@jbgor007@DeborahMeaden France legislates its defence budget. The Loi de Programmation Militaire is a legally binding multi-year commitment — voted on by parliament, surviving changes of government, requiring new legislation to break. The political cost of cutting it is explicit, public, and immediate.
@jbgor007@DeborahMeaden The media cycle rewards announcements and punishes cuts — but only when the consequences are immediately visible. The defence procurement cycle runs fifteen to thirty years. The gap between those two timelines is where British strategic capability goes to die.
@jbgor007@DeborahMeaden A government has five years at most before an election. The Treasury’s methodology discounts future costs against present spending. The Office for Budget Responsibility scores spending decisions on a ten year horizon at best.
@PhilFul23@DeborahMeaden If you have one aircraft carrier is scheduled for maintenance and your second one then develops a fault, that’s not a scheduling issue that’s real life and highlights your lack of depth of that capability, again back to decades of under funding
@jbgor007@DeborahMeaden Link that to the UKs governmental system where a political party can completely undo any previous spending commitments, it isn’t a surprise that projects requiring a mid/long term spending commitment struggle to start let alone finish.
@PhilFul23@DeborahMeaden No aircraft carriers were ready to deploy due to persistent problems with the propeller shafts.🇬🇧 doesn’t have a full range of options available at a given time there are huge gaps in capacity from decades of under investment.This is what Epic Fury has shined a bright light on
@jbgor007@DeborahMeaden It is, but how much of it is due to lack of budget in the first place? I’ve seen government procurement contracting and it is joke, the skills and the criteria set out for choosing a provider is far to skewed on cost as opposed to real value let alone operational practicalities.
@piers_J_morgan@afneil And you will be one of the first and no doubt the loudest, if it gets hit, shouting how stupid Starmer was in sending it into a war zone without an escort.
@PhilFul23@DeborahMeaden The best asset the Uk has for the role required of defence of our base is the type45 destroyer.The aircraft carriers were in a state of maintenance, unable to be deployed at the start of epic fury.HMS Diamond could have been deployed from the Red Sea, big question why wasnt it?
@jbgor007@DeborahMeaden The original request from the navy was 12 Type45 destroyers back in 1990. This was based on future requirements and commitments. All governments cut those numbers in successive reviews, even though the need was accepted.
@DeborahMeaden The under investment is decades old and will continue to happen unless the Tresury’s accounting methodology is changed to give greater weight to future risks so that adequate funding is put into future military capabilities
@JChimirie66677 You raise a broader point that the UK public has to be ready to recognise. UK position in the world is based on current capability not one built on the history of empire. Actions in Epic Fury didn’t diminish Britain’s standing. It revealed what the real standing is.
@JChimirie66677 All chancellors are bound by the Green Book — Treasury’s accounting framework for every government investment. It discounts future risk against present cost. Designed for roads and hospitals. Applied to defence for thirty years means future capabilities are by design underfunded.
@JChimirie66677 🇬🇧 required a defensive capability that it has a very limited supply of and a capacity that it has nowhere near the required level. Today’s warfare of multiple types of missiles, drones, all that are deployed to saturate and over whelm defences, 🇬🇧 is woefully prepared.
@JChimirie66677 This is not entirely of Starmers making, this is the result of decades of significant under investment in 🇬🇧 military capabilities and capacity. 🇬🇧 military is set up predominantly as an offensive proposition.
@paulmasonnews The threat to national security is the UK’s Treasury department and its approach to mid/long term investment, which the majority of military spending is all about.
@BBCNews The Uk spin on the glaring fact it does not have the military defensive capability or capacity to participate at the time it is truly needed. A fact that rest of the world has seen and taken note of.
@UKLabour Wasn’t it in the national interest to move type 45 destroyers into region sooner, there was 17 days before the conflict started to prepare? The retaliation of Iran was predicted by all intelligence agencies
@tim_unix@RickyDoggin The Uk has been issuing cheques it could never pay to remain relevant for decades. The Uk was unprepared because it just doesn’t have the mechanisms or capacity to react at the speed that is necessary in the global environment we are in.