DAILY MAIL COMMENT: The dangerous folly of stinting on defence

DAILY MAIL COMMENT: The dangerous folly of stinting on defence

There are many onerous obligations on any government, from funding public health and education to maintaining law and order.

But none of these responsibilities is more crucial than the defence of the realm. If our security is compromised, then all other areas of national life are imperilled.

And right now Britain’s military – the guarantor of that security – is dangerously overextended. Supporting Ukraine, combating cyber attacks and keeping a check on expansionist China have denuded the Ministry of Defence’s coffers.

And that’s without the many civic duties fulfilled by our servicemen and women, such as delivering Covid jabs, driving ambulances and manning our borders during strikes.

Yet despite the mounting dangers and demands, defence spending is barely above the Nato benchmark of 2 per cent of GDP.

When a senior US general tells Defence Secretary Ben Wallace (pictured) that the UK Army is no longer in the ‘top tier’ of the Nato alliance, it really is time to worry

Alarmingly, there are reports the MoD will receive no funding increase this year. If true, that is a very bad decision indeed.

The military has been hollowed out for decades by spending cuts. The Army could soon shrink to 73,000 full-time troops – the smallest since Waterloo. And while it is right we have sent tanks, artillery and other materiel to Ukraine, this further erodes Britain’s own defences.

It’s now so bad we are even said to be running out of ammunition. When a senior US general tells Defence Secretary Ben Wallace that the UK Army is no longer in the ‘top tier’ of the Nato alliance, it really is time to worry.

The Mail understands that public money is exceptionally tight in this economic downturn. But with so many threats to our security, the military stands between this country and potential disaster.

Rishi Sunak must start taking defence more seriously. We can’t rely on our ever-scheming enemies to leave us alone.

Our mismanaged NHS

Meanwhile, the senior military man brought in by ministers to assist the NHS during the pandemic has delivered a searing analysis of the deep-seated structural failings within the organisation.

Asked to review its leadership, General Sir Gordon Messenger was brutally frank. He identified a lack of teamwork, blame culture, poor management of emerging talent and a general ducking of responsibility by those in charge.

He concluded that ploughing in ever more money without a fundamental change in culture and leadership would be ‘like painting the bedrooms without fixing the roof’.

Asked to review the NHS’ leadership, General Sir Gordon Messenger was brutally frank. He identified a lack of teamwork, blame culture, poor management of emerging talent and a general ducking of responsibility by those in charge

Hospital managers should reflect on these humbling criticisms as we suffer some of the worst strikes in NHS history. If they were more organised, they might be able to fund better pay out of existing budgets.

Why, for instance, are they shelling out £400,000 PER DAY on private ambulances and taxis for patients instead of spending that money on creating an ambulance service that actually works?

But striking staff should also realise they are making a bad situation infinitely worse – and endangering the lives of patients. General Messenger criticised the lack of a ‘collective instinct’ for everyone to ‘rally round’ when problems arose.

As these protracted strikes show, the unions and management are just as guilty as each other in that regard. And as ever it’s the patients who suffer.

• How humiliating that 500,000 households in this country have worse wifi service and slower broadband speed than on Mount Everest or in the Arctic Circle. Ministers have pledged to provide high-speed broadband to all homes and businesses across the UK, but when? In villages from Skye to Essex and Cumbria to Wales, little or nothing is being done to bridge this digital divide. For them, the levelling up agenda remains a myth.

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