I was fortunate to meet and brief the excellent Tom King when he was Secretary of State for Defence in 1990, shortly before the Gulf War. Since then I have met a further five of the incumbents in briefings about military operations. Their approach was very much dependent on their background. For example, I remember when we told Geoff Hoon that we had removed one of the options in the response to 9/11, but he replied: “Leave it in, I am a lawyer and I will decide…”.
We have been very fortunate with Ben Wallace, who has represented the Armed Forces very well in his four years at the helm. However, it has to be said that despite the war in Ukraine, it has been a woeful period of decline that has seen the Army decimated by financial cuts and embarrassed by the Government’s humiliating withdrawal from Afghanistan. Britain’s allies and adversaries have watched as Defence capability that was originally funded in support of British Foreign Policy has been misused for domestic issues (pandemic assistance, ceremonial parades, flood relief, etc.), while operational standards have declined dramatically.
So what is the big issue for The Right Honourable Grant Shapps? In a word…Money. It is unprecedented that both the Head of the Army and the Secretary of Defence resigned because the Treasury squeezed the budget with their technique of “divide and rule” between the three Services. I suspect the new Defence Secretary has been placed in the MoD for one purpose and it is not to fight for the Armed Forces funding, but no doubt we will see when the results of the next Planning Round are announced.
One of the best ever Defence Secretaries in Cyprus before the Gulf War
Rupert Wieloch 