Grant Shapps’ great Navy con

Party political stuff is not supposed to use the nation’s armed forces as a backdrop, because they are representatives of the state and not the Tory Party. But that was forgotten, since Shapps’ pronouncements were part of the prime minister’s umpteenth relaunch – this one based on the idea that “the choice at the next election is: who do you trust to keep you safe?” 

What was actually being announced was that the Conservatives had found the money to build some ships which they had already said they would build. Which is nice, but I am pretty sure they already knew they would have to find the money. 

Yet Shapps got acres of print and hours of broadcast coverage for announcing a “bonanza of shipbuilding” and “up to 28 new ships” for the Royal Navy. 

This seemed like remarkably good news for the beleaguered RN, which has rapidly become the most underfunded branch of our armed forces, with mothballed ships, under-armed ships, crew shortages and inadequate equipment,

Twenty-eight new ships would be a massive increase in its size, reach and power. Any sensible journalist might even ask, given the shortage of matelots to man the Navy’s current ships, how it is ever going to find the men and women to crew these new vessels?

Well there is no need for even the most naive and inexperienced hack to ask that question, all they have to do, like I did, is to search the internet and find within five seconds the Wikipedia page showing all the new vessels already under construction.

It seems that Wikipedia has already added up all the new vessels that are being built, have been ordered or whose order is awaiting final approval but whose acquisition has already been announced.

So was Shapps announcing another 28 on top of that? He was not. It was all a PR con – like those “40 new hospitals” Boris Johnson loved to lie about.

The Navy was already getting six new submarines, eight Type 26 Frigates, five Type 31 frigates, three new mine countermeasure ships and seven ships for the RFA.

But even the supposedly “28 new ships” figure doesn’t mean the fleet is getting bigger. Hidden in the announcement was the news that two older frigates are being scrapped. 

HMS Argyll and HMS London were supposed to be undergoing extensive refits and returning to service for years more hard work. Except now they aren’t. They are being scrapped immediately, leaving a gaping hole in our defences. They were supposed to serve until well after the new frigates which are being built or have been ordered start going to sea. 

Now they have gone, the Fleet will be smaller than planned for years to come. Like the 40 new hospitals promised for the NHS, the Royal Navy has become a political football that Tory ministers can lie about at will. 

In his speech to the Sea Power conference yesterday, which was the reason for these announcements, Shapps said “28 new ships and subs for our Navy really does cement this as the new Golden Age of British shipbuilding. Turning the tide on a shrinking fleet.”

It does not seem to be the whole truth and for that the defence secretary got a whole day of media coverage. 

And all he had to really boast about was allegedly finding the money to build the ships that the government was already committed to, which it had already told us were on order and which it never told us were impossible to build because it was in fact, broke.

Shapps’s PR team must be so proud, the RN less so.

I expect next week it will be the turn of the Army or the RAF. All those previously announced tanks, planes and helicopters will be re-announced.

We are being played for fools by a deeply cynical and shameless government which is using our politically neutral and massively under-funded armed forces to try to win re-election.

Shameless Shapps will be back on your TV again soon.