Benedikt Franke and Ben Welch with Dr. Liam Fox: "I do not want defence policy to fall as an European competence"

WSN: Dr. Fox, given the recent Cabinet reshuffle we were hoping that you might give us your opinion on the appointment of Des Browne? How do you think his management style will differ from his predecessor and what major challenges do you think he will face over the coming months?

Dr. Liam Fox: He’s a Treasury man, and in recent times was in control of limiting budgets, including the defence budget, so we will see whether he is a sinner who repents or not. There will be a view that he has been sent there to control the MOD budget as part of Treasury control. I’m not entirely sure if that is true or not. His style will differ from his predecessor, not least because he doesn’t have any experience of either foreign or defence policy, and John Reid was much more of a ‘hands on’ manager, so we will see how that goes. In any case, foreign policy in this country is increasingly managed by Downing Street, and defence policy follows along. The problem is that the commitments that our Armed Forces are being asked to fulfil now seem to come from a totally ad hoc policy by Tony Blair, which I believe is more designed to suit the requirements of the last summit communiqué than any strategic overview for Britain’s defence and security. So we will see what happens, but he is going to have a lot on his plate with Iraq, the deployment in Afghanistan, and potential problems with arms coming in from Iran, insurgents being trained by Iranians and with weapons possibly being fired from Iranian soil. These are all big headaches. ...more