Unlawful killing - tacky debating

“To send soldiers into a combat zone without basic equipment is unforgivable, inexcusable, and a breach of trust between the soldiers and those who govern them.”

That was the verdict of a coroner on the death of Captain James Philippson, 29, of 7 Parachute Regiment Royal Horse Artillery who was shot dead during a firefight with the Taliban near Sangin in Helmand Province, southern Afghanistan, in June 2006.

“They (the soldiers),” the coroner went on, were defeated not by the terrorists but by the lack of basic equipment.”
 
The verdict: unlawful killing.

Enflilading fire came from Philippson’s father, aimed with sniper-like accuracy right at the heart of Gordon Brown. The defence ministry was “starved” of cash by Brown, Philippson father claimed – Brown was responsible for his son’s death.

Of course, no soldier in history has ever got all the kit he (or she wants) – and that was as true under the Conservatives as under Labour. Yet there is a difference.

Whenever defence spending is raised in parliament, government flunkies take aim at the Tories, claiming they were the ones who really bombed defence spending into oblivion in the mid-90s – and this mantra is now often marched out by assorted commentators due to the failure of Tory spokesman to make the counter argument.

Nice Year 12 debating point, guys, but doesn’t quite hit the target.

During the permafrost of the Cold War, with the Soviets on the rampage, the Thatcher government raised defence spending in 1986 close to 4% of GDP – for which she was hammered by the Labour opposition, of which Blair and Brown were by then leading figures.

UK defence spending did not really begin tumbling until well after the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the first Gulf War. By 1997, a time of limited perceived global threats, the “peace dividend” meant a drop to 2.8% of GDP.

Since 1997 we have had Kosovo, Sierra Leone, Iraq, Afghanistan – oh, and of course Tony Blair. An almost unrivalled succession of “peace time” involvements.

Yet, despite a sustained rise in overall government spending, defence outlays as a percentage of GDP has fallen back to 2.5%.

So during the nuclear permafrost of the ‘80s, Blair and Brown’s party hammered the Tories for high defence spending. Now Labour’s excuse for cutting spending during a period of very real threat is that the Tories cut it when things were quiet on all fronts.

I guess that’s politics. But it ain’t pretty - and it won’t be much help to future Captain Philippson’s out there in the wilds of Sangin.  

Phillip Oppenheim