The Defence Secretary yesterday was unable to tell an interviewer how many frigates he has in the Royal Navy. After embarrassing stumbles he said there are 17 frigates and destroyers combined. The Wikipedia answer is to list 7 named frigates and 6 destroyers.
You would have thought he would know these figures as he should have been puzzling for the last month on how to find one destroyer for Cyprus and a destroyer or frigate to lead a NATO exercise. Surely he asked how many there were and asked why they could only free one when he needed two. You would expect he had enough interest in his 13 main surface vessels plus the two aircraft carriers to have talked to officials long before about where they were and what they were doing.
I have asked before how come only one of our fifteen main surface ships could put to sea, and that after a delay. I have had people respond defending the idea that most of the ships most of the time should be undergoing maintenance at home. I disagree. More must be available and more should be on missions flying the flag and offering reassurance to our allies and bases abroad by turning up.
This government has withdrawn the last mineseeker from the Middle East. It decommissioned a frigate stationed in Bahrain shortly before the Iran war. It failed to supervise the maintenance and deployment of ships , allowing too many to undergo leisurely repair. The Defence Secretary has failed comprehensively.
The UK gets far too little force for its substantial spend. The MOD whilst pressing for a bigger budget needs to get a lot sharper at buying equipment, and needs to sort out the excessive numbers of senior officers relative to the numbers of troops and sailors.
March 27, 2026
It sounds pretty shambolic at the MOD. I wonder how it compares to other Ministries? My guess is that most others are just as poorly performing, as evidenced by our daily inyerraction with transport, health etc. MOD’s failures get more prominence in time of war.
So. how many admirals and sailors do we need to run our one working ship? How many bureaucrats to stand behind them? Similar questions need raising about the other armed services, and every other public service.
March 27, 2026
The lack of conflict readiness of our naval forces is only exceeded by our lack of ministerial awareness of just how unprepared we are.
To compound that lack of awareness with a complete ministerial lack of detailed knowledge, tells us they do not regard ministerial responsibility seriously enough. Do they ever study their brief?
It is just not good enough.