Con Coughlin

Blame the generals

New Labour’s defence ministers are not the only ones responsible for military overspending

When Dr Liam Fox talks about the ‘ghastly’ inheritance he has been bequeathed by New Labour on the defence budget — which is expected to be butchered further in next week’s spending review, he is not giving us the full roll call of shame.

Certainly, there were a succession of clueless Labour defence ministers, who allowed the Ministry of Defence to run up a staggering £36 billion overspend on a variety of contracts. Perhaps some of them believed this financial chicanery was the only way of fighting wars on a peacetime budget, but they must take their share of the blame for the current mess. But so, too, should the service chiefs who commissioned the projects in the first place — knowing full well that there was no money to pay for them.

As the Strategic Defence and Security Review approaches what promises to be its apocalyptic conclusion, much of the political debate has focused on New Labour’s failure to provide adequate funding for the armed services while at the same time requiring them to fight a succession of deeply controversial wars.

But what about the role played by all those generals, admirals and air marshals whose wanton profligacy has brought the entire defence establishment to the brink of bankruptcy? The fast jets and aircraft carriers that have blown a massive black hole in the defence budget did not suddenly appear on the whim of some passing politician who was briefly given responsibility — if that is the mot juste — for overseeing the defence portfolio.

Nor can we blame the politicians exclusively for the fact that, after nearly a decade of fighting a bitter counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan, we still have an army that is wonderfully configured to prevent the Russians from swarming across the German plain, but has only recently managed to acquire the levels of manpower and equipment that are required for the successful prosecution of the Afghan campaign.

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