Douglas Carswell's Blog

Radical change at MoD? Let's hope so

Apparently Liam Fox, Defence Secretary, is to announce "some quite radical changes" at the Ministry of Defence tomorrow.

Let's hope so.

At the moment, MoD manages to spend what money there is for defence on buying kit that it suits various defence contractors to supply - rather than what our armed forces necessarily need.  See here and here and here for various examples.    

Defence protectionism is not simply unfair on the taxpayer.  It's bad news for our armed forces, who get less kit, when they need it.  Defence protectionism ultimately means that whatever financial and economic muscle we do still have as a nation is not efficiently converted into military punch.

If we are to arrest our relative - and absolute - decline as a military power, let's hope that Liam takes on the vested interests and their protectionist defence procurement.  We need choice, transparency and competition when it comes to spending our defence budget.

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