At last we faced the first real battle between the Conservative/LibDem coalition and Her Majesty's Opposition in the House of Commons today as the government announced the results of the Strategic Defence Review. This offered the opposition some ammunition (OK, bad pun) with which to hit the nervous government.
In the blue corner we had wealthy, dashing, confident, former Etonian and current Premier - Blue Dave. And opposite, the young and self appointed 'new generation' of leader for the opposition - Red Ed...in the - errrrr - red corner.
Round one started. Standing at the dispatch box, immaculately dressed, an erudite and confident Prime Minister stared (or maybe even glared) at the Labour front bench which, in true leftist fashion, looked collectively nervous (all animals are made equal but Red Ed was wishing he was Snowball and not Napoleon at this point). They expected a high tempo opening round and they got it. Blue Dave laid into what he regards as Labour mismanagement in both the economy and defence spending. He sounded exasperated as he spoke of the £38 billion defence spending deficit left by the previous government. A good start Mr Prime Minister - pre-emptive action ahead of hard announcements - nice uppercut.
He emphasized the continuing commitment to our troops in Afghanistan, stressing that no cuts - only minutes away from being announced - would affect our forces in Afghanistan as they are funded separately by the Treasury's special reserve. Another sound jab in the face of opposition benches - our boys/girls have been ring fenced. How could Red Ed object to this? Another round to the ConLibCo
And then a swift combination - Britain would still meet its NATO spending commitment of 2% of GDP (something our European partners are falling well short of) and maintain the fourth largest military machine in the world, still able to punch above our weight... ouch! A stumble from the opposition - knees almost buckle. A standing count but Red Ed may still have a say to save face - he looked around...where was his brother when he needed him?
The middle of the fight saw a change - Blue Dave spent most of the time punching and missing, dropping disappointment after (not wholly unexpected) disappointment - scrap the Harrier fleet, cancel the Nimrod spy plane, reduce by 17,000 the number in forces personnel.
He dodged a possible right hook when Trident surfaced(!) announcing a reduction in size of the much talked of replacement nuclear deterrent and more importantly delayed the decision until after the next election (very canny - yes at last Yellow/Blue Nick could smile because a unilateral nuclear strike meant he had saved face - how ironic).
He rallied in later rounds - 25,000 MOD civil servant posts to be axed (the previous government had allowed the numbers to rise to more than the number of Naval and RAF personnel combined) - bang! The procurement of a fleet of hunter killer Astute class submarines would go ahead as would the completion of the six Type 45 destroyers - wallop!
Then the strangest announcement to be made - the building of two aircraft carriers would still go ahead because contracts had already been signed by the previous incumbents. It would - stressed Blue Dave trying hard to punch his way out of the corner - be more expensive to cancel them than to continue with the order! Now, I'm no boxing coach but it seems to me that investing in a boxing gym because my predecessor had committed to it, even though I don't want it, seems strange. What about the running costs Blue Dave? What about the fact that the gym could be doing nothing for years because there is no equipment (ie aircraft) for it? The Americans would no doubt have called this collateral budget damage.
He went back to the ropes, ready for the onslaught. Red Ed moved forward, scratched, shuffled papers, avoided eye contact with his opposite number and.........missed a jab- then an uppercut - a right hook - he tripped - he fell onto the ropes - Red Ed floundered. As he stuttered/paused/restarted/contradicted/mixed words/stumbled over words/searched for words/gasped for words (lost for words), his front bench colleagues could barely disguise their look of horror. An opportunity missed, a chance to assert some credibility after a drawn out and hugely damaging leadership contest which saw - with the luck of a union sucker punch - the favourite and heavy weight contender - Purple (with rage) David - knocked out by his lightweight brother Red Ed.
Huge spending cuts are on their way - fact. Most of them are necessary but in times of austerity it is vital to have a strong opposition ready and capable of challenging and questioning at every opportunity. They must make sure every cut is examined in the tiniest detail. The ConLibCo must not be given an easy ride.
On today's performance the current opposition - the leader in particular - is not yet ready for this battle. How long before Red Ed's team throw his towel in for him and go in search for their hiding heavyweight - still the first choice of the Parliamentary Labour Party as well as Labour's rank and file members?
I will be posting more specifically on the Strategic Defence and Security Review soon.
Ecrivain Man
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