ConservativeHome's ToryDiary

Sins of omission

Labour survived yesterday's Conservative attempts to force an inquiry into the Iraq war.  Twelve Labour MPs voted with the Opposition but William Hague's arguments (summarised on our Parliament pages) were not enough to persuade more Government backbenchers to defy their whip.

Yesterday's motion was an attempt by the Conservatives to say something about a war that is now five years old.  Many Conservatives genuinely believe that there will be benefits from an inquiry but many others simply see this exercise as a way of putting the Government on the back foot.  One Tory MP, Mark Field, admitted as much on Radio 4's Westminster Hour on Sunday night.  Tory opponents of the Iraq war were most evident in yesterday's Commons debate.  They hope that a key result of an inquiry will be further public opposition to the Iraq war and to a hawkish foreign policy.

Our key question is this: Should a call for an inquiry into the origins of the Iraq war really be the top priority of the Conservative Opposition?

Most of the current Tory leadership - David Cameron, William Hague, George Osborne, David Davis, Liam Fox - all voted for the Iraq war five years ago.  They may have a responsibility to investigate the background to their 2003 votes - and, more importantly, the votes of the governing party - but they also have a responsibility to see the liberation of Iraq concluded in the most satisfactory way possible.

But on the one strategic decision that has delivered most improvement to the people of Iraq - the Petraeus-led troops surge - the Conservative frontbench has been silent.  We asked CCHQ yesterday for a statement in support of the surge.  Nothing was forthcoming and nothing apparently exists from the last 12 months.  There have even been attempts to attribute the reduction in violence to other factors.

Britain could not have delivered a troops surge for southern Iraq because Labour has left our armed forces under-resourced and over-stretched.  The Conservatives' response to this situation has also been inadequate.  We have failed to make the case for the rebuilding of Britain's armed forces.  There's no new money on the table for our military although the defence of Britain should be any Government's first and overriding priority.  ConservativeHome proposed our own modest plan for £3bn of extra defence spending a couple of weeks ago.

The coming together of evil men, rogue regimes and devastating weapons technology is the security challenge of our time.  Yesterday's debate didn't take us much closer to a coherent Conservative response to that challenge.

3pm: James Forsyth at The Spectator encourages William Hague to go beyond "cheap publicity"

Fox condemns NUT for considering banning armed forces going into schools

A motion before the National Union of Teachers' Conference seeks to ban the military from going into schools.  The teachers backing the motion accuse the armed forces of trying to "lure" youngsters from deprived areas into the military.  The armed forces say that the visits simply aim to raise awareness of the military in society.  Liam Fox, Shadow Defence Secretary, has condemned the move:

“If this goes through it will be a kick in the teeth for our boys on the front line.  They should concentrate on improving the standard of education for British children instead of undermining British forces at a time when they are so overstretched.”

Fox on defence procurement

Liam Fox is to give a speech today to the Business Services Association about defence and the economy:

Globalised strategic environment: "Since the Conservatives were last in power the world’s strategic environment has greatly changed. We now live in a truly global economy. A world where Britain’s economic and security interests are so interlinked into a larger global interdependent network that we have an unavoidable shared set of interests with a multitude of actors in all parts of the globe. We also now have the unavoidable importation of strategic risk."

The UK's place in the global defence market: "Britain is one of the world’s leaders in the field. The size and success of Britain’s defence industry brings huge benefits to our economy, workforce and population. The defence industry in the UK employs more than 600,000 people either directly or indirectly through suppliers. This represents 1 per cent of the total population on the United Kingdom."

Combat tested: "The reputation of Britain’s defence industry is further enhanced by the fact that we actually use our Armed Forces for their intended purpose. The military equipment we develop and procure for training and combat operations is combat tested. Consequently, this provides incentives for industry to optimise capability both through the UOR process and normal acquisition."

The proceeds of a civil service recruitment freeze should be shared between taxpayers and the defence budget

Later this morning George Osborne and Boris Johnson will be addressing the cost of living in London.  They have chosen a good day to do so.  A report in this morning's Times notes that "British workers will be taking home an extra £44 a month on average after this year’s pay rises, but families are facing an increase of £148 a month in essential living costs".  Tory Treasury spokesman Philip Hammond tells the Daily Mail that "Gordon Brown's legacy to Britain's hard-working families is falling take-home pay, soaring food and fuel costs."  All true Mr Hammond but what are you going to do about it?

As long as our party is shackled to Labour's spending plans we have very little room to offer some relief to Britain's hard-pressed families.  It is true that the public sector is facing a tight spending settlement but that settlement comes after years of largesse and it is nowhere near as tight as the settlement facing poorer British families on fixed or falling incomes.  Who is on their side?  Conservative MP Michael Fallon is.  Yesterday, over at The Spectator, he recognised that "proper spending control is the key to fairer, lower taxes".  On his blog John Redwood outlines steps necessary for that control.  Mr Redwood calls for a curtailment of government IT projects, a civil service recruitment freeze and a war on absenteeism in the public sector.  Edward Leigh understands, too.  He describes huge productivity failures in the NHS and calls for the spending splurge to end and for a new emphasis on efficiency.

