If a government wishes to neglect national defence, it is wise to do so when not fighting a war. Contrary to popular myth, Margaret Thatcher imposed brutal cash constraints on Britain's armed forces. When the first Gulf war broke out in 1990, it proved necessary to cannibalise the entire armoured inventory of the Rhine army to deploy a single weak division for Kuwait's recapture.

It is foolish to idealise British defence policy-making at any period of modern history. Governments faced with the remorseless demands of health, education and welfare cut military budgets as much as they dare. Gordon Brown, prime minister, might argue that, while defence spending has fallen as a proportion of gross domestic product from 2.8 per cent in 1998 to 2.5 per cent today, this is still greater than the UK peacetime average over the past 150 years.