Dr Phillip Lee was pleased to back this year’s London Poppy Day by shaking a bucket at Westminster on Thursday. The Poppy Appeal stands shoulder to shoulder with our brave Armed Forces serving in Afghanistan today, veterans of past conflict, and their families.

Over a 1000 people took part this year across London, covering some 60 tube stations aiming to raise £500,000 for this year’s Poppy Appeal in a single day. The Poppy Appeal makes it possible for the Royal British Legion to help our Armed Forces families in direct welfare support.

The Royal British Legion campaigns raise funds to help and support our wounded heroes and are the custodian of Remembrance, ensuring that sacrifices on behalf of the nation are honoured. Their support is reaching 2.5million school children each year with learning resources on Remembrance – an essential cause to guard British History. Funds will go towards the recovery of our Armed Forces injured in Afghanistan and Iraq and to create the nation’s first Battle Back Centre, which will use sports and adventure training to help our injured heroes recover confidence and ability.

Dr Lee commented: “You can stand shoulder to shoulder with our Armed Forces as well; simply give generously – and wear your poppy with pride today.”

Dr Phillip Lee, MP for Bracknell, attended the Sovereign’s Parade last week to see more than 190 cadets pass out and become officers at the Sandhurst Royal Military Academy ceremony. 

The event is marked by an inspection of the troops by a member of the Royal Family, traditionally the Queen or her representative. During the ceremony, the Sword of Honour, the Overseas Sword and the Queen’s Medal are awarded to the top Officer Cadets.  The Sovereign’s Parade is a celebration of the close relationship with which our armed forces and royal family hold each other.

Dr Lee commented:

“I am proud that as a nation we have a strong armed force, which protects and represents the leadership our country needs.  The Royal Military Academy is in the South end within Bracknell constituency. I am very proud that I had the priviledge to attended the Sovereign’s Parade in Sandhurst to see the best of British passing out.”

The Royal British Legion has recently launched a campaign to support ex-service personnel. My grandfather is a long-serving member of the British Legion, having seen action in a Bomber crew in World War II. Like many, he lost family and friends in that terrible conflict and hence, I have always had personal reasons for supporting the Legion. Their present campaign, however, appears to have been launched in response to the recent increased demands placed upon British Armed Forces.

At present, Britain has significant forces in Afghanistan, Iraq and Northern Ireland, as well as smaller commitments elsewhere. David Cameron is presently in the province of Helmand in Afghanistan. He is there to rightly show the Conservative Opposition’s full backing for that on-going campaign to support the democratically-elected government in Kabul, and to wage war on al-Qeeda forces based on the Pakistani border. He is also there to highlight the importance of proper government funding for our Armed Forces.

According to a recent Commons Public Accounts Committee report, there is presently an overall shortfall of Armed Forces personnel of 5,850 (3.2 per cent of full strength). Shockingly, military recruitment drives have been cut back by pressure to downsize or reduce funding. The report cited an example of the Army cancelling some infantry training courses during 2004-05, and consequently deferring recruits, in order to stay within budget constraints. During the past decade, the Government has cut the strength of the Royal Navy and Royal Fleet Auxiliary from 142 to 110 ships. The frigate and destroyer fleet has been dramatically reduced from 35 to 25. Furthermore, the Government has withdrawn the Royal Navy’s Sea Harriers from service in early 2006, despite its replacement, the Joint Strike Fighter, not being expected in service until 2014. These are hardly the actions of a government that places proper funding of the Armed Forces as a top priority. Indeed, it hardly augurs well for the defence of the Realm.

The British Legion is right to highlight that the government has broken a covenant that I believe all Britons believe in: if British service personnel are asked to put their lives at risk they should not only expect proper equipment in the field but also proper care when they come home. It is a sad indictment of government policy that a charitable organisation has felt the need to highlight short-comings in the care of ex-servicemen and women.

The original decision by the Labour government to commit forces to support the NATO-led operation in Afghanistan was the right one. Where they have been found wanting, however, is in the proper support of our Armed Forces since then. I have written previously on the need for the British government to properly fund the army, navy and airforce, if it is to continue actively engaging them in global conflicts. When is our new Prime Minister going to authorise increased defence expenditure? It is easy to talk tough in the US about intervening in Darfur etc… It appears much harder for him to commit government funds to pay for commitment. The sooner Mr Brown’s ‘honeymooning’ is over the better off our armed personnel will be. The Nation’s covenant with the Armed Forces deserves much more respect.