The back of the envelope calculation below (click the graphic to enlarge it for easier reading) outlines how the kind of civil service recruitment freeze suggested by John Redwood could save about £6bn a year by its third year of operation...

Cameron launches Military Covenant Commission

From left to right: Dan Byles, Frederick Forsyth, David Cameron, Simon Weston and Air Commodore Allan Vaughan.

In a short but strong speech David Cameron is to announce the formation of a Standing Commission that will advise him the state of the "covenant" between the military and the Government/public.

Its members include author Frederick Forsyth, distinguished defence writer John Keegan, Falkands veteran Simon Weston (who also co-founded Weston Spirit with the man now heading up Cameron's National Citizenship Service ideas), and parliamentary candidate Major (retd) Dan Byles.

Click here to download the launch document, and post your thoughts on its website which is already live at MilitaryCovenantCommission.com. The focus of the Commission will be on:

• The overall health of the Military Covenant – how to ensure that the Armed Forces are treated with the respect and gratitude they deserve for the unique role they play in society.
• Armed Forces and public services – how the provision of housing, health and education services for Armed Forces personnel and their families can be improved.
• Respecting veterans – how to improve the treatment of those who have served in our Armed Forces and fought for their country.
• Care of bereaved families – how to ensure that the Government and its agencies can provide suitable services for the families of those who have lost their lives serving our country.

Brown's underfunding of the forces is one of the most appalling aspects of his time as Chancellor and Prime Minister and as Simon Hoggart humourously noted this morning it rightly exercises Tory MPs.  Any recommendations the Commission makes "must be paid for within existing and planned defence budgets", however. The recently-formed UK National Defence Association has been putting pressure on the Government on this and is very worthy of your support.

Just as worrying is the increasing amount of antipathy towards serving soldiers and the military in British culture, as Liam Fox and Frances Done of the British Legion have both expressed concerns about on ConservativeHome.

If the setting-up of this Commission means that Cameron will be frequently reminded of this problem and of much-needed measures to counteract it such as actively encouraging the military to wear uniforms in public, then it will be immensely worthwhile, especially if it forces Brown to take the military a little more seriously himself. As Cameron says today (the rest of his remarks are copied below):

"Any government that values our armed forces and respects the military covenant shouldn’t sit on it hands and say there’s nothing we can do it should roll up sleeves and work day and night to make sure they happen."

Liam Fox avoids answering the 'will you spend more on defence?' question

Earlier today Shadow Defence Secretary Liam Fox was interviewed about the overstretch problems facing Britain's armed forces:

• Another 1,000 British troops are about to be deployed - to Kosovo.  The Sunday Telegraph noted that these troops are "the military's last remaining reserve unit".
• According to a report in The Sunday Times, "a senior defence official has warned that the armed forces are heading for a “train crash” because the government is starving them of funds for vital equipment."
• Only yesterday The Sun hit hard against Labour's underfunding of the armed forces: "Defence spending has not risen beyond two per cent of what the nation has earned every year.  That is HALF the level of when we won the Falklands War in 1982."

Liam Fox was repeatedly asked if the Conservatives would spend more on defence.  He said that his first hope was that other NATO countries would bear more of the burden of the west's defence.  He noted that 23% of US forces were currently deployed, 22% of UK troops and no more than 5% of any other NATO member states' armed forces. NATO, he said, must be more than the UK, US and Canada.

Related link: Time to invest in our armed forces before it's too late says Mark Allatt

Video: Liam Fox and Winston Churchill discuss defence budgeting

Liam Fox welcomes ConservativeHome poll on national security

The December ConservativeHome.com survey closes at midnight.  If you haven't had your say yet please click here.

Today we publish the final set of results from our November survey - on foreign and defence policy...

The results show that, despite the damage done by the Iraq war, most Conservative members retain a robust attitude to national security:

• By nearly two-to-one they reject the idea that military action must be authorised by the United Nations.
• Just over half agree with the controversial doctrine of pre-emption.  Winston Churchill would have approved.  He famously quipped: "You must never fire until you have been shot dead?"
• 86% want a bigger military.  This confirms an earlier ConservativeHome Panel finding that defence should be the party's number one public expenditure priority.

Shadow Defence Secretary Liam Fox warmly welcomed the findings.  He issued the following statement to ConservativeHome:

"When it comes to security there is a strong Conservative belief in being masters of our own destiny.  While international co-operation is to be valued we must as a nation maintain the tools to act separately when our national interest requires it."

