19 Oct 2010

Harrier pilot challenges PM on job losses hours before defence review

Just the sort of thing you don’t want to happen on a photo op before your defence review.

One Harrier jet pilot, Royal Navy Lieutenant Commander Kris Ward, 37, said to the Prime Minister as he visited Permanent Joint HQ in Northwood: “I am a Harrier pilot and I have flown 140 odd missions in Afghanistan, and I am now potentially facing unemployment. How am I supposed to feel about that, please, sir?”

Mr Cameron thanked Lt Cdr Ward for “everything” he had done for his country.
“We do have to make decisions for the future and there have been long discussions about this in the National Security Council,” he said

Chatting to Tory MPs about the Defence Review on its way to us later today and there is real anger around. “A joke,” one said. “Imagine what we’d say if Gordon Brown announced this,” barked another.

A betrayal of what we’d been promised as the spirit of words I heard on Trident, which will be extended way beyond what we had been told was plausible only a few years ago. The savings I’m assured are netted and include the extra costs of maintaining old subs and keeping them at sea.

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