Over ten years I have watched energy policy go from being a relatively quiet backwater to something taking on a strategic importance that could be as crucial to our country’s future as defence. – Tony Blair

In today’s Times, the Prime Minister argues the case for a new energy plan. It is a persuasive case. What is clear is that Britain’s future energy security has become a major issue. Indeed, I believe that energy security has become the single most important strategic challenge for the British government. Get it wrong, and we can all kiss goodbye to long-term prosperity and influence in the world.

Putting the debate on climate change to one side, for me the key question is how Britain can move towards energy independence. If one looks at a table of ownership of known oil reserves, only one country in the top ten is a stable democracy – Canada. Gas reserve ownership is little better, with only the USA featuring. Clearly, Britain needs to start now to make plans for more energy independence as The Middle East and the former Soviet Union are hardly showing signs of imminent stable democracy. In particular, Russia has recently shown an intent to use energy supply as an instrument to bully its neighbours (and the rest of the world). Britain needs to build immunity to such intimidatory tactics.

Building nuclear power station should be part of our plan for energy independence. In contrast to hydrococarbons, uranium supplies come predominantly from stable democracies that are close friends of Britain. Canada is the world’s leading uranium producer, accounting for a third of global production and 15% of global reserves. Australia is the next largest producer, with one quarter of global production and 27% of global reserves. Our relationships with both countries are strong. We once lead the way in nuclear energy technology and hence I see no reason why we cannot do so again.

It is a tough decision to commission more nuclear power stations. Hard choices are what being in government is all about. There are undeniably issues regards cost and the disposal of nuclear waste. I believe, however, that these understandable concerns are more than outweighed by the strategic benefits of ‘owning’ our own power supplies. Clearly, we must concentrate on renewable energy resources and furthermore, address the amount of energy that each Briton uses. However, to rely on those two approaches alone would still leave Britain exposed to the vagaries of global politics. I would rather have nuclear power stations than ‘go cap in hand’ to despots and autocrats.

Dealing with dictators has become more difficult in recent times. In the past, democratic governments could go to war more easily, secure in the knowledge that they had public support, safe in the knowledge that distressing imagery from ‘the front’ would not make it on to screens back home. With the advent of 24-hour news media, those images of warfare are now spread quickly around the globe, often eliciting a negative response from the viewing public.

Recently, the BBC ran a series of programmes on BBC Parliament illustrating how the media’s coverage of war has changed in just the last 25 years. During the Falklands Conflict, British journalists were embedded with our forces and technically unable to broadcast live from the Islands. Furthermore, the MOD censored the footage and reports that did make it back to Britain, often causing a significant delay in the reporting of incidents. For example, footage of the May 4th attack on HMS Sheffield was not shown until over fortnight after the Exocet was launched against it. I could not imagine that type of delay being acceptable today.

This change in the way the media handles warfare has been widely welcomed. Commentators have argued that seeing the realities of war on our screens makes us all less inclined to support the use of force. That may very well be true. My concern is, however, that whether we like it or not, the world remains an unstable place, and as the pictures above highlight, there are still countries around the globe controlled by aggressive and violent dictators. What with the spread of nuclear technology and the apparent acceptability of state-financed terrorism (e.g. Hezbollah and Iran), the democracies of the world need to be on guard to defend freedoms that we all now take for granted.

But it is not just the defence of our freedoms, and indeed, the freedom of all peoples, which will require Britain and its fellow democratic countries to resort to force throughout the next century. It is also the defence of human rights, and the prevention of crimes against humanity, that should concern us all. What if the very media that provides daily reports of the loss of civilian life in Iraq, also brought us regular footage of barbarity in the Sudan and Zimbabwe, and detailed coverage of the recent famine in North Korea? Would there be a call for military intervention to save African and Korean lives? And if not, why not?

For being inconsistent on these matters elicits derision from the developing world. Displaying such double standards does nothing for our moral standing in the world. The situations in Zimbabwe and Darfur are an international disgrace, a shame on all of our houses. We should not be weak in the face of these issues, for it only serves to provoke further transgressions against humanity. Britain and its Allies should be prepared to intervene to protect any innocent life. And if it came to it, we should also be prepared to accept the awful face of the realities of war on our TV screens, if the ends justify the means. It would be a sad irony of the 21st century if the modern media’s detailed coverage of warfare inadvertently ended up costing more lives.