'Des Two Jobs Browne' is not the main problem facing Britain's armed forces

Following yesterday's savaging of Government Defence Policy in the Lords by former Chiefs of the Defence Staff, David Cameron has written to the Prime Minister and asked him to end the fact that Des Browne is both Defence Secretary and Scottish Secretary:

“You will be aware of the comments by former Chiefs of the Defence Staff in relation to the Armed Forces and, in particular, from Admiral Lord Boyce regarding your decision to make the Defence Secretary a part-time post.

I made clear at the time that this decision was wrong. In light of the concerns expressed by these senior former military officers, I urge you once again to reconsider this decision.  As you will be aware, it has caused great concern ever since it was announced.

At a time when our Forces are engaged in two highly dangerous missions in Iraq and Afghanistan, the need for the Defence Secretary to be able to concentrate full-time on his role is surely a matter of plain common sense. People do not understand why you have chosen to combine the job of Defence Secretary with Scottish Secretary at such a crucial time. Now Admiral Boyce has made clear this concern extends to those on the front line, I hope you will take this opportunity to reverse your decision and appoint a Defence Secretary who is able to devote his total attention to this vital job, unencumbered by other responsibilities within Government.

I look forward to your early response.”

This is a good and necessary letter.  But the real problem is not overstretch at the top but overstretch throughout the armed forces.  Our armed forces are quite simply underfunded and the defence budget needs to be increased substantially over the coming years.  The Conservatives cannot remain silent on this issue for much longer.  Conservative members understand this.  They believe that Britain's military should be at the front of the queue for extra resources from a Conservative Government.  Defence of the realm is the first duty of any government.  It must be George Osborne's top expenditure priority.

For background see the website of the new UK National Defence Association.

Related link: Ministry of Defence comes bottom of league table for answering questions promptly according to research by Mark Harper MP

Cameron distances himself from liberal interventionism

David Cameron has just addressed a conference of the CDU/CSU in Berlin.  He has used the speech to distance himself from the liberal interventionism of Bush and Blair.   The speech should not come as a surprise.  David Cameron has not visited Washington since becoming Tory leader and has ridiculed the idea that “you can drop democracy out of an aeroplane at 40,000ft.”

There are good sections in the speech.  There is a reasonably strong statement on Afghanistan.  David Cameron announces a new security dialogue between Dame Pauline Neville-Jones and the German interior ministry.  He emphasises border protection and greater integration between domestic and foreign security policy-making.

But the speech is confusing overall.  First of all is Mr Cameron's promise to put national security first.  This, he says, is a change from Tony Blair: "To help protect international security, any state must put its own national security first."  This, surely, is a false choice.  Every sensible state will always do what is necessary to protect national security (clamp down on extremist groups, police the borders, invest in the intelligence services etc) but why does that have to be in tension with international security efforts?  Distancing the Conservative Party from Blair and Bush may be good politics but what does this 'putting national security first' really mean?

Those who are willing to believe that Cameron is not shrinking away from external threats can take some comfort from his commitment to "apply sanctions which really target Iranian financial institutions and trade."  There's not much else to go on, however.  The speech is most notable for what it doesn't say.  There's no commitment to increase investment in our armed forces.  There's no words about Saudi Arabia's export of subversive propaganda.  Nothing on missile defence.  There's no commitment to reform of the United Nations.  Instead we get a commitment to increase the size of the Security Council which only risks making the UN more unwieldy and less likely to intervene in places like Rwanda and Darfur.

Cameron says that he is against "liberal interventionism":

"We should replace the doctrine of liberal interventionism, famously propounded by former Prime Minister Tony Blair in a speech in Chicago in 1999, with the doctrine of liberal conservatism – conservatism not in its narrow party political meaning, but in the sense of a sceptical attitude towards the ability of states to create utopias."

All of us are wiser about nation-building after recent years but my overall view is that interventionism is often necessary, although sacrificial.  Many, many more people have died when we have not intervened (Rwanda, Darfur, Srebrenica) than when we have (Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Iraq, Afghanistan).  I am not in favour of the kind of badly-prepared interventions that characterised the Bush and Blair years but more responsible leaders - McCain, for example, said from pretty much day one that many more troops were needed in Iraq - would have avoided the situation that Petraeus is now beginning to redeem.

The loss of life and chaos in post-Saddam Iraq has rightly horrified the world although the situation may finally be turning around.  I emphasise "may".   What we cannot afford, however, is for the world to be blind to the situations in Pakistan, Iran, Syria and other nations.  There's plenty in Mr Cameron's speech that points in the direction of a more isolationist Britain but the text is confused enough for liberal interventionists like myself to still have some hope.

