Robert Lyman
Six months after its publication in June, the consensus is that it was half-baked at best. It’s easy to dismiss it as a piece of political theatre designed to burnish the Labour government’s wafer-thin defence credentials. A better conclusion is that it forms the recipe for action, rather than being the fully baked product. The document articulated a sensible direction of travel, but it was published – and remains – advice rather than policy – more aspiration than action.
For it to be useful as policy, it requires government determination to do things and government money to make these things happen. We haven’t seen much of either since June, apart from some superficial reordering of business. There might be something in the Defence Investment Plan to be announced early in 2026, but on past experience, I doubt it. The UK is skint, and a colour-coded pipeline of new opportunities is going to be a new lipstick on an old pig.
No comments:
Post a Comment