation (but only in certain parts of Iraq), he complains about the […]
Liam Fox is to tour Eastern European capitals later this year to cement links with like-minded political groups opposed to EU control of security and defence policy. This news emerged in answer to questions following his speech The European defence tide: can it be turned? to the Centre For Policy Studies last night. The Warsaw […]
Liam Fox, Shadow Defence Secretary, has given a ‘big picture’ speech this morning on energy security and the way Britain’s defence capacity must underpin that security (‘Over_A_Barrel’_speech.pdf). Key sections of the speech are quoted below: Labour’s financial starvation of Britain’s armed forces: "This year we will spend only 2.2% of our GDP on defence – […]
Greater regulation of the arms trade has long been a concern of ConservativeHome and it was an issue we raised with David Davis and David Cameron during last year’s leadership race. David Cameron has today taken very welcome steps towards identifying our party with an issue of justice (arms are used by undesirable regimes against […]
Michael Ancram, Iain Duncan Smith’s Shadow Foreign Secretary at the time the Tories supported the Iraq war, has called for British troops to leave the troubled nation. The nation has descended into civil war, he writes in the vociferously and consistently anti-war Daily Mail, and British forces should get out of the firing line. Mr […]
"Liam Fox could have been designed by a committee of Tory modernisers. He was brought up in a council house, educated in a comprehensive and worked as a hospital doctor in the deprived East End of Glasgow. He has met Mother Theresa, still buys pop music and has long campaigned for the unfashionable cause of […]
Yesterday I wrote about Tony Blair’s fine speech on the war on terror. There are many reasons why Tony Blair has failed to turn fine words into credible actions. But a leading reason is the way his government – and Chancellor Gordon Brown – have starved our armed forces of resources. This point was well […]
Liam Fox is in Washington again! The Shadow Secretary of State for Defence is on the other side of the pond for Senate Armed Service Committee hearings on the Joint Strike Fighter project. See here for background. Whilst he is away his two junior shadow ministers are in the news… and are doing a good […]