The threat of nuclear terrorism isn't going away

Liam Fox spoke about the threat of nuclear terrorism at Kings College today. He didn't use apocalyptic language but the facts he quoted show how frighteningly possible nuclear terrorism is:

• In 1997 Technical Area 18, a highly secure area of Los Alamos National laboratory in New Mexico, was successfully breached by US special forces in a special security exercise.  They were able to steal enough fissile material for a nuclear bomb.
• Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, the German government reported more than 700 cases of attempted nuclear sales, including 60 instances that involved seizure of nuclear materials.  And that was only in the first three years.
• Following the collapse of the Taliban after the invasion of Afghanistan, American forces uncovered details of an Al Qaeda nuclear planning cell.  Osama bin Laden has called for the killing of 4 million Americans.
• The National Nuclear Security Administration in America has identified 220 buildings at 52 sites in Russia that are in dire need of treatment. In June 2001 two people in Russia's Murmansk region plundered a Soviet era nuclear powered lighthouse, one of 132 such lighthouses that lie unguarded and uninspected along Russia's northern coast.
• You could achieve a Hiroshima level explosion with about 100lbs of uranium 235 or between nine and 33 pounds of plutonium... of the 7 million cargo containers that will arrive at US ports this year, fewer than 5% will be open for inspection.

Nuclear terrorism is so much more problematic than rogue nuclear states because "attackers have no return address and thus, traditional deterrence will not apply". Fox also said that for deterrence to work the enemy have to want to be deterred, but judging from what he saw in Tehran recently some people there positively welcomed the end of the world:

"These people hate us not because of what we do but who we are.  They hate our values, our freedom, our entire way of life.  They will never give in and, therefore, neither must we."

In the questions afterwards he said that some of his parliamentary colleagues had warned him against painting such a grim picture, but that he thought he should tell it like it is because it isn't said enough. He also criticised the press for being too interested in trivial matters like Big Brother to give such threats the coverage they need:

"A nuclear attack as an act of terrorist aggression would make 9/11 look like the most innocent of dress rehearsals.  The danger is clear and present and potentially cataclysmic.  We have been warned.  It is time to wake up."

Sadly I don't think this will sink in for most people until it happens. Download the full speech here.

Deputy Editor

Cameron blasts Brown's "unacceptable" behaviour over Iraq withdrawals

The real fireworks will happen on Wednesday - at PMQs (which, as usual, we'll be live blogging) - but responding to today's Iraq statement David Cameron had his first opportunity to cross swords with Gordon Brown.  After statesmanlike questions on the meat of Mr Brown's announcements (which included rights for Iraqi interpreters to apply for UK residency if they've served for twelve months), the Tory leader went for the jugular in his closing:

"You promised a thousand of our troops would be brought back before Christmas - but isn't it the case that 500 of them had already been announced and 270 of them were already back in the country?  I have to say to the prime minister, this is of a different order of magnitude to what we've had from him over the last decade.  This is not double-counting of government spending, this is not just spinning the good bits of a Budget, this is about dealing with people's lives and the families of our servicemen.  And does he agree that this is just not an acceptable way for a prime minister to behave?"

It was Fox wot stopped it

From today's Times:

"David Cameron and George Osborne have won the plaudits for overturning Labour’s lead and stopping an early general election. But it was Liam Fox, the Shadow Defence Secretary, who did the most personal damage to Gordon Brown and left him regretting that he had ever allowed speculation about an autumn election to get so dangerously out of control.

Conservative activists woke up in Blackpool last Tuesday to the sight of Mr Brown gladhanding British troops in Basra. Tuesday was defence-debate morning at the conference and Dr Fox was centre stage. He was outraged at what he saw as Mr Brown’s election stunt. It is always risky to attack politicians when they visit the Forces overseas, and apparently no senior military had any quarrel with Mr Brown’s trip. But Dr Fox dared, and won. He took to the airwaves lambasting Mr Brown for using soldiers as election pawns.

When the news of the Tory attack trickled back to Iraq, the reaction in the Brown team was shock and fury. The trip had been planned for some time to help Mr Brown to make his Commons statement on Iraq and neither he nor anyone with him was ready for the Tory onslaught. Mr Brown had spent three months building up his patriotic credentials and here they were being torn to shreds.

The Times understands that it was at that moment that the Prime Minister began to harbour very serious doubts about the way he - and he knows that the responsibility is his - had allowed the build-up of hints about an autumn election to go unchecked."

Bruce Anderson has his own take on the Iraq trip: "A strong leader does not grovel in the small print of the opinion polls. An honest and caring leader would not have done what he did over the troop movements from Basra... The mothers, wives and girlfriends of serving soldiers are condemned to long periods of strain. The men in the field have duties to distract them, comradeship to sustain them and hard days to ensure that, when there is time to sleep, it comes easily. The women at home have little to protect them from long, anxious hours followed by turning and tossing sleeplessness, interspersed with bad dreams. The doorbell rings: pray God it is not the chaplain. So when the waiting women heard that a thousand men were to come home for Christmas, there would have been widespread joy. Surely my Johnny will be one of them? Then it turned out that 770 out of the thousand had either been notified of their departure or were already back in Britain."  Read the full article in The Independent.  For Mr Anderson it was Cameron's speech - "no party leader has ever delivered a more successful speech than Mr Cameron did on Wednesday" - wot stopped it.

