THE Prime Minister's backing for his Defence Minister's demands for two new aircraft carriers, a single battlefield helicopter force and a streamlined support structure allowing the Army to deploy in strength to two trouble spots simultaneously will have had retired generals and admirals jerking upright in their club chairs.

Can this really be a Labour Prime Minister?

During their many years in opposition, Labour constantly opposed increases on defence spending. And it was a Labour administration that sent conventional aircraft carriers to the scrapyards in the 1970s.

Tony Blair is heading off the Treasury's demand for savings of £2 billion on the grounds that he wants Britain to remain a "force for the good of the world."

He is right. The world's hot-head regimes are now better armed than ever before. Some have nuclear weapons. Others are very near that goal.

If we are to help keep world peace, we must have the kit.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.