Fox hasn't been sulking - he's being swotting - drafting a new Tory defence policy

"Liam Fox could have been designed by a committee of Tory modernisers.  He was brought up in a council house, educated in a comprehensive and worked as a hospital doctor in the deprived East End of Glasgow. He has met Mother Theresa, still buys pop music and has long campaigned for the unfashionable cause of mental health provision. His wife is a lung cancer specialist and charity worker. But he fails the soft-focus New Tory test on one crucial point: his politics are unashamedly, defiantly Thatcherite."

So begins Fraser Nelson's Spectator interview with Shadow Defence Secretary Liam Fox.

Liam Fox has been very quiet over the last few months.  There was one big speech on Iran but little else.  This had led the Kremlinologists to believe that the Thatcherite doctor has been avoiding having to defend Camodernisations that he doesn't like.  In the interview Liam Fox insists that he has "been swotting, not sulking".  He has been focused on drafting a new Tory defence policy.  Here are some of his early conclusions, as revealed to Fraser Nelson:

• Trident: “With regimes like Iran trying to become nuclear powers it seems to be ludicrous for Britain to lose our nuclear deterrent.  The onus is on the abolitionists to tell us how they can guarantee we will not face a threat in the next quarter-century that would require us to deter it, if necessary, with the threat of nuclear arms”.
• A dangerous world: Fox’s world view is bleak: Russia has quadrupled its defence budget “and while that is not a direct threat to us, regimes can change.” He believes recent British deployment to the bandit-ridden Helmand province of Afghanistan is too small. “We’re sending 1,300 combat troops for a country twice the size of Wales” he says. The Tory critique is nuanced: do it properly, or don’t do it at all. This is an issue where the normal Labour-Tory support over military action may founder.
• Defence expenditure: “The defence budget is now 2.3 per cent of our national income, the lowest since 1930,” he says. “Before Blair came into power, he had the gall to talk about military overstretch. Today, we have more attack aircraft in the RAF museum than under strike command.” Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Tories have proposed cutting defence spending: Fox wants to either reverse this trend, or to pull out troops. “Britain can no longer avoid this debate,” he says. “If we want to keep doing these kinds of operations, we should pay for it.”

Comments

[EU Serf]

But he fails the soft-focus New Tory test on one crucial point: his politics are unashamedly, defiantly Thatcherite.

Seeing as Mrs Thatcher did more for upward mobility than any socialist its hardly surprising that someone with his background should think like he does.

[True Blue]

We have only the fourth-highest defense budget in the world, and if we are to keep intervening everywhere we need to move up the table. You never know when the Americans might need our help again.

And it's vital that we win the pissing contest with the French - we must have a bigger navy than them.

Either that or we can pull our troops out of Germany, reduce the numbers in Northern Island and Cyprus, and stop sending our troops everywhere at the drop of a hat and let some other countries pull their weight.

The Empire is long gone. As long as we honour our international obligations under NATO and the UN, and protect our national interest, the money is better spent on tax cuts.

[John Hustings]

How many prominent modernisers have humble backgrounds?

Not many.

[Annabel Herriott]

I think folk should put"Gathering Storm"onto the video player and do alittle revision. Or else bone up on one of Michael Dobbs excellent books. Then remember the 30's when Hitler was rearming and we were disarming. I am getting a strong feeling of deja vue here. I am old enough to have listened to grown ups conversations, my father moving us out of Sunderland to avoid the bombs, out to Cleadon Village, where we still got the odd stick of incendaries in the hayfield. I think Liam is on to something. I would hate UK to be caught with its pants down again, as it was in 1939. It wont be an exact repeat, history never is, but the ramifications may well be the same.

[Jack Stone]

We don`t need to increase the defence budget, we need to stop acting if we can solve all the world`s problems, stop fighting other peoples problems and start concentrating looking after our own people and solving our own problems.
When we have doctors and nurses being sacked because of an NHS cash crisis I don`t think there is any justifaction in saying we should buy more weapons and employ more soldiers.
People want a government that as there priorities of better schools, NHS and more police on the streets they don`t want money spent fighting wars that they believe is not this country`s fight.

[wicks]

Going on about Russia as though they are a threat is a bit silly really, makes him sound 20 years out of date.

"The Tory critique is nuanced: do it properly, or don’t do it at all. "

That has some mileage. Blair is good at seeing what needs to be done, but very poor at carrying it out. That's the line of attack that needs to be taken.

[Henry Whitmarsh]

No government ever fights wars for the sake of it. The world has changed a lot since the cold war. It's much more unstable. It's never a choice between other spending and defence spending. To protect it's citizens from harm is the first duty of any government. To argue that such a duty is secondary is just the kind of moonbat argument put forward by CND and the socialists during the 80's (and beyond.)The nightmare senario is when we need our armed forces and they just aren't there. Nobody is happy about how much a new generation of subs and nukes is going to cost, never mind the rest of it, but it's just the price we're going to have to pay.

[Mark Fulford]

Why do we have this Jack Russell mentality, determined to be top-dog despite our size?

We should take the money from defence, put it into research and actually make a positive difference to the world.

[EU Serf]

How many prominent modernisers have humble backgrounds?

Exactly my point.

[Yet Another Anon]

The UK should double it's Defence Budget - build a new totally independent Nuclear Weapons system that does not require any maintenance by overseas countries or companies; there should be a significant exapnsion in the nuclear and conventional firepower of the British military and a far greater number of submarines, more aircraft carriers, pay for troops should be higher and the UK should take the war to the terrorists - I think establishing government in Somalia and expelling Al Qaeda from there should be a major priority, Somalia is rapidly developing into Al Qaeda's new base.

In addition there is the issue of Serbia failing to hand over War Crimes suspects and consideration should be given to sending in hit teams to eliminate them in much the same way as Mossad has done in the past.

Other possible targets include North Korea, forcing Iran out of islands that it has seized from UAE in the Straits of Hormuz and Zimbabwe and achieving independence for Darfur and Kosovo (by force if neccessary), there should be a renewed committment to either a Kurdish State or Kurdish autonomy being extended to Iran, Syria, Turkey and Azerbaijan; and of course there are existing committments in Iraq and Afghanistan and other parts of the world.