Related links on 'wot stopped it':

• The Tory surge was 90% policy and only 10% speechifying says Stephan Shakespeare
• Lower taxation is back in fashion
• It's the News of the World wot stopped it

Brown's old politics versus Cameron's next generation politics

Gordon Brown's old politics has been on show in the last 24 hours.  He promised to tell Parliament about troop withdrawals but made his announcement in Iraq.  He implied 1,000 more troops would be home by Christmas when only 250 extra troops would be returning from Iraq.  He failed to take print journalists with him to his Basra photo opportunity - unwilling to expose himself to their scrutiny.

In his speech today - drawing on the themes of this video - David Cameron will attempt to contrast Brown's old politics with his own programme of long-term change.  This extract from David Cameron's speech has been released to the media by way of preview:

"This is a new Conservative Party with new priorities. There's been a lot of talk about lurching, so let me make it clear - no lurch to the right, no lurch to the left.  There's only one direction for me and that's forward to the future. A clear balanced programme of change for the long term, optimism about what Britain can be, hope for the next generation.  That means understanding that we live in a new world and that the old politics isn't working."

I've written about my own hopes for the big speech in today's Guardian.  I'll judge the speech by its ability to (1) rally the grassroots; (2) demonstrate that David Cameron hasn't abandoned his change programme but that recent events have been a rebalancing not a rightwards lurch; and (3) present David Cameron as the candidate of hope and progress.

Brown's Iraq visit is strongest indication of autumn election

Gordon Brown promised to go to Parliament to make any announcement on troop withdrawals.  But today he's in Iraq announcing that 1,000 of "our boys" will be home for Christmas.

Liam Fox has accused the Prime Minister of using our troops as a "political football":

"A week ago Gordon Brown gave only around a minute of his 67 minute speech to the issues of Iraq, Afghanistan and our Armed Forces combined; but today he is happy to use our Armed Forces for a pre-election photo opportunity. Most people will see this cynicism for what it is. Our troops should not be used as a political football."

I've also learnt that no newspaper journalists were permitted to travel to Iraq with Mr Brown - only PA and television cameras.  That's all Mr Brown is interested in - television pictures.  He wants to avoid the scrutiny and background reporting of print journalists.

Newspapers are afraid to complain about these exclusions as they fear they'll lose access as a result.  They need to come together and expose this typically Brown-behaviour.  I fear they won't.

Thatcherite CWF launches hard-hitting campaign to highlight Britain's under-equipped military

The above poster (click to enlarge) will be launched later today by Conservative Way Forward.

It aims to highlight "the number of deaths of servicemen that might have been avoided had they been properly equipped by the
Government".  Defence spending as a proportion of GDP has fallen from 2.9% in 1996 to
2.4% today.

Mark Allatt, General Secretary of CWF, issued the following statement:

“British soldiers have died in Afghanistan and Iraq because they were sent into action without body armour, or they were asked to patrol vehicles which didn’t have adequate armour.  This is clear-cut evidence that years of Labour under-investment in defence has damaged Britain’s ability to fulfil its defence commitments.”

It calls on the next Conservative Government to rebuild Britain's armed forces with a 50% increase in spending over the lifetime of the next Parliament.  Its demands include:

• Restoring the number of Royal Navy frigates and destroyers to 35;
• Replacement of the RAF’s decrepit heavy lift aircraft;
• A 3% increase in the fighting strength of the army, navy, and airforce.

Higher defence spending was the number one public spending priority recently identified by Tory grassroots members.

Tories in Hampshire lead the way in thanking our troops

Last Saturday we noted General Sir Richard Dannatt's call for society to do more to honour Britain's servicemen.  You can agree or disagree with the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan but all of Britain should be able to unite in saluting the dedication and bravery of our troops.

Shadow defence minister Gerald Howarth MP has just been on Sky News to talk about an initiative by Conservative-controlled Rushmoor Borough Council.  Mr Howarth and Cllr Peter Moyle, Council leader, have arranged for five banners to be put up across Aldershot to welcome home the Grenadier Guards.  One of the banners adorns the A325 between Aldershot and Farnborough.  Interviewed on Sky, Mr Howarth said more councils should do the same and he encouraged private businesses like Alton Towers to offer discounts or special events for our servicemen and their families.

We should all do more to honour our servicemen

General Sir Richard Dannatt has claimed that soldiers returning from Afghanistan and Iraq can receive "dismissive or indifferent" treatment from the public.

Sir Richard's intervention reminded me of this extract from a recent Platform article by Liam Fox:

"Before I left for Washington I met a young soldier who complained that he was being given (verbally) a hard time in his local pub about the war in Iraq. He rightly resented the fact that, rather than having pride in the work our forces do with professionalism and courage, parts of the British public were blaming him for what they regard as government failures. That simply does not happen in the US where membership of the armed forces produces an automatic respect and generates unchallenged benefits.

