Liam fox

The Defence Select Committee delivers a familiar litany this morning. The Strategic Defence Review (a structural reform of Britain’s defence establishment) is being driven by savings not threat, consultation has been insufficient and cuts will be implemented at terrifying speed. The committee’s report concludes that the review will be to the detriment of Britain’s defence capabilities. Liam Fox’s summer battle with Downing Street has been overshadowed by IDS’ belligerence. In truth Fox has already lost. The National Security Council, the Treasury and the Cabinet Office have put him in a strait-jacket and hijacked his review. The opportunity to reform procurement and phase out obsolete heavy merchandise and training, both of

For a while then, it looked as though Britain and France really were going to share aircraft carriers as a mesure d’austérité. But, today, Liam Fox seems to have put a block on the idea, describing it in Paris as “utterly unrealistic”. He did, though, add that we could pool some of our transport planes and helicopters with the French (which sounds like the military equivalent of hitching a lift, if we happen to be going in the same direction). And Fox’s spokesman has since said that there still might be “strategic co-operation across the maritime domain,” whatever that means. So some sort of link-up with the French should be

On one level, there is something admirable about the government’s uncompromising support for a Trident upgrade: senior Tories really do believe in the deterrent’s strategic importance, and are not willing to sacrifice that. But, on many other levels, that same inflexibility is looking more and more unwise. Three former senior military figures write to the Times today with a new riff on a point that they have frequently made before. Why not squeeze another 15 years out of the current system, they say – by which time, “the anachronistic and counterproductive aspect of our holding on to a nuclear deterrent would be even more obvious.” This is an argument with

So Sir Richard Dannatt has departed the Tory fold almost as curiously as he entered it. Sure, have been no gaffes from Chris Grayling this time around – but when it was announced last October that the former head of the Army was advising David Cameron, it was widely expected that he’d graduate to become a peer and a minister in any Tory government. But today he announces his “retirement” as neither. The Tories are downplaying all this, eager to avoid a repeat of the speculation that surrounded Sir Alan Budd’s departure. And, to be fair, there are few signs, as yet, that this is a viciously unamicable split. But

Andrew Rawnsley’s potted hierarchy of the coalition government – and especially its final sentence – is worth pulling out for the scrapbook: “There is still, of course, an inner circle. When not abroad, the first key fixture of the day at Number 10 is the strategy meeting. Its usual attendees include George Osborne, the chancellor; Andy Coulson and Steve Hilton, his director of communications and his senior strategist; Jeremy Heywood, the permanent secretary at Number 10; the prime minister’s chief and deputy chief of staff, Ed Llewellyn and Kate Fall. Note that Nick Clegg is not on that list. He belongs to the next circle of influence around David Cameron.

When General Petraeus called for a “united effort” on Afghanistan earlier, he might as well have been addressing our government.  Between David Cameron’s and Liam Fox’s recent statements, there’s a clear sense that the coalition is pulling in two separate directions.  And it’s left William Hague explaining our Afghan strategy thus, to the Times today: “‘The position on combat troops is as the Prime Minister set out last weekend. By the time of the next election, he hopes we won’t still be fighting on the ground. We are working towards the Afghan national security forces being able to stand on their own two feet by 2014,’ but there is ‘no

Ming Campbell’s comments today show that some Liberal Democrats do believe in Fox hunting. Responding to Fox’s speech in Washington yesterday and his remark that Britain would be among the last to leave Afghanistan, Campbell told the Daily Politics that the “intervention was unhelpful, indeed the government thought it was unhelpful.” “It would have been better if these remarks had not been made.” Dr Fox’s allies are less than pleased by Ming’s grandstanding. They take the not unreasonable view that the Secretary of State for Defence has every right to express his views on a war that this country is fighting without being second guessed by a backbencher from the

Harriet Harman’s response to David Cameron’s statement on the G8 and G20 was noticeable for her attacking the Prime Minister for talking about bringing British troops home from Afghanistan within five years. Her criticism was that talking about withdrawal undermined the troops in the field, she sounded more like John McCain than I ever expected Harriet Harman to. She chose to reinforce her point by using quotes from Liam Fox about the effect that timelines have on military morale. Her use of the Fox quotes suggests that Labour see the Cameron Fox relationship as a weak point in the government. Certainly, Ben Brogan’s blog and Conservative Home’s description of the