Moved today to a volte-face I once would not have thought possible, certainly not likely.
That is, given the present & considerable uncertainty in world affairs, the UK, as one of the rich countries, should do its bit and continue to spend at least 2% of our GDP on defence, rather than letting it drift down. We cannot expect to rely for ever on the US and their 4% spend, not least because they might start to get hot & bothered by our free-loading, and we would not want to have to rely on those other big spenders of the free world, the ones in the Arabian Gulf, not least Saudi Arabia.
But old comrades of the CND can rest easy that I am not going to do a volte-face on their front. While I do not think it the big moral issue it was in the 1950s and 1960s, I also do not think that our semi-independent deterrent - perhaps it would be better called our dependent deterrent - is worth what it costs us. And think of all the net votes in Scotland to be had if we were to close down Faslane - net, that is, because I dare say all the locals who work there are all for keeping it going.
I ponder about the rather low spend of the Germans. All a bit tricky, so maybe simpler if they just make an outsize contribution to the problems of the Greeks and such like.
All this may have been brought on by a sudden attack of DIY, during which I discovered a very expensive and rather odd masonry filler from Sandtex. £8 or so for a less than half pint pot of a strange white, granular stuff with a very odd texture. Quite hard to apply but it seems to dry out OK. We shall see how it does in the weeks and months to come.
As it happened, we passed the navy on the M3 the other day. It, that is to say four rigid inflatables of the sort favoured by the RNLI, had been loaded up onto low loaders and were heading east in convoy. Perhaps they were ordered to Windsor for guard ship duty on the Thames? Or perhaps there was to be a review by Her Majesty, a faint echo of the Spithead Review of 1953, when we could muster hundreds of ships?
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