I watched in Dulles Airport as two soldiers went through security and noted the warmth and courtesy with which they are treated. Are we so out of touch with our Military in the UK that we cannot understand the sacrifices they make on our behalf? Is it because so few people in modern Britain have direct contact with the armed forces that there seems to be so little comprehension about what they actually do or is it part of a general decline in respect for any form of authority? Is it because we see too few servicemen and women in uniform nowadays?

I wonder whether the endless anti-war diatribe from parts of our media does not carry a heavy responsibility for failing to point out the distinction between those who make the policy and our service men and women who carry out their tasks with such distinction. As a young infantryman put it to me in Iraq “the only way we could ever get on the BBC would be to get killed or injured. No one cares about the good things we do”. It is a long way from the open pride the Americans show towards their armed forces."

Many disagree with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan but that should not affect society's support for our servicemen - who fight where they are ordered to fight.  Sir Richard highlighted America's "outstanding" support of its soldiers and veterans.  Within his remarks there were ideas that could be adopted here: discounts for soldiers from businesses, free tickets for sporting events, homecoming events organised by local councils and a general willingness from passers-by to shake the hands of soldiers in uniform.

Related link: Labour has put PR before long-term health of Britain's armed forces

Giuliani lifts depressed Tories

Yesterday evening some of the Conservative Party's top donors mingled with MPs, including Iain Duncan Smith, and journalists, including the Editor of The Sun, at the inaugural Margaret Thatcher lecture - hosted by Liam Fox's Atlantic Bridge.  Before the Mayor spoke all of the reception talk was of an autumn election and people were very downbeat about the party's prospects.  The mood was much improved after Rudy Giuliani had spoken.  It was not a great speech and the former New York Mayor went on a little long, but his remarks were rich in content and a tonic to British Conservatives who hear too little from their own leadership about security and defence issues.

Giuliani began by paying handsome tribute to Baroness Thatcher - who looked magnificent at the main table (Liam Fox pointedly told his guests that he had enjoyed a wonderful and wide-ranging conversation with her over dinner).  The frontrunning candidate for the Republican nomination also said that he had been inspired by her leadership and conviction.  Thatcher and Reagan were the golden years in the very special relationship between Britain and America.  He joked that he was lucky she wasn't running for President.  She would certainly win!  He spent some time saying how much he also admired Nicolas Sarkozy and said that he hoped that he would do for France what Thatcherism did for Britain.  The speech also included tributes to Gordon Brown and Tony Blair.  They understood the challenge of terror, he said.  The longest and warmest applause came when he paid tribute to all of the British troops that had "liberated" Iraq and Afghanistan.  They should be so proud of what they did and it was now for all politicians on both sides of the Atlantic to ensure the job that started with those liberations is properly completed.  Pointing to Margaret Thatcher, this is not a time to go "wobbly", he said, and there must be no going back to the appeasement of pre-9/11.

His speech was built around four main themes:

1. The need for institutionalisation of intelligence-sharing. Both nations had much to learn from each other and he hoped to introduce a 'TerrorStat' intelligence system that would monitor 'precursor activities' of terrorists to act as early warning signals for the authorities in the same way that lesser crimes were used as a warning of a larger propensity to criminality in his New York war on crime.
2. Expansion of NATO.  Any nation with military readiness and a commitment to global responsibility should be able to join NATO.  He mentioned Australia, India, Israel, Japan and Singapore.  These nations might encourage existing European members of NATO to take their own responsibilities more seriously.
3. A bigger military.  All armed forces (and intelligence services) were cut too deeply after the end of the Cold War.  We need new capacities including the capacity for a large war with a nation state.  Gulp!  'Prepare for the worst but hope for the best,' Giuliani said.
4. Winning the war through ideas.  This area of ideological warfare had been neglected, he implied.

At the end of the evening Giuliani went up to Liam Fox and hugged him.  I liked the humanity in that.

PS Ben Brogan has posted this report.

***
Earlier in the day the Mayor had criticised the British system of healthcare:

"Healthcare right now in America, and I think it has been true of your experience of socialised medicine in England, is not only very expensive, it's increasingly less effective.  I had prostate cancer seven years ago. My chance of survival in the US is 82%; my chance of survival if I was here in England is below 50%.  Breast cancer, very similar.  I think there's something to the idea that there are many more private options driving the system that create altogether better results."

