英国国防准备大臣卢克·波拉德针对过去几周一系列负面报道，对记者表示不满。波拉德抨击“记者和扶手椅将军”诋毁英军，而此时正值防务争议和预算压力日益增加之际。
在经历了几十年的削减和延误后，英国军队被描述为受到严重削弱。工党高层批评政府在防务投资计划迟迟未发布的情况下，对防务资金问题表现出自满。
波拉德在接受BFBS采访时大呼，他“厌倦了记者和扶手椅将军们贬低我们的军队”。这对英国政府及其防务计划来说是备受打击的一周。据天空新闻报道，军事首长们被要求在今年节省数十亿英镑，并有建议称国防部应为“志愿联盟”倡议买单，而不是使用财政部储备金。
本周英国广播公司（BBC）也概述了英国军队的现状，记录了数十年来各届政府统治下的数据变化。此外，英国2025年《战略防务评论》的作者之一罗伯逊勋爵——他曾任工党国防大臣及北约秘书长——指责工党首相基尔·斯塔默在防务资金规划上存在“腐蚀性的自满”。相关的防务投资计划已拖延许久。
UK Minister for Defence Readiness Luke Pollard takes aim at journalists for negative press, amid a string of headlines in recent weeks.
Minister of State for Defence Readiness and Industry, Luke Pollard MP speaking at a UK Defence Industry Roundtable with Gulf Partners in March. Credit: UK MoD/Crown copyright
UK Minister for Defence Readiness blasts “journalists and armchair generals” as defence rows and budget pressures mount
UK forces are described as severely weakened after decades of cuts and delays
Senior Labour figures have accused the government of complacency on defence funding amid the long-delayed Defence Investment Plan
Rattled doesn’t even come close to it, listening to the words spoken by UK Minister for Defence Readiness Luke Pollard, who in an interview with BFBS exclaimed that he was “sick and tired of journalists and armchair generals talking down our military”.
It has been a bruising week for the UK Government and its defence plans, with reports from Sky News that military chiefs are being asked to come up with billions of pounds in savings this year and also suggestions that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) will pick the tab for the Coalition of the Willing initiative, rather than using Treasury reserve funds.
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The BBC this week also outlined the state of the UK military, charting the figures through decades and governments of all political positions.
Elsewhere, one of the authors of the UK’s own 2025 Strategic Defence Review, Lord Robertson, himself a former Labour Defence Minister and Secretary General of Nato, accused Labour Prime Minister Keir Starmer of “corrosive complacency” regarding defence funding planning, due to be published in the long-delayed Defence Investment Plan.
Naval Technology has also called the UK Government and Prime Minister Starmer out on the wording of defence-related statements in the House of Commons, that fail to accurately portray that the failures of military planning and funding spread across decades and governments of both the left and the right.
It appears the message has been given that UK ministers should go on the offensive, blaming journalists for doing their job in highlighting the myriad failures, without favour or prejudice, that governments of all persuasions have overseen while in office.
“I’m sick and tired of journalists and armchair generals talk down our military. We know that we have inherited an Armed Forces hollowed out by the last government,” said Pollard in the BFBS interview.
The facts: UK military at lowest ebb
What is without question is that the UK military is at its lowest ebb for generations, brought low by two decades worth of defence cuts, both in budget and real terms, as inflationary pressures and ballooning budgets in other government departm