Defence Secretary Philip Hammond has warned he will resist further cuts to the armed forces in Chancellor George Osborne's forthcoming spending review.And I say to Defence Secretary Philip Hammond, "Yeah? You and whose army?"
And he would say, "The British one."
And I would back down.
The Government said that the military would not be immune from further spending cuts, because very little is. We're out of money apparently. But Phil said the "first priority" for the Government should be "defending the country".
But how likely is it that we'd be invaded? We're friends with all of our neighbours; even Iceland has stopped throwing volcanic ash our way. We're all working together now to fight any battles that come up.
Even the right-wing point of view says that if someone wants to invade the UK they don't fight with our army, they just join the EU.
Mr Hammond said there's a "body of opinion within Cabinet who believes that we have to look at the welfare budget again".
Oh, so he thinks we should continue to spend all the money on the defence budget and cut the money to the people who already live in this country. That's not actually going to motivate our armed forces because it's saying, "We have the money to keep employing all you soldiers, but lose a limb and we're giving you nothing!"
So, the Tory ideal is to cut welfare and keep spending on defence, but a Whitehall source said: "There is a real concern that the Lib Dems wants to protect the benefits culture at the expense of the armed forces". The coalition has hit another impasse.
What they don't realise is that there is a way to keep the welfare and defence spending at the current levels. I can't believe they haven't worked it out yet, it's simple. All you need to do is, in the event of a war, send in the people on benefits to fight it.
I've seen Jeremy Kyle. They like fighting.
And they're not busy. OK, most of the money the Government spends on benefits goes to pensioners, but most of them have those motorbility scooters now. They'd be the 109th mechanised brigade.
People on disability living allowance? I hate to say it, but the Paralympics showed you're pretty damn good at most things, so you don't get out of it. I'm not saying you'd have to be infantry, but maybe driving the tanks. That would be great as you could park really close to the enemy.
And the other great thing about sending benefit claimants to war is that those families who earn over £60k on one person's wage will stop complaining that without their child benefit entitlement they won't get a second holiday abroad this year. Claim yourself some benefit and we'll send you abroad all right. I hear Iran is lovely at this time of year.
That's either a really good idea or I'm taking the p***. And if I am, don't blame me. Philip Hammond started it.
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