October 27, 2009
Can’t cut…won’t cut?
Gordon Brown has u-turned on his decision to cut £20 million (already downgraded to £17.5m) from the Territorial Army budget. This follows pressure from David Cameron in last week’s question time, and a threatened revolt from Labour backbenchers including former Defence Minister John Reid.
We keep being told by the Tories that cuts must come as soon as possible, and by Labour that cuts will have to come, but not yet. (I tend to agree with the analysis laid out [over many posts] by Giles at FreeThinkingEconomist: that cuts will need to be made, but making them before Britain has moved into a period of growth (a-la-Tory rhetoric) will likely plunge us into deep recession. Until then, the credit markets can wait).
Yet when it comes to actually making these spending cuts, the will of the government evaporates as the other side makes political hay. But if we can’t cut the budget for civies playing soldiers at the weekend, then what on Earth can we cut? This surely has to be one of the easiest cuts to make in all public spending.
Perhaps I’m missing something. Perhaps the TA is essential to Britain’s functioning and wellbeing. Perhaps the sky will fall down if it doesn’t get £20 million a year.
But if this is the way government acts when it comes to making the public chop, perhaps the left’s (and Giles’) fears about a pre-mature-cuts-induced Torygeddon Econodisaster are unfounded.
Though it’s out of the frying pan, into the fire, right? Cuts will have to come one day: but if not the TA, then what?
David said,
October 28, 2009 at 2:16 am
Given the controversy recently about whether the army receives enough support and whether it’s too overstretched, I can see a clear political reason why this is a policy no-one wants to be associated with it.
On a level of more detail, I must confess I don’t really know enough to judge one way or the other how a cut in the training budget would affect the Army.
Peter said,
October 28, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Erm … you do know that the TA do combat operations, right? That they don’t just crawl round in woods in the UK. Kinda necessary to be trained properly if you’re going to be shot at in Afghanistan!
Paul Sagar said,
October 28, 2009 at 12:17 pm
They don’t do combat operations, they do supporting roles in conflict zones. Yes, there’s danger, but the TA don’t do frontline fighting. And not all TA do this, only the ones who volunteer.
And the justification for the cut was…to channel more money to the regular army in Afghanistan.