The majority of Britain’s soldiers returning from summer leave this week might just as well be told to go back on holiday, with the shock announcement that all but essential training is to be cancelled immediately.
It is all part of an “efficiency saving” – a favourite Treasury weasel phrase – saving a princely £30m out of an annual budget of something around £74bn.
Apparently, the Ministry of Defence’s (MoD) till for regular operational expenditure is running near empty. Only “essential” training is to continue to prepare soldiers for service in Estonia, Cyprus, or the Falkland Islands. In a wonderfully crass expression, an anonymous MoD official told the BBC that the Army was giving up on “nice to have training”, such as practising platoon attacks, working with attack helicopters, tanks and artillery, on Salisbury Plain, Sennybridge, Otterburn and Arbroath. The high point of such exercises is the part involving live ammunition – but you can forget about that for a game of soldiers well into next year.
Shorts
This is one of the worst PR blunders of the Andy Burnham’s Government so far. It shows more than insouciance about defence, but a fundamental ignorance about the services, why they are needed and what they need to prepare for.
