Do they really know what they are doing?

The politicians, I mean. OK, so nationally we have a bit of a financial problem and I fully agree that this needs to be sorted sooner rather than later. It is certainly not something I think we should be leaving for future generations to deal with. But I also think we should be wary of cutting too deeply in our expenditure, in particular, our expenditure on the defence of the realm. Britain's last aircraft carrier, HMS Ark Royal, is now out of commission and the Harrier jets that flew from her are in the process of being scrapped. It has also been announced that the RAF will be faced with a reduction in manpower of (I think) in the region of 12.5%. Already some pilots in the course of training have been told they are being made redundant. This at a time when we are heavily embroiled in Afghanistan and look like being so for years to come. On top of this, our Government has pushed for, and taken a leading role in enforcing, a no-fly zone over Libya. In connection with all that, it was instructive to read a report in yesterday's newspaper that we have in this country just 69 trained pilots for its Typhoon planes that are currently the mainstay of the RAF. Those 69 include trainers but they have now been drafted to front-line positions and no further training on this aircraft can be undertaken. Of those 69 pilots, 18 are currently at a base in Italy enforcing the flying ban over Libya but the squadron is due to be rotated in a few weeks' time. Of the rest, 24 are committed to the Quick Reaction Alert protecting Britain’s air space and 12 are in the Falklands in a similar role. That leaves only 15 to replace those currently based in Italy.

When the Strategic Defence Review was completed we were assured that our armed forces - even in their slimmer state - would be sufficient to safeguard Britain's world-wide interests. Yet here we are, just months later, and already we are facing problems.

I ask myself again: do our politicians - of any party - really know what they are doing?

All of this leads me to ponder another point. It seems it is now the done thing for us (and other countries) to go by force of arms to the assistance of oppressed peoples in other countries, such as Iraq and Libya. But the people of Zimbabwe have been suffering for many years under that despot Mugabe and nobody has done anything. Am I being overly cynical when I make the point that Zimbabwe has no oil reserves?