‘Global Britain’ Is Too Big for the UK’s Defense Britches
Tories have failed on their security strong suit, and the mess will be hard to fix.
Ready the troops?
Photographer: WPA Pool/Getty Images Europe (2024)
This is part of a series on what 14 years of Tory rule have delivered for Britain’s economy, society and standing in the world. The challenges awaiting the next government are numerous.
While still in the wilderness of political opposition back in 2005, Conservative Party shadow defense secretary Nicholas Soames painted a dire picture of all the ways in which Britain’s Labour government was selling out the armed forces that once bestrode the world, leaving them undermanned, underequipped and vastly overstretched. “The list is endless, it is shameful,’’ Winston Churchill’s grandson told the Royal United Services Institute, the world’s oldest security think tank, known as RUSI.