We often hear the Cottesmore Harriers from our garden, and see them when we are out walking. It's always good to know they are there; they are the sight and sound of courage. Cottesmore village is a few miles away, over the county boundary into Rutland. Our son goes to Cubs there, in an ugly scout hut behind a very pretty pub, close to a fish and chip shop that's worth driving out of your way to visit. The RAF base is a vital part of the community, and the largest employer in Rutland. Its closure will have a massive impact. It has a human cost; people will be hurt as a result. 70% of the fish and chip shop's business comes from the base. Other businesses and jobs depend on it as well.
I'll leave it to others to look at the Defence implications of this. My point is a different one. Public services will inevitably be cut over the next few years. People will lose their jobs. Families and communities will be damaged. Some of the jobs that go may be unproductive and unnecessary in Conservative eyes, although it's unlikely the people who lose them will think that. But whatever the job or the organisation that is cut, the human cost must be acknowledged. Boris Johnson put this powerfully at the party conference this year: where there must be cuts, he said, do it with humanity and compassion, recognise the price people must pay.
Which is where Quentin Davies went wrong today: If we can get by with fewer bases that will be a very good thing to do. We don't have bases for the sake of having bases, you know; they are not an end in themselves. We have bases where it is necessary to contribute to our defence capability. His tone, complacent; pride in being a Minister, self-evident; compassion for those affected by his decision, zero.
His offensiveness is especially culpable not just because he also today laughed off his £20,000 bell-tower repair claim as an "absolute joke." Nor because this decision has been driven not by defence considerations but by the incompetence, spectacular even by the standards of this government, with which the Defence budget has been set and spent. It is because Quentin Davies represents the next door constituency to Cottesmore. Some of his own constituents work there. But I doubt he realises that.
I am not amongst Quentin Davies's greatest fans. But his recent career should be studied closely by all would-be MPs and Ministers, lest they follow his example in any way.
