Bungling and inept

In 2004 Gordon Brown, as chancellor, vetoed the purchase of additional Chinook helicopters for Afghanistan. In 2013, if we are still involved there, we shall have the aircraft available. So 12 years after entering Afghanistan we shall have the helicopters for which the military have been calling for six or seven years already. (If I were a relative of a serving solider in Iraq or in Afghanistan, especially if he or she had been killed there, I would be very angry.)

We shall have them, but at a cost. The cost is reductions in military capability elsewhere. We have been trying to fight long and expensive wars from essentially a peace-time budget, and plundering other aspects of the MOD budget to pay the costs of war.

We shall have two new aircraft carriers in due course, with delay and postponement putting up the cost from ££4.09 billion to £5.13 billion. Whether we shall be able to afford aircraft for them is another matter - Harriers are being withdrawn and sold, in order to save money. Even the extra £150 million to protect our troops from IEDs will require penny inching elsewhere.

The MOD has a black hole of £36 billion in its equipment budget, partly from bungling and errors, and also from the aim to finance two wars from annual budgets and nothing extra.

Despite Brown's regular visits and prancing about, the military have never been a priority of Labour, except to save jobs. Blair used them for his own purposes, but never arranged sufficient preparation or finance.