In the news today is the UK’s £105m contribution to the £841 million new NATO building in Brussels.
John Glen, the Conservative MP for Salisbury and a member of the House of Commons defence select committee, expressed “frustration” at the spending of hundreds of millions of pounds on a building while British armed forces faced severe reductions.
“I find it very difficult to square news of this expenditure alongside the painful cuts that the MOD has had to bear,” he said. “I would urge Liam Fox, the Secretary of State, to work with other defence ministers across Nato to reduce the burden on the exchequer. We cannot afford it.”
The problem with moaning about this is we are a founding member of NATO and however much the facilities may or may not be overblown, luxurious and wholly inappropriate in times of budgetary restraint, it is very difficult to actually do anything about it.
Of course the MoD can’t be too critical can it, it has form in this area as we all know.
It’s a cheap shot but too good not to fire, wonder what chairs they will be having in the new building?
Another ‘GUCCI’ building for the chattering classes , whats wrong with an industrial unit on the outskirts of BRUSSELS .Im just moving to a new police station in LONDON on an industrial estate save money boys .
Remind me how many countries in NATO ? 28 I think ? So 841 divided by 28 is just over 30 million each.
Now I admit that Albania might find that difficult, but how are we paying anymore than 50 million towards this ?
Is this from FCO budget ? Surely its not from Defence ??
Surely it’s all about defence diplomacy, if NATO has a sexy modern building then China and Russia will have to continue to accept that they are clearly second class, because everyone knows 5th gen fighter programmes and anti-ship ballistic missiles mean bugger all. In the sexy building stakes, all that China has come up with is a building with an aircraft carrier in concrete on the roof, talk about lame compared to a bunch of glowing humps!