Politics: What’s Up With Our Defence Minister?

Media headlines looked bleak on June 29 when Russia called the UK`s new Queen Elizabeth aircraft carrier a “convenient target” in what sounded like a Cold War-style piece of Vladimir Putin’s harrowing rhetoric. But the reality proved different as this statement was part of a ludicrous stand-off between the two countries’ defence ministers slagging off each other’s vessel.

Mine is bigger than yours

Defence Secretary Michael Fallon called Russia’s sole aircraft carrier the Admiral Kuznetsov (left) an old and dilapidated “ship of shame” when it passed through the English channel en route to Syria in October.

The 26-year-old ship billowed thick smoke and is reportedly accompanied by a tug boat wherever it sails in case it breaks down.

Russian military engineering is renowned as ramshackle but effective. At the 1943 Battle of Kursk Hitler’s German tank force of meticulously-made Tiger tanks was swamped by the Russian T-34 tanks that could be “botched together” really quickly.

Nevertheless the Admiral Kuznetsov was flawed before it even set sail in 1990 as apart from suffering regular breakdowns its pipes freeze in winter, cutting off water to its cabins and toilets.

When the new Queen Elizabeth carrier was launched from Rosyth in Scotland on June 26 the Defence Secretary said that “when you saw that old and dilapidated Kuznetsov sailing through the Channel a few months ago I think the Russians will look at this ship with a little bit of envy.”

Unsurprisingly his Russian counterpart Major General Igor Konashenkov was quick to respond. “The British aircraft carrier is nothing more than just a huge easy naval target,” he said. “The ecstatic statements of Michael Fallon about the exterior supremacy of the new aircraft carrier over Russia’s Admiral Kuztensov warship demonstrate his absolute ignorance of naval science.”

Should Fallon really be using his new £3.5 billion bath toy to taunt Russia with Cold War-style rhetoric? Only the recently-deceased Roger Moore was able to pull that off with any aplomb.

Just Keeping the British end up?

Before “Fallon, Mike Fallon” shows off his new vessel he should perhaps consider its own pitfalls inherited largely from the 2010 Strategic Defence Review by the then Defence Secretary, Liam Fox.

That review scrapped the highly successful Harrier aircraft so the UK now has no equivalent jets for its two new “aircraft carriers” until the delivery of the Lockheed-Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, which has been repeatedly delayed and will leave British forces dependent on the US-led development project with each plane estimated to cost $100 million (£77,010,000).

Much criticism has been directed at the ship’s reported Windows XP operating system, which would have been appropriate when it was designed in 2004 but is no longer safe against cyber attacks like the “WannaCry” virus that hit NHS systems last month.

But the Defence Secretary assures us that the system used aboard the vessel is entirely safe, which is reassuring given that a similar system is used by submarines carrying the Trident nuclear deterrent.

By Stewart Vickers @VickHellfire

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