Partisan
Active member
I came across this on the RUSI (Royal United Services Institute) website.
It asked 6 questions of the members of its website and then has the leaders of the main 3 UK political parties summarise their defence priorities.
As always, when a politician speaks (or writes) it is interesting to note what is not addressed or said, as much as what is said, but I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions.
For me the main thrust of each leader is as follows:
1. Labour - we're laying out loadsa dosh and we'll keep doing so to make the UK safe.
2. Conservative - we will lay out loadsa dosh but in a slightly smarter way than labour.
3. Lib/Dem - we're not going to keep forking out dosh, everything is on the table.
Not too sure how I feel about their statements (forgive the paraphrasing). I have been increasingly frustrated with the lack of capability of our Armed Forces due to a p-ss poor procurment system, a top heavy command structure and a moribund political system to back them up. I'm not comfortable with the Lib/Dems, but we do need to seriously rethink what we're trying to achieve as a country, otherwise we'll keep getting the same results. That said the baggage that comes with the Lib/Dems, much closer european integration, change of the political voting system etc makes me very uneasy, guess I'll just have to figure out who is the lesser of all the evils - as per usual.
Anyway, just thought that I'd share, I look forward to hearing some of your views on the survey and the political leaders comments.
http://www.rusi.org/analysis/commentary/ref:C4BD17C2CD7E3A/http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http://www.rusi.org/analysis/commentary/ref:C4BD17C2CD7E3A/&h=4278f
It asked 6 questions of the members of its website and then has the leaders of the main 3 UK political parties summarise their defence priorities.
As always, when a politician speaks (or writes) it is interesting to note what is not addressed or said, as much as what is said, but I'll leave you to draw your own conclusions.
For me the main thrust of each leader is as follows:
1. Labour - we're laying out loadsa dosh and we'll keep doing so to make the UK safe.
2. Conservative - we will lay out loadsa dosh but in a slightly smarter way than labour.
3. Lib/Dem - we're not going to keep forking out dosh, everything is on the table.
Not too sure how I feel about their statements (forgive the paraphrasing). I have been increasingly frustrated with the lack of capability of our Armed Forces due to a p-ss poor procurment system, a top heavy command structure and a moribund political system to back them up. I'm not comfortable with the Lib/Dems, but we do need to seriously rethink what we're trying to achieve as a country, otherwise we'll keep getting the same results. That said the baggage that comes with the Lib/Dems, much closer european integration, change of the political voting system etc makes me very uneasy, guess I'll just have to figure out who is the lesser of all the evils - as per usual.
Anyway, just thought that I'd share, I look forward to hearing some of your views on the survey and the political leaders comments.
http://www.rusi.org/analysis/commentary/ref:C4BD17C2CD7E3A/http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http://www.rusi.org/analysis/commentary/ref:C4BD17C2CD7E3A/&h=4278f
