Though the leading parties have pledged in the last hours of the election campaign more spending on defence, the armed services are facing a different reality. They have been asked to look at ‘efficiency savings’ of up to £1 billion in the current year – cuts in other words.
“It takes up to two years at least to bring in such measures,” says Francis Tusa, the respected independent analyst and publisher of Defence Analysis. “If you bring in such a tight deadline, it’s just a bank robbery.”
