This Is What Is Called A Debate

Did you all miss it?

Our glorious leaders have been debating the forthcoming Defence Review, it was nearly a month ago (21 June) but only just got round to a spot of analysis

Full transcript here or here

Good news, there was standing room only.

OK, perhaps a bit of an exaggeration, there were about 30 in attendance, lets call it 5%

5% neatly ties in to our last post on the subject of defence debates and giving a shit

Skip forward to 1 hour and 17 minutes for the start of the debate

Were all the Defence Select Committee in attendance?

Rt Hon James Arbuthnot MP (Chair)	North East Hampshire		Conservative
Mr Julian Brazier MP Spoke at the Strategic Defence and Security Review debate	Canterbury		Conservative
John Glen MP	Salisbury		Conservative
Mr Adam Holloway MP	Gravesham		Conservative
Bob Stewart MP Spoke at the Strategic Defence and Security Review debate	Beckenham		Conservative
Rt Hon Jeffrey M. Donaldson MP Spoke at the Strategic Defence and Security Review debate	Lagan Valley		Democratic Unionist
Mr David Hamilton MP	Midlothian		Labour
Mrs Madeleine Moon MP Spoke at the Strategic Defence and Security Review debate	Bridgend		Labour
Alison Seabeck MP Spoke at the Strategic Defence and Security Review debate	Plymouth, Moor View		Labour
Ms Gisela Stuart MP Spoke at the Strategic Defence and Security Review debate	Birmingham, Edgbaston		Labour
John Woodcock MP Spoke at the Strategic Defence and Security Review debate	Barrow and Furness		Labour / Co-operative
Mr Mike Hancock MP	Portsmouth South		Liberal Democrat

7 out of the 12 attended, all of the women and most of the Labour members.

Not even the Chairman bothered to show his face for what is the most important aspect of the defence area in many years.

If our politicians in general cannot be bothered, surely we have a right to expect those in the select committee to show an interest.

But what about the content, surely quality is more important than quantity?

Putting the 45 odd thousand words from the speech into a word cloud generator creates this.

Take out some of the obvious ones like hon and members and you can get a reasonable approximation of what the honourable members were talking about.

You will notice the word ‘constituency’ is quite prominent because quite a considerable amount of the debate was taken up by MP’s with defence related business in their constituency canvassing for that particular group. I suppose it is fair enough that an MP makes representation on behalf of his or her constituents, that is what they are there to do, but this debate was about the strategic direction of the UK’s defence and security.

Menzies Campbell made a pretty cuting remark that was absolutely spot on

Indeed. During earlier exchanges, the thought occurred to me that, if there were any Treasury Ministers looking in on the debate, they certainly were not getting any encouragement about a willingness on the part of anyone in any part of the House to give up any capability or programme, or any installation or base that happened to be in their constituency.

There were some good contributions but they were in the minority, despite the members habitually congratulating themselves on having a good debate and there were quite a few maiden speeches that were mostly, again, pleading for their constituency.

Bob Ainsworth attended and made an excellent contribution which confirms, at least to me, that he is a decent sort and despite having his hands tied whilst in Government, tried his best.

Jeffrey Donaldson also made an excellent contribution, I thought he was hugely impressive on the recent Question Time and I am glad that politicians from Northern Ireland are breaking out of parochial politics and making valuable contributions to the issues that face all of the United Kingdon

Here are a few snippets, I haven’t labelled them so you can judge the quality without having regard to the person, each paragraph from a different MP

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his new position. Ministry of Defence statistics show that since the previous strategic defence review there have been more than 10,000 defence job losses in Scotland and an under-spend of more than £5.6 billion. What consideration will be given in this SDSR to ensure a fair and balanced defence footprint throughout the nations and regions of the United Kingdom?

Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether the review will consider the international conventions used for the engagement of advanced technology? I am thinking particularly of drone planes. Does he believe that such planes are within international law when they are used for the targeted extra-judicial killings of suspected terrorists?

Does my hon. Friend agree that something that we should look at very carefully is the number of top brass? Indeed, the suggestion has been made that there are more admirals than there are vessels in the surface fleet.

It is important that we use our helicopters for what we need to use them, and not use them to ferry our top brass to other functions.

Here is something I thought was very encouraging.

I have consistently held the view that the defence budget is too small. To cut it now would be unthinkable. Education and health are vital, and it is right that they should be ring-fenced, but their importance will pale into insignificance if our way of life is threatened by terror or, even worse, if we find ourselves under the heel of a foreign power. The difficult question is, as always, estimating the level of the threat that we face, but we must always err on the side of caution and fear the worst. The justification for defence expenditure should be based primarily on necessity, rather than affordability. In conjunction with the strategic defence review, we must look at our foreign policy commitments, because we must decide what sort of country we want to be before we make up our mind on our strategic defence position. We could, for example, model ourselves on Belgium, Switzerland or Scandinavia, and send the message to the world that we do not intend to do anyone any harm, in the vain hope that they will not do us any.

Alternatively, we could growl fiercely at our would-be aggressors, declaring that if they give us a problem, we will sink our sharp teeth into them. One thing is clear: we would be unwise to flip between the two models. It is sensible not to be too aggressive, but Britain’s history, its place in the world, and our culture define us as a nation. For my part, I confess to feeling much more comfortable with an ability to bite potential invaders, as opposed to begging for forgiveness and pleading for mercy.

So whilst the attendance was shocking, some of the contributions irrelevant or plain ridiculous there were some gems to pick out,

I will let you search the text for the originator of this rather brilliant text but he ends with this…

In conclusion, the most important job for the coalition is not just delivering an effective strategic defence review, but paying for it.

Exactly

Tags: Houses of Parliament