Government announces downgrade of defence spending

Ahead of tomorrow's spending review the UK government has announced a major cutback in defence spending with a number of large projects impacted and the UK Ministry of Defence under serious pressure. While the suggested cutbacks are perhaps not as large as the press had indicated earlier this week and last week there is no doubt that the government sees defence spending in the future as being more focused upon certain areas as opposed to the Ministry of Defence as a whole.

It is only now becoming clear how many jobs and how many industries actually depend upon the UK defence sector with a number of job losses likely across the UK. There was also the surprising revelation, when a senior minister left classified information laying on the backseat of his ministerial car, but up to 490,000 public sector jobs could be lost in the short to medium term. The UK government will attempt to pass the buck to the previous Labour Party government and the Labour Party will attack each and every spending cut announced tomorrow.

The truth of the matter probably lays somewhere between the two accounts but the truth is that the UK economy is struggling, the government needs to rein in spending immediately and no area of the public sector is wholly immune.