Naval gazing
Sir: Charles Moore (The Spectator’s Notes, 14 April) has made a quite unwarranted attack on the Royal Navy. He accuses the navy of being incompetent and lacking esprit de corps, and opines that ‘something really bad is happening, and it is a problem that runs deeper than the defects of New Labour’. This is unfair, and simply adds to the woes of an already beleaguered service.
There are real problems with today’s Royal Navy, but they are all of the government’s making. In recent years the fleet has shrunk dramatically and also got a lot older — the average age of frigates and destroyers such as the Cornwall has almost doubled since Labour came to power. It is five years since the navy received a single new vessel of this type. Many of the ships the navy does still have are non-operational as the service cannot afford to maintain them properly.
The supporting industrial, maintenance and training infrastructures have similarly been run down. All this is hardly the navy’s fault. Morale is certainly fragile, and no wonder, but that is not the same as a lack of competence and esprit de corps. Until very recently, the majority of British forces in southern Afghanistan — a landlocked country — were naval (mainly Royal Marines and Fleet Air Arm).
The discrediting of the Royal Navy to which Charles Moore has contributed suits the government very well. Shame on both of them.
Jeremy Stocker
Willoughby, Warwickshire
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