Britain's strategic defence review is a hollow plan without the right cash

The Labour government's ambitious strategic defence review publishd yesterday was full of bold talk and fancy phrases that when analysed sound like they were written by someone well-versed in the gobbledigook of Whitehallese lingo. For me, the stand-out fiugure was the promise by the government to increase the size of the regular army from its current figure of around 70,000 to 75,000 by 2034. That pretty much sums up the state of our armed forces today. An army of 75,000 in the next nine years is not going to put off people like Vladimir Putin or any foreign leader who fancies his chances to grab a bit of Britain's diminished empire around the globe. Ok, the review is also full of dreamy talk of drones and other unmanned vehicles and super hi-techness and a dozen nuclear-powered submarines. But where is the money going to come from? The hoped-for 2.5 per cent of GDP on defence won't be enough, not for the long term. The aspirational three per cent ain't going to happen for years and as for the Naop secretary general's wish for all alliance members to increase their spending to 3.5 per cent or even five per cent of GDP, how can the UK agree to that when it's struggling to reach 2.5 per cent? Of course, there is only way out and that's to increase income tax by one or two percentage points. But the Labour government "promised" in its manifesto that it wouldn't raise income tax. Ever. This promise will have to be cast aside, and very soon. Then the popularity of the governemnt is going to sink. It's a hard road ahead for this country and for this government. The strategic defence review could end up just being 140 odd pages of unfulfillable wish lists.