Mark Roberts ری ٹویٹ کیا
As a young man I retained a sense that Britain was run by grown-ups, politicians and civil servants capable of making tough choices when required.
I cannot believe they would, for instance, have allowed the situation we are now in, where a malevolent regime like the Iranian mullahs might have ballistic missiles capable of striking the UK, which we cannot shoot down.
This has been coming for years, and yet - for reasons of cost or strategic neglect - Britain has no missile shield. The technology exists and several other Western nations are developing or deploying it. We have fallen behind in the most basic, profound and existential sense.
Time was when such an epiphany would’ve resulted in drastic action. But there is absolutely no sense that our current crop of Labour MPs grasp what’s at stake.
Many of us are resigned to managed decline. But this is something worse. In years to come we risk growing ever more vulnerable to hostile powers who wish us harm, and have the wherewithal to visit death at will to almost any part of our once impregnable island.
The situation is not irremediable. The money could be found. Hard choices could be made which wouldn’t further drain the country of brains, talent and ambition. But our current Government will pass the chalice and waste years in the process.
This goes way beyond party political point-scoring, because this is a failure that is a stain on our entire leadership class.
Some will say nothing has changed: the Soviets threatened us with nuclear annihilation for decades. True. But they cleaved to a grim logic of deterrence.
The world we are entering is one where truly rogue actors, who don’t care if we respond in kind, may already be capable of destroying the village, town or city where you and yours live. This is new. And our children will reap the whirlwind of our indolence and indecision.
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