Carrier

Welcome news on Libya.  An aircraft carrier, perhaps the Ark Royal, would be very useful for the UK to deploy to the Mediterranean right now to help enforce the no fly zone etc.  Oh yes that's right the Government's Strategic Defence Review reached the conclusion we wouldn't really need such a capability and the Ark Royal was scrapped.  This will also add to the pressure on our Armed Forces.

Test

A Falklands test would have been a sensible one for the Defence Review but it was not  chosen.  The ability to send a credible fighting force to a distant part of the world is essentially what the military has had to do on a number of different occasions - Falklands, Sierra Leone, Kosovo, Gulf War I & II, Afghanistan.  However, this is not the direction which it went perhaps because it would have failed it?

Honesty

Why is stating what is a) obvious and b) true a resignation issue?

Not a good one for the blood pressure

"When our men were wounded, helicopters were able to land within 30 minutes. Yet no helicopter was sent within three days to collect the remains of our Commanding Officer. It was an obscenity, the desecration of a national hero."

Test balloon? Budget Mischief? Army politics?

Former Army officer and journalist Patrick Mercer has made another of his pronouncements this time it concerns the potential cuts to the Army.  Cuts increased by the decision to break with normal practice on paying for Trident.  Mercer declares:

"The first people to go will be the Brigade of Gurkhas, probably in their entirety. In the past, the Gurkhas' existence was guaranteed by the fact they are cheaper to run than British troops, and that there was a shortage of British troops.  Recent changes mean they are now just as expensive, and recruitment is extremely healthy at the moment. I am afraid the writing is on the wall."

Is this story a test balloon to gauge public reaction? Is this story part of the MoD Treasury fight?  Clegg and Cameron were falling over themselves to be the Gurkhas friends while in opposition.  Or is it Army politics?  Someone trying to push others up the pecking order for the chop before other potentially vulnerable units. 

Whichever one it is, the rationale offered is poor.  Arguing it's the result of the end of discriminatory treatment is far from a good starting point. The second rationale, present recruitment levels, is a potential example of a bad cut. Recruitment patterns rise and fall. It is more strategic sense to maintain a regiment that has a consistent pattern of recruitment success.

A trident to the heart of the armed forces

"The full £20bn cost of renewing the UK's Trident nuclear deterrent must be paid for by the Ministry of Defence"

The previous Conservative government pretty much did for the Navy but if this decision holds it'll will involve the gutting of at least one of the other services.