Remember when Jim Murphy spoke about defence cuts last month? It was not only a smart refinement of Labour’s fiscal position, but also a preview for the defence review that they’re conducting as an alternative to the government’s SDSR. Well, that review was officially launched this morning, and I was in the audience on reporting duty. Here’s a quartet of quick observations that I bashed out on my phone:
1) Cuts, cuts, cuts. There was, it is true, a greater emphasis on the ‘constrained fiscal circumstances’ in Murphy’s opening remarks than there is the consultation paper that Labour released today. But that emphasis was still striking in itself. Murphy, for instance, spoke of a ‘coalition of cuts’ when describing how countries should work together towards meeting their defence aims on a budget. And he put it even more baldly than that, too, when he said, ‘we’re all going to have to get used to a smaller state’.
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