MPs’ round-up
We mustn’t allow defence to slip under radar You don’t need me to remind you that the pandemic has inflicted the greatest economic contraction on the UK in three centuries and the most severe curtailment of liberties in our history. It has eclipsed all else. And before the pandemic, protests and direct action against the spectre of ecological oblivion through climate change was leading headlines around the world. With these two threats to our way of life uppermost in the thinking of governments and policy makers, there’s a deepening risk that the worsening global security situation is crouching below our collective radar. More than at any time since the end of the Cold War, our armed forces, along with our worldleading defence industry supporting them, need to be strengthened and placed at the nucleus of Government planning. On April 12 China launched its largest recorded incursion
Somerton & Frome MP David Warburton into Taiwan’s airspace, penetrating the perimeter of the island nation’s Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) with 25 military aircraft. There is increasing fear in Taiwan, viewed by China as a renegade province, that China is preparing to invade the island nation. Recognising the military threat posed by China, Australia is spending $580 million on upgrading its northern military bases. There would be a moral duty for democracies around
the world, and particularly on the United States, to come to Taiwan’s aid if an invasion is launched. Between late March and early April, Russia amassed over 100,000 troops with convoys of tanks and armoured fighting vehicles on the border with Ukraine. Putin has form when it comes to igniting external conflicts to distract from domestic failures, and the pandemic’s damage to the Russian economy may precipitate a conflict with Ukraine or, perhaps of greater geopolitical concern, the Baltic States. Having ascended to NATO in 2004, an attack on the Baltic States would result in the invocation of NATO’s article 5 and conflict between Russia and the West, including the UK. These two situations alone show not only that we must be prepared but recognise the importance of our defence sector and the role it plays in training engineers and
scientists whose skills are harnessed elsewhere in the economy. Here in Somerset, Thales sits, nestled in Templecombe, and now home to a vast Maritime and Air Operations business. The site houses over 750 highly skilled employees, inventing, developing and delivering technology to customers around the world. With 24 engineering and manufacturing apprentices, the site adds £210 million to our local GDP, supporting 3,600 jobs directly, indirectly and through the supply chain. Our defence sector, and companies such as Thales, are a shot in the arm for our local economy. And, politically, the defence sector can play a central role in the Government’s levelling up agenda. While our attention is diverted elsewhere, it’s rather important to know that many have their sights on a wider, and equally critical perspective.
particularly in under-vaccinated communities. Fortunately, ours is not one of those – our jab rates are high. The answer to the experts’ concerns is to jab more rather than lock down. Countries have reacted similarly to the crisis and will be watching each other for how to respond. Given the desperate unintended consequences we’re only now fully appreciating, I hope we don’t accept lockdowns as the automatic go-to intervention at the first sniff of a virus. The historian Niall Ferguson has recently published Doom, which takes a historical approach to modern catastrophes. He notes the death toll of spring 2020, which, while awful, was lower than the winters of 1969-70, 1975-76 and 1989-90. During those we had no quarantines and lockdowns, or even hands, face,
space messaging. Like England’s Chief Medical Officer, I have been comparing deaths from smoking and covid. 90,000 die each year from tobacco – a huge burden on the NHS, but we tolerate these awful, wholly avoidable, deaths or there would surely have been a ban in the 1950s when the dire consequences of smoking became apparent. Variants are a feature of viruses. Always have been. But our remarkably successful vaccination programme,– the fact the NHS plainly won’t be overwhelmed and the penalty of pandemic restrictions, including the impact on mental health, mean I will need a shedload of evidence before supporting divergence from the government’s timetable for the easing of lockdown. In my view, 21 June must stand.
We have to stick to June 21 freedom date
The G7 summit in Cornwall this weekend will be an opportunity for President Biden to explain his welcome assertion ‘America is back.’ I hope it means a clear break with his predecessor’s ‘America First’ isolationism. I’m looking for leadership on green issues, getting people vaccinated and progress on fairly taxing big corporations and digital services providers. Here’s hoping. n On June 14 ministers will make a final decision on their planned lifting of remaining covid restrictions a week later. Various experts have been urging caution. No surprise there. But away from their data and dashboards, in real life we have had days recently in which more people will have lost their lives in road traffic accidents than from or with covid. Nevertheless, countries such as 60
MP for South West Wiltshire Dr Andrew Murrison Portugal with similarly low death rates have been put on the amber list and we are told June 21 ‘hangs in the balance’. Experts’ main concern is the Indian or Delta variant and its effects as a consequence of becoming the dominant variant,
