英国国防就绪大臣卢克·波拉德针对近期媒体的一系列负面头条，向记者发起了猛烈回击。在接受英国军队广播服务（BFBS）采访时，波拉德表示，他对于媒体和“摇椅将军”持续贬低英国军事力量的行为感到“厌烦和疲惫”。
过去一周，英国政府及其国防计划面临巨大压力。据天空新闻报道，军事首脑被要求在今年内削减数十亿英镑的开支。此外，有消息称，国防部将承担“自愿联盟”倡议的费用，而不是动用财政部的储备资金。
英国广播公司（BBC）本周也概述了英国军队的现状，梳理了历届政府执政下的军事数据。与此同时，英国2025年战略国防审查报告的起草人之一、前北约秘书长乔治·罗伯逊勋爵，指责工党政府在国防资金规划上存在“极具破坏性的自满情绪”。相关的国防投资计划已多次推迟，目前仍未公布。
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