Following the planned cut of 10,000 troops the British armed forces will be smaller than they have been for hundreds of years. We will have 72,000 troops. Not enough to fill Wembley stadium. The former chief of the defence staff Lord Richards reckons we will now be unable to take back the Falklands. Frankly, we will be lucky to be able to take back the Isle of Man. Resources will be diverted away from people with guns—and the will and skill to fire them—to cyber warfare. Just as well we have an X-Box generation who have honed their skills playing Call of Duty. If the enemy invade, we can throw our games consoles at them.
I declare a vested interest here. Three of my children have served in the armed forces and one still does. My son-in-law and future son-in-law are both serving soldiers and my brother-in-law and I have both served. Of these seven people, five have served in war zones. Reducing the opportunity for young people to join our armed forces is a tragedy for them and a huge loss to the country. Of course, the armed forces are not cheap, but we seem willing to throw our tax monies at a swathe of useless and virtue-signalling initiatives that give us nothing in return when the armed forces give us so much back. At one level, the armed forces create employment and wealth, not only for those serving but for the communities where they live. Which small shop, supermarket or pub would not like to have a military barracks on its doorstep?
The armed forces do not just recruit anyone. They recruit fit, clever and motivated people. Many had a driving ambition to serve but others were clueless about their futures and, seeing the opportunities offered by the armed forces, joined to make themselves a better life. We tend to hear about the disasters, the drunk and the homeless tragedies after military service. These are people deserving the best care we can offer. But the truth is that thousands of people leave military service with more skills than they entered, they have a sense of self and national pride and self-discipline that is lacking in many who have not served. They leave the army and take up skilled and professional occupations and make a substantial contribution to society, not the least of which is paying their taxes.
The British armed forces are about much more than fighting wars. Our forces participate in peace keeping, humanitarian work and domestic non-military duties such as helping with vaccination programmes and logistics. Our armed forces defend us against real threats to the whole population and bring us considerable social capital for approximately £40 billion annually. But we have thrown hundreds of billions of pounds this past year into an economic lockdown aimed at defending ourselves against a virus that most of us will never become infected with and which will leave us impoverished, demoralised and living in fear. If Remembrance Sunday is not abolished in some mad wave of political correctness then, in the years ahead we will not only be remembering the dead, we will be remembering the days when we actually had armed forces.
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