Tory cuts are indefensible

DEFENCE has always been the Tory trump card. Voters invariably trust them more on this issue than they do Labour. This reached its height in the Eighties when, under Michael Foot’s leadership, Labour embraced unilateralist disarmament. A cruel – but effective – political ad at the time asked: “What’s Labour’s policy on defence?” And showed a soldier with his hands up.

The muscular interventionism favoured by Tony Blair when PM was in part a response to those times. But Blair’s genuine passion for the forces wasn’t always shared by his successor in No 10. In successive spending rounds military chiefs felt that they had not got everything they needed – let alone what they wanted.

Such displeasure is never private and through the usual channels it surfaced in the papers. At the time, the criticism was routinely echoed by the Tory front-bench. They, particularly Liam Fox who is now Defence Secretary, gave the impression that they understood Labour undermined and underfunded the forces, but that this would be rectified under a Tory government.

This was rash. Unfunded promises are always to be avoided in opposition. The Tory promise was only ever to match Labour’s spending plans, and then specifically to protect the NHS. If Liam Fox ever believed that he could deliver on his promises, his hopes were dashed by the Comprehensive Spending Review. Even after the belated intervention of the Prime Minister, defence spending was cut by 8 per cent. This was a big change after a decade of near constant real terms increases.

But, as ever, the devil was in the detail. A whole host of cuts were pushed into the next spending round; many of which were unbelievable to experienced defence hands. Worse, the Treasury – as is their wont – gave Fox a hospital pass. He was also landed with paying for Trident and finding a way to bridge the £38bn hole in the equipment budget.

Fox’s strategy on handling this challenge has had two strands – both are now unravelling dangerously. First, he focused on the procurement programme and went on and on about Labour’s “black hole”. This was at best disingenuous. New ships, missiles and aircraft are complex and lengthy to procure. Most of the massive over-runs in budgets for new equipment were for items originally contracted by the Tories. This is not to shift blame, rather to say that responsibility is shared and laying blame is rather fruitless. Most of the major purchases are only made every 20 or 30 years, and then only bought in small numbers.

Anyway, just over a year after the last election the cry of “it’s all Labour’s fault” sounds a bit lame. Partly, because repetition stales in the 24 news culture. Hearing the same thing again and again is boring. But mainly because the second strand of Fox’s strategy has been dangerously holed. This was the Strategic Defence and Security Review (SDSR) which was intended to explain precisely how a smaller army, navy and air force were just right for the times. It was, in reality, a Strategic Spending Review – a post hoc rationalisation of already agreed cuts.

Central to it was the principle that the UK would not embark upon another discretionary conflict while we were still in Afghanistan. Within months, the Prime Minister had committed us to intervening on Libya. A conflict which Liam Fox has confirmed to MPs is open-ended. When pressed as to whether this requires the SDSR to be re-opened he says that would mean re-opening the spending review. Not exactly a principled riposte.

This is the central problem for Cameron. He has chosen spending priorities that mean he will be increasing overseas aid by broadly the amount that he is cutting defence. This is a clear signal about priorities. But it is not aligned with the public mood. Security starts at home. No matter how many speeches the PM makes about our need to shoulder the burden of development, nor how passionate his appeal to our better selves, most voters would rather see cuts in aid than cuts to the allowances paid to the Paras.

It’s also against Cameron’s own instincts. His defence strategy says we shouldn’t be in Libya and spending plans mean we can’t afford to. But he deployed British forces there because he thought it was the right thing to do. The difficulty is that you have to will the means as well as the ends.

Having ruled out cutting aid, and with his Defence Secretary sticking to the defence review, the Prime Minister faces an unappealing prospect. Few senior figures in Whitehall believe that the defence budget can hold. Either the MoD gets more money, reopening the spending review and encouraging other Secretaries of State to press for more. Or, a further series of salami slice cuts are announced. Fewer soldiers? More mothballing? Other allowances reduced?

There is nothing painless left to do. David Cameron calculated in opposition that to soften the image of his party he needed to defend the NHS and to commit himself to aid reaching 0.7 per cent of GDP. In government he is struggling with the health service and finding that international development has to be funded at the cost of the armed forces. In slow motion, he is giving away the issue of defence. It takes time for a series of mistakes to harden into lasting damage to reputation. Time, and a ruthless opposition. Over to Labour.