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