Tying up a loose end from last week

Whilst spending far too long going on about the incompetence of the police in Bournemouth last week, I forgot to mention one of the more interesting Tory speeches - a fringe effort by Shadow Defence Secretary Dr Liam Fox.
"Foxy", as some like to call him, was Hal Berstram's preferred candidate for the Tory leadership last year, running on the basis of a fiercely nationalistic, indeed borderline reactionary, programme (his speech to the 2005 conference was a breastbeating classic, still available here.)
Sadly Liam did not make the cut, and Dave Cameron has taken the boys and girls in blue in a very different direction, retaining only vestiges of Foxian flagwaving (for example, pulling the Tory MEPs out of the centre-right grouping at Strasbourg.)

But with the defence brief, Foxy is able to continue to wrap himself in the Union Jack. This virtually guarantees a commitment to waste £25 billion (or whatever it is) on the replacement for Trident - although he's doing nothing more than copying Labour in saying that.

But the good Doctor's warnings about Russia are more interesting, and if accurate, highlight some rather disturbing facts about the world's second most powerful capitalist quasi-dictatorship (after the US of course). A 25% increase in defence spending in one year is pretty heavy stuff (unless, of course, inflation is running at 25% and it's measured in nominal terms - I must have a look at the data on that), and it sounds like the Russians are ordering more nukes with some of that money.

Of course, Russian military spending is still dwarfed by the US; and the idea that a firm commitment by Britain to replace Trident, or not, will make a difference to this is laughable. But Fox is right to highlight the fact that the Russian military build-up has gone almost unnoticed by the Western media. And the continuing interest of the gigantic Gazprom corporation in buying UK gas operators like Centrica and British Gas may mean that the Russian invasion arrives in a somewhat less direct manner than Liam is warning of.

In the meantime, Hal Berstram working of a remake of the Hendrix classic "Foxy Lady" using excerpts from some of Dr Fox's best speeches interspersed with a narrative about his impending sex change. And there may be a bit of Natalie Imbruglia in there as well - although that's very old news now. Actually I'm probably more likely to model the new version on The Cure's cover of Foxy Lady on Three Imaginary Boys - always liked the idea of a cover of a cover...