BEST DEFENCE

WELL Admiral Nelson would not be impressed but the defence deal signed yesterday between Britain and France makes sense on paper but in practice it could be a disaster. Britain and France will create a rapid reaction unit for use anywhere across the globe, unfortunately Britain and France don´t often agree. Take the Iraq war, Britain joined the U.S. led invasion but France led the anti-war group.

For many years Germany and France have had a similar brigade but it is more a show of European unity than an effective military force. I believe that it was the previous administration of Gordon Brown who first talked about closer defence ties with the French. I can´t understand why Britain has opted for France rather than the U.S. Apart from sharing a common language U.S. and British forces have fought alongside each other for more than a decade and I am sure the U.S. would welcome any such agreement especially if it involved Britain´s well respected special forces. Are we seeing a change in Britain´s political outlook? Is Britain now looking to Europe rather than the U.S.? I sincerely hope that there is better military communications between Britain and France because just last year two of their nuclear submarines collided in the Atlantic.