Noon update: Photographs of Giuliani with Blair, Brown and Thatcher

Cameron should listen to Giuliani about defence expenditure (as well as zero tolerance policing)

Reports on Monday suggested that David Cameron will meet Rudy Giuliani when the former New York Mayor visits London next month.  The reports emphasised that Mr Cameron will talk to the Republican frontrunner about New York's successful zero tolerance approach to crime.  The Conservative leader might also reflect on the Mayor's record at cutting taxes and reducing welfare caseloads (more background here).  I've just been reading Giuliani's essay in the latest edition of the Foreign Affairs journal.  The section on defence is particularly compelling (my emphasis added):

"For 15 years, the de facto policy of both Republicans and Democrats has been to ask the U.S. military to do increasingly more with increasingly less. The idea of a post-Cold War "peace dividend" was a serious mistake -- the product of wishful thinking and the opposite of true realism. As a result of taking this dividend, our military is too small to meet its current commitments or shoulder the burden of any additional challenges that might arise. We must rebuild a military force that can deter aggression and meet the wide variety of present and future challenges... The U.S. Army needs a minimum of ten new combat brigades. It may need more, but this is an appropriate baseline increase while we reevaluate our strategies and resources. We must also take a hard look at other requirements, especially in terms of submarines, modern long-range bombers, and in-flight refueling tankers. Rebuilding will not be cheap, but it is necessary. And the benefits will outweigh the costs."

ConservativeHome readers put higher defence expenditure as their number one spending priority for George Osborne.  The Tory defence team has done a good job at highlighting the overstretch crisis and of campaigning for better welfare arrangements for service families (see Dr Liam Fox in this week's Sunday Telegraph by way of example).  The overall Tory position needs to evolve at some point soon, however.  The current Conservative position is that Britain must either reduce its commitments or spend more.  I hope that we'll choose to spend more as well as overhaul procurement efforts.

Soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq get smaller bonuses than MoD bureaucrats

Questions from Theresa May MP have exposed the fact that 181 Ministry of Defence civil servants received average bonuses of £6,511 but servicemen in Iraq and Afghanistan only received operational bonuses of £2,240 on average.

The Shadow Leader of the House of Commons told The Sun:

"At a time when our troops are up against equipment shortages and face personnel cutbacks, these bonuses for bureaucrats beggar belief.  Our service men and women do their jobs with great skill and bravery and fight for our freedom. They deserve better.”

Theresa May begins a weekly column for ConservativeHome this coming Friday.

‘Acquaintanceship’ with Syria is hallmark of new Tory Middle East policy

William Hague has this lunchtime spoken to a meeting of Michael Ancram's Global Strategy Forum.

This post republishes some key extracts from the Shadow Foreign Secretary's speech.

I will mention first of all that I did ask William Hague during the Q&A period if the Conservative party had a strategic sense of the necessary future size of our armed forces.  A recent poll said that defence was the top spending priority of Tory members.  William said that he could not make any commitment on the future size of our armed forces without upsetting the Shadow Chancellor.  Given that our armed forces - both in personnel and equipment terms - were currently overstretched, however, he said that there was no short-term sensible alternative to some reduction in commitments.

The current importance of foreign policy: "The foreign policy challenges which they face now, and which those of us in her Majesty’s Opposition may well face after the next general election, are perhaps more complex and difficult than any faced by their predecessors at any time since 1945. As a country we are engaged in extremely challenging NATO operations in Afghanistan, in stabilising Iraq, in trying to breathe new life into the stalled Doha trade round, in pushing forward international action on climate change, in trying to bring peace and stability to the tragedy-struck people of Darfur, and, wrongly in my view, trying to get away with a new European Treaty without honouring the pledge to consult the people of this country in a referendum."

Conservatives seek a bipartisan foreign policy: "Our foreign policy is more effective and better understood abroad when it is bi-partisan and pursued consistently over the long-term by both main political parties. As the Opposition, we welcome it if the themes and ideas we have developed are taken up by the government: it will make it that much easier for us to pursue those ideas when it is our own job to do so. This is a timely moment to give an up-to-date view of the actions we believe the government should take in relation to the Middle East and to invite it to take them."

Both sticks and carrots for Iran have to be more meaningful: "The EU should adopt measures that the US has taken to deny certain Iranian banks access to the US financial system, which have had more impact on Iran than any of the sanctions agreed by the UN so far. It should ban new European export credit guarantees to Iran, and begin targeted action to restrict European investment in Iranian oil and gas fields. Merely setting out a clear European willingness to implement a graduated programme of economic and diplomatic sanctions over time would cast the costs to Iran of continuing on its current path in the clearest possible light.  In exchange the US could state its willingness to revisit some of the terms of the incentives put to Iran, many of which currently begin with the word “possible”, and it could improve the prospect of exploratory talks with Iran."

Liam Fox backs principle of missile defence

ConservativeHome has been a long-standing advocate of missile defence.  Liam Fox's intervention in the debate - off the back of yesterday's warning from Putin that he'll retarget European nations if the US goes ahead with its missile defence plans - is therefore very welcome.  This is what the Shadow Defence Secretary has said:

"We are fully supportive of the principle of a Missile Defence system in Europe. The threat of nuclear proliferation, such as we now see in Iran, is underlying the need to look very seriously at such a system. This decision should be taken on its merits.  No other country, including Russia, can have a veto over our security and that of our allies."

