Alphen, Netherlands. 27 September. It is not often I am moved to write two blogs
in a day. And, I am afraid for those of
you not of an island persuasion this is one of those British moments of mine
when I really do sound like ‘Irritated of Alphen’. This is because I am ‘Irritated of Alphen’. The reason for my irritation is that I have
just finished reading the report of the House of Commons Public Accounts
Committee on Carrier Strike 2012. The
report reads for what it is; a politicized piece of nonsense from an
over-bearing and self-serving out-of-control politician who bangs on about the
cost of everything but understands the value of nothing - Margaret Hodge.
In characteristically bombastic style she
thundered; “When this programme got the green light in 2007, we were supposed
to get two aircraft carriers, available from 2016 and 2018, at a cost to the
taxpayer of £3.65 billion. We are now on course to spend £5.5 billion and have
no aircraft carrier capability for nearly a decade”.
Just for once Mrs Hodge please take the long, strategic
view and consider the British interest rather than the narrow electoral
ambitions of the Labour Party. Yes, the
carriers have cost more than planned but show me a major engineering project
that has not and does not. Yes, mistakes
have been made switching between the types of F-35 the carriers will carry –
that is what happens when programmes get politicised. Yes, Britain’s defence procurement system needs
sorting out. Yes, the aircraft planned
for the carriers might not be complete as yet and some other systems still need
to be perfected. However, these problems
will be overcome.
Equally, (and just for the record Mrs Hodge) HMS
Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales are the most advanced engineering
projects Britain has ever embarked upon.
Indeed, the cutting-edge way in which the Aircraft Carrier Alliance has approached
the project has generated engineering vision and skills vital to the future British
economy at a critical juncture. When
they are complete the very fact of them will force you politicians to think
strategically for once about Britain’s role in the world. Indeed, over the life of these two ships
their value will be proven to Britain, Europe, NATO and the wider world many
times over.
Look at the facts. By 2030 the world’s population will be well
over 9bn people compared with today’s 6bn.
50% of them will live in cities and over 80% will live 100kms or less from
the sea. The hyper-competition for
energy and life fundamentals that such pressures will generate allied to the
emergence of powerful but instable states will create all the conditions for
dangerous and violent instability.
For once Britain is ahead of the curve with the
future force it is beginning to build and the two aircraft carriers are central
to that. This is because the two ships
are not simply aircraft carriers, something the defence-strategic Neanderthals
who wrote the report clearly do not understand.
Rather, the ships will be powerful projectors of influence able to
prevent conflict upstream and deal with conflicts downstream from humanitarian
and rescue missions to outright national emergencies. They will be the centre-piece of a new
military central to British national strategy with a joint force credibly
influential across five 21st century domains – air, sea, land, cyber
and space.
Furthermore, the ‘QE’ and ‘PoW’ will provide
British leaders with the flexible discretion to intervene or not to intervene
until the very last moment a decision must be made. They will also act as a critical nexus between
land, sea and air operations and as such signal Britain’s strategic intent to
ally and adversary alike. Critically they
will help re-establish Britain’s strategic brand in the dangerous world ahead
and enable Britain and its partners to prevail in the conflicts to
come.
Clearly you do not understand that Mrs Hodge and like
so many of your colleagues who are meant to lead the rest of us you are putting your head in the strategic sand. Or, you simply believe Britain should
no longer aspire to such a role and you are using the report to create a very
different Britain - Little Britain. Indeed, it is precisely the
kind of narrow-minded, short-sighted, non-strategic thinking of which
the report reeks that has brought Britain low.
Were the rest of the committee asleep or has Margaret Hodge now
completely taken over?
HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS
Prince of Wales will afford Britain real strategic influence in their fifty year service
lives in a world full of friction. The
report of the Public Accounts Committee does nothing to recognise such strategic value.
Would someone please sink HMS Margaret Hodge!
Would someone please sink HMS Margaret Hodge!
Julian Lindley-French
