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Defence Policy

Indeed, and I do not think that there is any doubt that the Opposition Front-Bench team lacks expert understanding, but then again the Opposition have to make to do with what they have got. We must try to ensure that the trust between senior officers and elected representatives is not broken by the type of partisan behaviour that we have seen. There is already the difficulty that senior officers, particularly in the Army, are socially unrepresentative. The latest figures that the National Audit Office has given me show that nine out of 10 come from private schools, which is clearly socially unrepresentative of the country as a whole. It is bad enough to believe that they have Conservative sympathies without their coming out in such a partisan and sectarian fashion. As Members might have expected, I shall deal now with aircraft carriers. The confusion about how the matter is to be proceeded with was summed up well by the Liberal spokesman, who managed, not untypically, to have two contradictory positions at the same time: claiming to have the same viewpoint as the other two parties when in fact their viewpoints are clearly different. The Liberals indicated, as I understood it, that they wanted to procure aircraft carriers, but that it would all be subject to review. That smacks a bit to me of wanting poverty, chastity and the pure life, but not yet. Given the importance of the aircraft carriers to the Rosyth base in a Liberal Member's constituency, I would have thought that the party could be much more unequivocal about its support for the aircraft carriers. As I understand it, the Conservatives have not made even as clear a statement as the Liberals about their desire to order the aircraft carriers. They would simply pass on the decision to a review—the weakest of all positions.