As George W Bush sits down with President Putin at the G8 summit in Germany he needs to communicate two key messages: (1) The proposed missile shield is a defensive mechanism; and (2) Russia could share the protection offered by the system.  Japan is already involved in the design and delivery of missile defence and the US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has reportedly suggested that China could become a partner, too.  As an editorial in today's Investor's Business Daily concludes: the shield is our best weapon against the imminent danger of nuclear proliferation amongst rogue states.

Tory members want George Osborne to prioritise extra defence spending

65% of the 1,519 Conservative Party members who took part in the April survey of ConservativeHome readers said that defence was deserving of a higher proportion of public spending.  In contrast only 30% want education and 22% wanted health to receive a bigger share of public funding.  Shadow Defence Secretary Liam Fox welcomed the findings:

"This is entirely in line with the Conservative instinct that defence of our people must be the number one priority for government.  It's also true that the current Government doesn't understand that."

We also gave respondents the opportunity to identify other areas where government spending might be increased.  Housing and border security were the most frequently mentioned additional causes.  Other causes included: support for the family, prison-building, investment in renewable and nuclear energy, fairness for rural Britain and international emergency disaster relief.

Shadow Chancellor George Osborne recently announced a tough process for confirming any increases in public spending.  At the beginning of March he made it clear that "no policy proposals with implications for public spending are Conservative Party policy until they have been approved by me and by David Cameron, passed by the Shadow Cabinet, and appear in our draft manifesto."

Fox: Our sailors should never have been captured in the first place

In an article for today's Telegraph, Shadow Defence Secretary Liam Fox reviews the whole saga of the capture of the fifteen Royal Navy sailors.  He ends by making what (I think) are his strongest criticisms of the fact that, for the second time, Iran was able to kidnap British military personnel:

"The Revolutionary Guards should not have been allowed to capture our personnel, and the fact that this happened for the second time in three years presents an even greater cause for concern. The sailors and Marines were simply outnumbered and outgunned: this situation is one that the Government must explain. It showed an inability to learn from the previous incident in 2004, and that is why we are calling for an official inquiry."

Dr Fox also presses the point that William Hague started to make yesterday that Downing Street must have known something about this sorry episode:

"It is also unbelievable that the Defence Secretary did not have contact with the Prime Minister or Number 10 until Monday, and that the PM was aware of the decision on Sunday, but did not seek to intervene. Can it really be the case that the Defence Secretary was not in touch with any officials from Number 10 before Monday?"

For Dr Fox the Government's whole approach to the armed forces is in tatters.  He mentions massive overstretch, poor strategic planning of operations and inadequate care of service personnel and their families.  He concludes:

"This whole sorry saga exposes the worst characteristics of this Labour Government. The fact that the incident happened in the first place exposes its unwillingness to learn from its mistakes and its enormous complacency in the way in which it decides how our forces are deployed. The media focus once again exposes its obsession with headlines, its inability to look ahead and its total insensitivity to the Armed Forces.  Britain's Armed Forces have a deserved reputation for being the best in the world. This reputation is earned through their values of dignity and duty, and loyalty to the elected government of the day. Labour doesn't understand this - our country needs a government that does."

Dr Fox has handled this whole business very well.  Unlike Des Browne he immediately knew that the sale of the sailors' stories was wrong (as ConservativeHome reported early on Easter Sunday).  But the whole Conservative effort has been good.  Former Defence Secretaries Michael Heseltine, Malcolm Rifkind and Michael Portillo have all lined up to expose the Government's manifest failings on this issue.  It's been the Opposition working at its best.  The crucial next stage of the operation will come on Monday when the Defence Secretary stands before MPs and answers the questions that Dr Fox and others have raised.  If he fails to answer them adequately that will be the time to call for him to go.  The international standing of the British military probably needs nothing less.

Cameron: Labour has put PR before long-term health of Britain's armed forces

David Cameron has, this afternoon, responded to Defence Secretary Des Browne's admission that he made the wrong judgment call on the Navy 15 being allowed to sell their stories to the press:

“Our Armed forces need a Government that understands the military and understands the importance of maintaining respect and dignity and I don’t think we have got that in the Government today.  The events surrounding the taking of our Service personnel hostage in Iran has been handled shambolically and I think that there are two things that need to happen: We need to learn all the lessons of what went wrong, we need the equivalent of a Board of Inquiry, a full MoD inquiry that is then made public, so we can learn the lessons of what went wrong and make sure that it doesn’t happen again.  Secondly, we need a full explanation of the calamitous decision Ministers made when they encouraged Service personnel to sell their stories to the media. This was a dreadful decision and there are still further questions that need to be answered. Des Browne himself said that this was an important decision, if that’s the case why didn’t he consult more widely? When did he consult Downing Street? When was the PM told? And what involvement did the PM have in the decision? We still need a full and proper explanation.  The Government has put headlines and good PR ahead of the long term good of the Armed Forces and the nation.  There is a pattern of the Government behaving in this way. They have done huge damage to Parliament. They have done damage to the independence of the civil service. Now they are in danger of damaging the reputation of the Armed Forces.”