Why fleet street can no longer mount an effective campaign against defence cuts.(Media Studies)

Publication: Spectator

Publication Date: 31-JUL-04

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COPYRIGHT 2004 The Spectator Ltd. (UK)

Last week the government made one of the most momentous announcements of this Parliament. Geoff Hoon, the Secretary of State for Defence, unveiled unprecedentedly swingeing defence cuts. Nearly a quarter of the RAF is to be axed. The navy will lose 5,000 men and 15 vessels. The army will have to give up a quarter of its main battle tanks. Four out of 40 infantry battalions will go by April 2008, and several regiments will be merged. Overall the armed forces will be reduced by a tenth as a reward for having performed so creditably in the second Iraq war.

In former times such an announcement would have set off a political explosion, and Mr Hoon, who is a very undistinguished man, would have been hard-pressed to defend himself. As it was, the armed forces were literally decimated without either the opposition or the press raising much more than a grumble. Twenty years ago the Tory backbenches were brimming with MPs who knew about defence, and had not infrequently served in the forces. When the Thatcher government announced cuts to...

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