
Labour’s defence review is anything but strategic
Fans of the classic British sitcom will feel a warm glow, as details of the forthcoming strategic defence review (SDR) were revealed this weekend. It leads with a proposal for a ‘home guard’ of civilian volunteers to protect the UK’s critical national infrastructure of power plants, airports, telecommunications networks and subsea connectors. Predictably, this cued up references to Dad’s Army, Captain Mainwaring and the Local Defence Volunteers (LDV) raised in the dark days of 1940. The SDR, commissioned within weeks of the government taking office last July, has been drafted by a team led by former Nato secretary general Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, assisted by General Sir Richard Barrons,
